I have been posting in the NBA props thread for most of the season and probably the most common question I get is “what sites do I use for research?”. I thought I would make a post about it so I can just refer people to this in the future and also to maybe help some people out so they can make better researched bets (and hopefully increase the win rate).
All the sites I use are free (or at least the portions of the site I use are free). Here’s the list (just search them up on google or whatever search engine you use and they will come up):
Statmuse (for last x amount of games, stats vs team, stats w/o player etc…)
Statmuse is by far one of the most useful sites to use for betting and it can be used for NBA, NFL, and MLB. This is the site I use for finding out a players game log or stats with or without a certain player. For example if I wanted to know Jalen Brunson’s stats w/o Luka Doncic this season I could search “Jalen Brunson stats without Luka Doncic 21-22” on statmuse and it would come up with his stats and gamelog in the games he played without Luka. This is very useful as it saves you having t go through a bunch of gamelogs. Note that it is limited to just one player though. So you can’t actually search something like “Brunson stats w/o Luka and Dinwiddie” as that includes 2 players to compare with.
Basically on Statmuse you just search any stat you want in the searchbar and it comes up if they have it. If you want to know KD’s stats in his last 5 games vs Boston, just search “Kevin Durant stats in last 5 games vs Boston”. It is quite simple to use once you get the hang of it.
2. NBA Advanced Stats (for advanced data)
This is what I use to get data on things like drives per game, usage rate, rebound chances, potential assists etc…. Obviously if you are betting on a players assists it is useful to check his potential assists to make sure his assists are sustainable in the future. If a player had 5 assists on just 6 potential assists then it is highly unlikely he replicates 5 assists on 6 potential assists again (his teammates would need to shoot 83%), but if someone had 5 assists on 15 potential assists then they may have more assists the next game. This is a very basic analysis and it really depends on the context, but it is still useful. For example a player like Trae Young can probably convert more of his potential assists into actual assists as he throws a lot of lobs to bigs for high percentage shots. So you need to also account for other variables such as the type of pass they make and how good their teammates are (Haliburton was a potential assists king this year but sometimes his teammates would just brick everything).
NBA advanced stats allows you to customize your output by choosing the amount of games it covers which is also great. Afterall, the last 5-10 games are more relevant to researching a bet than games at the start of the season when the circumstances and lineups may have been much different.
3. FantasyPros (for defence vs position)
This is what I use to find out defence vs position stats. So you can find out how many points a certain team gives up to a particular position and see if it is a tough matchup or hard matchup. You can also sort this by the last 7 games, 15 games, 30 games, season stats etc… Be careful not to blindly bet players who have a very good matchup though. This should just be a complementary part of the analysis and often the lines actually already reflect the easier matchup. For example, the Hornets were well known for giving up a lot of points and boards to opposing bigs and so every time a big man played the Hornets their usual points and rebound totals would be inflated by 1-3 points/boards. But the books are often slow to react. If a team has been bad vs a position over the last 7 games then this usually won’t be reflected in the line as much as if a team has been bad vs that position the entire season. This is where the value can lie.
4. ESPN
I like using ESPN for looking at a players gamelogs. All of their career game logs will be on there and you can easily switch between different seasons. They also have very good splits. Post ASB splits, stats with a certain amount of rest etc…..
5. NBA Official Injury Report and Underdog Fantasy (on twitter)
This is what I use for injury news. NBA official injury report is basically the entire injury report for every team all posted on one document. It gets update every hour and it is very useful. Because it is only update every hour though it is less useful for players who are game time decisions and that is what I use underdog fantasy’s twitter page for (they will be the quickest to break significant injury news although they do not detail the entire injury report).
6. Dimers (for Projections)
Dimers have free stat projections for each game. They are not always the most accurate but sometimes it can give you some inspiration. Again I would not use this as a main part of the analysis but it is helpful as a complementary part of the analysis.
7. Other sites I occasionally use
Hashtag Basketball
Basketball Monster
Shot Quality
Action Network
Hopefully this helps. If you have any other good sites leave them below in the comments.
Image Credit: lineups.com