The Year of the Rat-line

Year of the Rat-line: You are optimistic, gullible, and prone to make poor decisions with money. You’re most compatible with the Diamondbacks and the Cardinals; avoid the Lakers and the Spurs.

38.5? Seems low. A little too low. The brains at FanDuel must have blown a gasket when it comes to the Phoenix Suns’ win projection. Or maybe they tried to replace their brains with AI, and it hallucinated a team that didn’t just move Grayson Allen and Royce O’Neale (and a first-round pick) for Miles Bridges and Luke Kennard. Maybe they didn’t see Khaman go a cold 40% from three-point range in the Summer League. Maybe they missed the Brightside press releases during free agency, when Gregory sealed his key free agents like envelopes. First Collin, then Goodie, then Mark.

Suns fans are going to start this season screaming 50 wins. I’ll be right there with them. How do the Suns not hit this over? Maybe people aren’t paying close enough attention to what the Suns are doing?

Or maybe Suns fans are so deep into the nuances of the team they aren’t seeing the full picture? Maybe the FanDuel algorithm doesn’t factor in the value of the Gillespie, Goodwin, and Williams contracts? I’m guessing it power ranks teams then estimates the win total off of where the teams fall in their conference.

And where does FanDuel think the Suns fall in projected standings in the West?

9th. Not many 50-win teams come in 9th. There’s quite a disconnect between fan expectations and odds maker projections. You’d expect some. Not an 11-win difference. Someone is right, someone is wrong. Fans and Suns content creators are sure it’s the oddsmakers that will be on the wrong side of history.

When the first line hit Twitter, with @bet365_us coming in at 41.5 wins, the knee-jerk reaction in the Suns sphere was disbelief, and to some (me included) the line seemed a little disrespectful to what we’ve all been watching these Suns build since the KD trade. It was just last year that basically this same Suns team smashed the 30.5 line that Vegas set.

Flex in Jersey had this to say.

And then when the 38.5 FanDuel line hit, he followed up with this.

The PHNX Suns Podcast posted a video with the byline: Got Worse? Phoenix Suns disrespected by absurd win total projection.

But don’t transfer your mortgage money into your FanDuel account just yet. Enter the Rat-line. Some might also refer to it as a trap line. When you can’t think of a single reason anyone would bet on the other side of a line, that’s a reason in itself to reconsider your assumptions.

Let me give you a couple of examples from my personal fandom.

In 2017, the Nebraska Cornhuskers were hosting the Northwestern Wildcats. The Nerds from Northwestern came into Lincoln as 1.5-point dogs. On the road against a Husker team that on paper would have had a clear talent advantage. The Husker fans reacted to the line like the Suns fans are reacting to the FanDuel line. Northwestern beat the Huskers in OT.

The very next year the Huskers, with a shiny new coach, hosted 1-3 Purdue, which came into Lincoln as a 3-point dog. Husker fans couldn’t believe Vegas could make so much money yet be so stupid. The Purdon’t QB David Blough went buckwild, and the Huskers lost 42-28.

The chatter going into these games was the same as the chatter on Twitter about the Suns’ line.

“But Tom, this is different because Vegas was way off on the Suns’ win projection last year. It’s just more of the same this year.”

It’s true the Suns greatly exceeded their projections last year, and I would bet the oddsmakers are factoring that in, but maybe in the opposite way as Suns fans. Suns fans think we upgraded a 45-win team this offseason. I think the oddsmakers think we upgraded a 30-win team that won 45 games. Considering last year’s projected win total, the people at FanDuel think the team got better, 8 games better.

This isn’t financial advice. I’m a horrible gambler, and I almost never win. But I’ve lost enough to speak confidently about the dangers of these types of WTF lines. Yes, an operation like Fanduel has been tracking all the positive steps the Suns have made this offseason, but they are also considering the positive moves other teams have made. If you think the Suns belong further up the list, who do you move down?

Last year the Suns would have needed 50 wins to make the top six in the West. The Timberwolves ended up in the sixth spot with 49 wins.

The Thunder have moved pieces, including Lu Dort. The Spurs have a real conundrum with Fox standing in the way of a surging Harper and no real answers off the bench when Wemby goes down. Neither of these teams, outside of major injury issues, is falling below the Suns.

The Lakers and the Wolves made significant changes to their rosters but not any that would signal stepping back in the standings. Both of them seem to be thinking win now.

Houston has grabbed the Suns’ cape of continuity and is running with it. They won 52 games in a disappointing season last year. Should Suns fans expect them to take a step back? I wouldn’t.

If the Suns are going to move up into the top six of the conference, they are going to play like they upgraded a 45-win team. Even then, the fan bar of a top six finish might be a tough ask in the West. Even if the top teams take a step back, teams like the Trailblazers, who beat the Suns in the first Play-In game and added Ja, Golden State, who had worse injury luck than the Suns last year, and the Jazz, fresh off a successful tank, will all be improved and looking to push the Suns further down in the standings.

The Suns have some real questions about how the pieces fit. The effort is there, but that only takes you so far in a hotly contested Western Conference, and this year the element of surprise will be gone. Teams will know what to expect when they play the Suns this year.

Do I think the Suns can push for a top six seed this year? I do. I was pretty confident they would.

Until I saw that FanDuel line. Now I’m not so sure. I know a rat-line when I see one.

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