NBA Betting Picks: New Orleans Pelicans at Charlotte Bobcats

The NBA teams are all back to work after the All Star Break and the Friday betting board features a nice looking menu of games. In this writeup we’ll take a look at a contest between the rapidly improving Charlotte Bobcats and the not so rapidly improving New Orleans Pelicans. These teams have something of a star crossed past-the Pelicans were formerly the New Orleans Hornets who were formerly the Charlotte Hornets. They headed down to the ‘Big Easy’ after former owner George Shinn had an ugly and public falling out with the city of Charlotte. The Bobcats were the ‘replacement’ expansion franchise for the city after the Hornets eloped. In the most bizarre twist of fate the Charlotte team is ‘reclaiming’ the Hornets name starting next year. It’s been a number of tough seasons for the Bobcats but things are finally looking up with a talented mix of veterans and rookies that are all playing hard this season.

Tough for long time NBA observers to wrap their head around the fact that the Bobcats are now a legitimate NBA team. They’ve got a very good chance of making the playoffs this season and for the first time in memory the Bobcats were ‘buying’ rather than ‘selling’ at the trade deadline, picking up guards Gary Neal and Luke Ridnour from the Bucks. The Bobcats are 12-5-1 ATS in their last 18 games and based on the valuations of their most recent home games the market hasn’t caught up to the fact that this franchise is finally heading in the right direction. New Orleans has some nice pieces in place-not the least of which is Anthony Davis-but at this point they’re simply not as good of a team as Charlotte. Pelicans enter this contest on a 2-5-1 ATS run and have been a money loser away from the Crescent City this year with a 10-17 SU/10-15-2 ATS road record. This price suggests that these teams are evenly matched on a neutral court and I sure don’t see that-the Bobcats have played nasty team defense all year and with Al Jefferson playing as well as anyone in the league at the moment and Kemba Walker back in the lineup they’ve got offense now too.

BET CHARLOTTE BOBCATS -3′ OVER NEW ORLEANS PELICANS