The Philadelphia 76ers (21-35) are nowhere near contending for an NBA championship right now—or a playoff berth for that matter—but they covered the spread more than any team in the league heading into the All-Star break according to OddsShark.com.
The 76ers have a young roster that looks promising for the future, and they exceeded the expectations of oddsmakers much more often than not with a 34-21-1 ATS mark in the first half of the season.
Philadelphia is 5.5 games out of the eighth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference, sitting in fourth place out of five teams in the Atlantic Division but already doubling last season’s dismal win total when the squad finished 10-72 SU.
In the Western Conference, the Houston Rockets (40-18) have the most covers at 33-25 ATS, as first-year head coach Mike D’Antoni has them pointed in the right direction again following a disappointing campaign a year ago.
D’Antoni’s move to put James Harden at point guard has enabled the Rockets to take off offensively, with them averaging the second-most points in the NBA (114.4 per game) behind only the Golden State Warriors (118.2).
Speaking of the Warriors (47-9), their scoring is also up from last season thanks to the addition of Kevin Durant, but they are just 28-26-2 ATS this year.
In fact, owning one of the best records SU has not translated well ATS for the defending NBA champion Cleveland Cavaliers (39-16) either, as they are 26-27-2 ATS. Cleveland has particularly struggled on the road in failing to cover 15 of 26.
Golden State is also under .500 ATS away from home at 13-15-1. The league’s best road teams ATS so far have been the Boston Celtics (37-20) and Houston at 19-9-1 and 19-11, respectively.
The two most disappointing teams in the NBA going into the second half from a betting perspective have been the Milwaukee Bucks (25-30) in the East and the Portland Trail Blazers (23-33) in the West. Both have covered the spread just 22 times this season.
