Basketball / Nick Shiambouros / 18 November 2008 / Leave a comment

Nick Shiambouros enlists the help of the Orlando Magic to settle some old punting scores and bring in some pre-Christmas value.

When the Orlando Magic lost to the Houston Rockets in the 1994-5 NBA finals my ante-post bet at 25/1 on the Magic also went up in smoke. It took me a while to get over that loss but mercifully those days are a thing of the past.

With the advent of Betfair my ante-post wagering on the NBA has taken a different complexion because of my ability to trade out of my position at any given time and hopefully I can get back the money that I lost 13 years ago.

The Orlando Magic are currently trading at [38.0] on the exchange to win the NBA championship and I have backed them at this price. The Magic have a record of 7-3 for the season and are currently third in the Eastern Conference standings. This conference is by far the weaker of the two and, at the bottom of the table, Washington and Charlotte will need a miracle to make the playoffs.

This Magic have a very solid overall profile and players like Dwight Howard and Hedo Turkoglu match up very well against most of the players in the east. Rashard Lewis and Mickael Pietrus from France shoot the ball well and coach Stan Van Gundy is very capable.

I think the Magic will finish no worse than fourth seed in the Eastern Conference and if that happens then they will probably be trading at around [20.0] for the championship which will give us a healthy trading profit.

Last year the Magic played the Detroit Pistons very hard in the second round of the play-offs and lost two games by five points or less. The significance of that effort is that this was the first time in twelve years that Orlando had made it to the second round of the playoffs and they now have the belief that they can progress even further this year.

The Orlando Magic are an unfashionable franchise so there is plenty of value to be had when they play teams like Boston and I will be taking the points and the Magic when they meet on December 1st.

The Magic have an easy schedule before they meet the Celtics and will want to win plenty of games before they begin a lengthy road trip to the West coast on December 3rd. Over the next eight games I will be taking the Magic and the handicap + or - points and the outright market.
I used this strategy last season when Houston went on a long winning streak and Orlando have a similar profile with regards to the ease of the schedule and current form.

Basketball is very much a game which can see a team go on long winning and losing streaks and the art is to know when to jump on or off the carousel.

Orlando Magic schedule up to December 1: Toronto, @Indiana, Houston, Milwaukee, @Philadelphia, @Washington, Indiana, @Boston.