NBA Opening Week Betting: Underdogs, Overs and Covers in Week One
The market picks winners fine in week one. Where it slips is the margin: favourites fall short of the number, and underdogs are the only side that showed a profit.
Written by Darnell PierceNBA Picks & Parlays specialist
- Sport
- Basketball
- Question
- In the first seven days of an NBA season, do favourites, overs and home teams perform differently from the rest of the year, before form settles the lines?
- Sample
- NBA regular season 2002-03 to 2025-26 (results), 2017-18 to 2025-26 (spreads and totals)
- opening-week favourite cover rate46.3%
- opening-week over rate51.4%
- favourites' cover rate in game 147.7%
- opening-week games checked1,178
Every October I hear the same thing: nobody knows anything yet, so the lines must be soft. I wanted to test that properly. Across 1,178 opening-week games, I checked whether favourites, home teams and overs behave differently in the first seven days than they do once form settles. It's the calendar question I keep in the back of my mind when I build my basketball picks for today page in the first week of a season.
The headline answer: the market gets the winners right and the margins wrong. Opening-week favourites won almost exactly as often as their spreads implied, but they covered only 46.3%, and flat-staking every underdog returned +2.4% when the same approach lost money later in the season. Totals tell a smaller story, with the over landing 51.4%.
Window 1Favourites win on schedule but miss the spread
Start with the full table, because it separates two things people mix up. In opening week favourites won 66.1% against a spread-implied 66.0%. That's the market reading who wins almost perfectly. From week 5 on it's the same picture: 68.3% against 68.2%. Home teams barely move either, at 58.9% in week one and 58.3% later.
The column that does move is cover rate. Favourites covered 46.3% in opening week, 48.6% in weeks 2-4 and 50.2% from week 5 on. Same win rates, different margins. Favourites are getting the result but not by as much as the number asks.
| Window | Games | Home won | Fav won | Spread-implied | Fav covered | Over rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Opening week | 1,178 | 58.9% | 66.1% | 66.0% | 46.3% | 51.4% |
| Weeks 2-4 | 3,709 | 59.0% | 65.6% | 66.5% | 48.6% | 48.6% |
| Rest of season | 23,870 | 58.3% | 68.3% | 68.2% | 50.2% | 50.7% |
My read is pace and rotation noise. Coaches are still sorting minutes, starters often sit late in games that are decided, and a favourite that wins by six when laying eight is common in a week when nobody is pushing for margin.
Window 2The cover drag fades as games played climb
Here I sort favourites by their own game count rather than the calendar. Game 1 favourites covered 47.7% of 128 decided bets, game 2 covered 47.9% of 144, and game 3 dropped to 44.5% of 128. Games 4-5 were weaker still at 43.2% across 266 bets.
Then the curve climbs: 48.6% for games 6-10, 48.9% for games 11-20, and 50.5% across 7,770 bets once a favourite is 21 or more games in. The early stretch isn't one bad night. It's a run of a few games before the number starts fitting the team.
Decided bets per row: 128, 144, 128, 266, 648, 1,329, 7,770.
View the data: favourite cover rate by the favourite's game number
| Pushes excluded, 2017-18 to 2025-26 | |
|---|---|
| Game 1 | 47.7% |
| Game 2 | 47.9% |
| Game 3 | 44.5% |
| Games 4-5 | 43.2% |
| Games 6-10 | 48.6% |
| Games 11-20 | 48.9% |
| Games 21+ | 50.5% |
The honest caveat sits right here. Opening week only gives about 40-50 games a season, so every early-window rate carries a range of roughly three to four points either way. The direction holds across rows, but no single bar should be treated as precise.
Window 3Week-one totals land close to the posted number
Totals are tighter. Across 447 opening-week games the posted total averaged 223.2 and games produced 224.1 points, which is why the over landed 51.4%. Weeks 2-4 flip it slightly: totals posted at 222.6, games produced 222.1, and the over hit 48.6% across 1,376 games.
For the rest of the season, across 8,811 games, scoring also ran a touch above the posted number. So the opening-week gap is in line with the rest of the season, not something special. Early pace is slightly quicker than the number expects, then weeks 2-4 run a touch under.
View the data: posted total vs points scored
| Posted total | Points scored | |
|---|---|---|
| Opening week (447 games) | 223.2 pts | 224.1 pts |
| Weeks 2-4 (1,376 games) | 222.6 pts | 222.1 pts |
| Rest of season (8,811 games) | 224.2 pts | 224.9 pts |
I don't build anything big on that. A fraction of a point either side of the posted total isn't enough to clear the juice on its own.
Window 4Underdogs were the only profitable flat bet
This is where the cover numbers turn into money. Backing every opening-week underdog at −110 returned +2.4%. In weeks 2-4 the same bet slipped into a small loss, and from week 5 on it returned −4.9%. The edge disappears as the season goes on.
Overs never got into profit. Opening-week overs returned −1.9%, weeks 2-4 overs were the worst bet on the chart, and overs from week 5 on returned −3.2%. Remember the break-even at −110 is 52.4% of decided bets, and an over rate of 51.4% falls short of that.
View the data: flat −110 returns by window
| Underdogs | Overs | |
|---|---|---|
| Opening week | +2.4% | −1.9% |
| Weeks 2-4 | −1.8% | −7.1% |
| Rest of season | −4.9% | −3.2% |
Prices aren't recorded in this file, so these returns assume −110 everywhere. Real prices move around that, and shopping for a better number matters more than usual when the margin is this thin.
Best window
- Lean underdog in week one
Opening-week favourites covered 46.3% and flat underdogs returned +2.4%, the only positive figure on the returns chart. Treat the dog side as the starting point, not the automatic bet.
- Don't chase early overs
The over landed 51.4% in opening week, still below the 52.4% needed at −110, and overs in weeks 2-4 were the worst flat bet on the chart. Price each total on its own merits.
- Watch games three to five
Favourites covered 44.5% in game 3 and 43.2% in games 4-5 before recovering to 50.5% from game 21 on. Be most sceptical of big spreads in that stretch, and keep them out of parlays.
Questions bettors ask
Do NBA favourites cover the spread in the first week of the season?
Less often than usual. Opening-week favourites covered 46.3% of decided bets, against 48.6% in weeks 2-4 and 50.2% from week 5 on, even though they won about as often as their spreads implied.
Is betting the over good in NBA opening week?
Not by itself. The over landed 51.4% in opening week, with games producing 224.1 points against a posted 223.2. That's below the 52.4% break-even at −110 and returned −1.9% flat-staked.
Are underdogs profitable early in the NBA season?
Historically, in opening week only. Backing every underdog at −110 returned +2.4% in the first seven days, turned into a small loss in weeks 2-4 and fell to −4.9% from week 5 on, and the small sample means the range is wide.
I'm Darnell Pierce, and I run the NBA picks and parlays at fixedmatches.vip — leaning on pace, matchups and efficiency over gut calls.
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