We may think of the 2016 NBA Champion Cleveland Cavaliers as the biggest underdog in recent memory. But we would be wrong.
It’s easy to forget that in the 2015-2016 season, the Cleveland Cavaliers — even against a historically great Golden State Warriors team — were historically great in their own right. In 2018, the Cavaliers are the biggest NBA Finals underdog since 2001. These are all good things. Read on to learn why.
When a team is an underdog, no one thinks twice. Sometimes one team has had more rest, has fewer injuries, or is simply a better team. When a team is a big underdog, things get a little interesting. Outside of the playoffs, big underdogs rarely win games.
ESPN even created a monthly “schedule alert” article to prove this point. But in the Championship of any sport that plays more than one game, a massively huge underdog doesn’t have as big of a disadvantage as one might think.
Betting
Now that gambling on professional sports is legal in the United States, it might make sense to talk about it a little more. Vegas makes a lot of money for a reason, and trusting the betting lines is one way to think about underdogs in sports.
Right now, depending on the source, the Cleveland Cavaliers are about a 10/1 to win the NBA Championship, meaning that they have a 10% chance of winning. If you were to bet $100, you would win $1000 and come out with $1100 if you bet on the Cavs to win before Game 1 starts.
Lines change dramatically as the series goes on, depending on a variety of factors, including injuries, storylines, recent performance, and rumors. According to OddsShark, underdog NBA teams win about 30% of the time, and big underdogs (3/1 odds or worse) win about 16% of the time.
This makes sense, as why would Vegas make lines of 10/1 if they thought that the Cavs had greater than a 10% chance of winning?
Well, the betting itself dictates the lines a bit. If bettors start placing down huge amounts of money on the Cavs, Vegas will move the lines up (meaning the Cavs could become 9/1 underdogs, for example), so that they don’t lose their shirt if an upset occurs.
Needless to say, the Cavs at 10/1 make their odds look much worse than the 2016 Cavs, which were closer to a 2/1 dog, even though the Warriors were 73-9.