Please post your questions for Bob below.

Best 3 NBA coaches? Why?

Life time graph ?

Stan Van Gundy
Scott Skiles
Gregg Popovich

I think SVG and Skiles do a better job of managing the end game than any other coaches in the league and its not even close. Popovich isn't quite as good as these two are at the end game scenarios but he does pretty much everything else very well.

These 3 coaches have one thing in common, they look to take a lot of corner 3s, and they do a great job of defending the corner 3, if you do nothing else as a coach but focus on the above - you'll be ahead of the curve.

Ha funny - I am actually a small loser playing on the internet (although near breakeven after the UB refunds).

For sportsbetting when I was still betting the NBA my ROI was around 7-8% post 2005, pre 2005 when things were pretty much a candy store it was >12%
on a large number of plays.

How much live poker do you currently play?

What are your impressions on online players that play live? What do they do well / tend to not do well?

Top 3 most overrated NBA players?

how much do books shade lines due to public idiocy....is it a myth that they are just trying to get even action on both sides, or do they often have a vested interest in getting more action on a particular side.

also, could you go into more detail on "end game" in the nba and how one prepares for it?

worst bad beat you took on a sports bet?

are totals still pretty beatable in the NBA, and do you think there is anything shady going on with officiating?

ur a GM but only care about next year, lebron or kobe?

death row last meal?

i think i'll have a bunch more questions but i'll just start here....thanks for doing this i think this could be an epic well.

I always thought Lawrence Frank was a decent coach even though the Nets were losing. My basis for this was how the Nets aligned themselves on fast breaks and how they seemed to take a lot of corner 3's.

What is your opinion of the guy?

How did you get into to professional sports betting? What is your opinion of Chris Bosh?

BTW, it's great to see a fellow Canadian kicking ass in poker and professional sportsbetting.

Have lines become sharper in recent years? I've heard that NCAA totals have become sharper in recent years due to APBR being more in the public and also KenPom's stats. Have you seen this in the NBA? I guess what I'm asking is does your edge decrease year by year and refinements and improvements have to be made to your models?

I'm assuming you place most of your wagers online. Best books for getting down large amounts? We've found that we gave up a lot of money not betting Pinny this year...both because we wanted to hit their opening lines and because they allow large amounts to be bet. Has it hurt you not having access to Pinny?

Any recommendations on how to go about getting large amounts down? Do you have a specific order you hit books at, or do you enlist the help of syndicates?

Is Kobe over-rated?
Suns chances of getting through to the NBA finals?
Best GM in the NBA?
Who's a better PF, Tim Duncan or Karl Malone?

Have you seen the Lebron movie "More Than a Game"?

He seems like a pretty loyal guy and I'd be surprised if he signed with anyone but Cleveland this offseason. What are your thoughts on where you think he'll end up?

Thoughts on George Karl as a coach? Thoughts on the Nuggets in general? The Nuggets switch every single pick and roll and do it poorly...what do you think the reason is for their average defense (especially since they have Afflalo, Nene, and KMart who are pretty good defenders). Is it Melo's weak individual defense or scheme or weak defensive rebounding?

Orlando is the favorite to win it all. True or false?

I haven't played hardly any live poker in the last year and a half, probably 15 total hours of cash games, and then maybe 5 tournaments or so.

When online players first started coming around to the live tournaments they seemed a bit out of place, of course this isn't the case with a few exceptions.

I remember playing in a 300-600 or bigger (can't remember) live PLO game in Bobby's room and an internet legend (not Durr) was basically acting out of turn every hand by either putting the chips in his hand if he was going to raise or call or holding his cards getting ready to fold.

This went on for the entire session, the first 20 mins or so I thought I was being leveled, I wasn't. There was one hand in PLO where it was 8k to call preflop (he was to my immediate left) and I was getting ready to call until I saw him grab some raising chips. It was actually quite comical, I won't mention any names and I am sure he no longer does this, but that night he was doing it habitually.

Thoughts on Phil Jackson / Larry Brown? (overrated?).

How would Jordan fare in the present day NBA vs. Kobe/Lebron 10-15 yrs ago (in their prime)?

How many PPG does coaching really account for (at the extremes, relative incompetence vs. clear adroitness)?

If TV/ticket money suddenly became irrelevant, how many games per season and games per playoff series do you think would be optimal for the perfect levels of drama/parity?

I have more questions, but I'll stop there until later, to let other ppl have their shot, pun intended .

I think very little shading goes on, the one thing books do in terms of totals is they adjust pretty aggressively to recent performance. Aside from that they tend to do a pretty good job.

As for the officiating anything is possible, nothing that stands out in my mind right now though.

LeBron and its not even close.

Last meal - my gf makes a pretty amazing buffalo steak kabob dish with saffron rice and greek yogurt, I'd go for that.

Just to be clear to everyone I haven't bet on the NBA for the last year or so (or any other sport) I have someone who is quite connected in NBA circles who is helping me pursue a job with a team, this is what I am currently pursuing and haven't bet since.

Yes Lines are tougher, APBR metricians haven't helped, in addition books get smart, they recognize what you are betting and adjust pretty quickly.

As for how to get down / where If you are currently betting I can't imagine this is something that you'd want discussed on a public forum. The key to sportsbetting like anything else in this world is just work harder / smarter than everyone else. Sorry if this is vague but half the battle in winning at sports is getting your bets down.

do you have any other funny stories like this one?

just some fun curious and donktastic questions, i appreciate the well Haralabos

1) lets say you got a job with an NBA team that you are satisfied with, and some random guy made an offer for your model....how much would you sell it for (IF you would sell it)?

2) regarding your model, is there any one particular team from any year that the model predicted at an extremely, extremely high level of accuracy?

3) the 3 most underrated players in the nba?

thanks

Yes he is overrated,

Best GM - thats a tough one, there are a group of really good GM's but its not a level playing field. A guy like Pritchard has done a good job but he also has an owner who buys draft picks from other teams.

Presti has done a good job, but he got "lucky" they got the #2 choice instead of the number 1 choice (durant vs Oden) etc etc. Its much easier to identify who the truly bad GMs are vs picking who the best GM would be.

If I was forced to pick I'd say its one of these;

Pop,
Presti
Pritchard
Warkentien

Duncan over Malone.

I like Bosh he is a solid PF and his best years are ahead of him.

I grew up around gambling, my dad pretty much raised me at the Race Track, and I always loved basketball so it was a pretty logical I'd get involved in it when I got older. I also had a very good few years betting CFL football when the league added the American teams. Some of the American teams had NFL dimension stadiums (10 yard endzones field not as wide etc) and the lines didn't properly account for this. I forget what year this was but I remember I started out betting around 100-200 a game and by the end of the year I was betting 2-3k a game. It was really a joke.

1. There is very little that would differ from our simulators use for sports betting vs actually team building. If you can't predict the outcome of games ATS, you'd be hard pressed to identify how player X would be a better fit than player Y. There is the simulator, there is the collected data and then you have the proper use and application of each. The sum is worth a lot more than the independent parts.

That being said I can't imagine I'd sell the data nor any of the simulation models.

2. The game of basketball is a pretty variance filled contest, it'd be silly to say that we predicted X team better than Y team, any years where I have done a really good job with one team vs another was likely due to randomness more than anything.

Individually when I was doing more subjective work I have always had a better grasp on a handful of teams (or rather coaches) , from 2002-2005 I pretty much bet the same 5 teams in the same spots over and over again and was very successful.

Phil Jackson is horrible in game coach, but probably one of the best at managing ego's. I'd still say he is quite overrated.

Larry Brown does a good job of making sure his team doesn't make mistakes and his teams defend really well. I am not a fan of the way he manages the end game or his substitutions, I also think he is a pretty poor judge of talent.

Its amazing how poorly structured their offensive sets are save for one thing, they value the ball and play at a controlled pace. I wouldn't call him overrated but more perplexing I guess.

Jordan, LeBron, Kobe in that order.

LeBron hasn't quite peaked yet so he has a chance to be on the same level as MJ just in a different way, but people tend to forget just how truly amazing Jordan was, I don't even think a Kobe even warrants comparison to Jordan.
Oh also RBK asked about what the end game was - Its basically when to foul, how do you control the pace when leading or trailing etc.

thoughts on reggie miller. just curious. im sure you dont care to post your thoughts on every individual player, but a part of me died when he retired. thanks for the well!

that jaguar story was teh lol. thx for this well, it's really great.