Official Protest

Butters sent this protest after I posted the results from this Sunday's NBA games.

I specifically went to vegasinsiders to pick my score over their spread at 5.5 for the Cavs game because you had not posted at game time. I no longer feel it's fair to post the spread after the predictions have to be in if there is not going to be a standard. I honestly would have put in a different score if your spread had been posted differently. I acknowledge that the spread can change but like a bet in Vegas, if I bet at a certain spread, then I win or lose based on that number. This has happened several times now and its pretty frustrating to try to make picks based on spreads very near game time only to have them be different by the time you post them. Not sure what the solution is other than to post what we are getting for a spread if there is no spread posted on the board when we put our scores in. Grrrrrrrr.....

I particularly like the Grrrrrrr at the the end.

I completely understand the frustration. The problem with vegasinsiders is that they only post the spreads for that day. If you have seen the site the first entry is the opening line in Vegas (probably posted there a few days ahead), but after that they show the current (and in the case of this Sunday the final) lines at particular sportsbooks in Vegas. The line opened at 5.5 and moved to 8.5 at most casinos. I can change back to the opening line. When I have an opportunity to post a spread before tip-off, I try to go with the most recent (and most prevalent) line. My suggestion is that I rescore that particular game with a spread of 5.5 if it helps people and keep it at 8.5 for those that it would hurt. From now on, I will go with the opening line when I use vegasinsiders.

I posted this so that everybody who has feelings either way can comment. If you choose to leave a comment on this post, I will make sure that it gets posted and maybe we can come up with a better system. The good news is that we won't be picking against spreads anymore until football and those lines go up 4 or 5 days in advance.

Kubatski

Comments Received:

From Natalie (a.k.a. Princess G) - I don't care. At this point, Nicklas is making my picks for me. I'm sure he'll do better then I've been doing.

From Marty - I personally based my prediction on the line of 5.5. I don't see a problem using the vegasinsider.com, but at what point are we locking the spreads in. I understand the line changes daily. If we continue to use this website can we lock in a certain day where that day's spread will be used? Not that it matters anymore, because like you said we won't be using spreads for awhile, but for future ideas, maybe not post the game a week in advance. I know you are busy and the prediction league should not run your life or any of ours but maybe on Thursday p.m. lock in the game and spreads. Just a thought. On a side note, I was hoping the rule of thumb was not my favorite team in the playoffs, just the playoffs. It gives me an excuse when Linds tells me to shave.

From McClain - I have been frustrated by this, too. I have to make my predictions several days early on many games due to my work schedule this time of year. So several times I have predicted the winner to cover on the spread I saw only to have that number change and I end up with 1 point instead of 3. I can think of several ways to do this, but each one has flaws. I hate the NBA anyway, so this just helps to solidify my feelings. :)
GO CUBS!! GO BLUES!!

From Butters - First!....well second if you count my original protest. (Nice try Ron)

From Carmen - If Butters would just man up and really try to predict a score; instead of hedging his bets by picking a score just on one side or the other of the spread this wouldn't have been such a big problem. Anybody can pick over or under the spread, but can you predict an actual outcome? It can be frustrating, but I just thought it was all part of this type of thing. Basically, I don't have any solutions, I just wanted to call Butters out for whining...