🏀 Layup Lines: Rest those legs

Happy Thursday and welcome back to Layup Lines, your quick recap of what’s going on in the WNBA.

• Scheduling note: I love the WNBA and I love gambling but All-Star games are meh and betting on them veers into call the number territory, so we’re going to take a couple days off.

  • Have a stellar weekend and we’ll see you back here Tuesday for the second half of the season.

This 497 word newsletter should take about 2 minutes to read.

😴 It’s time to rest

• Four of yesterday’s five games were a real struggle to watch.

  • Every favorite won, with two of the losing teams scoring less than 60 points and the other two losing by double digits.

  • These teams are beat up, tired and not playing great basketball right now. Remember, WNBA teams played 36 games in a season as recently as 2023. We’re now up to 44 games and the calendar hasn’t expanded. So we’ll see if this is just normal pre-break fatigue or a sign of something larger.

• In the most exciting game of the day, A’ja Wilson continued her tear by scoring a season-high 37 points and grabbing 10 rebounds. She’s the best player in the world and I’m not sure there’s a close second.

⭐️ All-Star schedule

• New fans might find it crazy that the current WNBA CBA allocates just $2,575 to the winners of the 3-point contest and skills challenge, though new sponsors have now lifted that prize to $60k and $55k (or what NBA players receive).

  • In a league where the top players make $250k per season, that’s not nothing. Mystics rookie Sonia Citron could make roughly 75% of her entire season salary for winning the 3-point contest, for example.

• I really advise against betting on an All-Star game with whatever a “4 point shot” is, but if you must, I would be very surprised if Caitlin Clark can participate in the weekend with her most recent leg injury.

  • So that makes me lean toward Allisha Gray repeating as 3-point champ, Skylar Diggins in the skills competition and then Team Collier on Saturday.

🥴 Gambling question to go

• Great question, sweetie! After going 2-2 yesterday, I have now spent a lot of time nailing exactly half of 118 bets. Great stuff.

• In short, sportsbooks have every edge to take your money. Whenever I bet a spread (Indiana +10) or a point total (under 158), the book charges a fee from the payout for taking that bet, called the vigorish (or vig). So $50 bets usually win $44-$47, but losing bets are always -$50.

  • It’s only a couple bucks, but it adds up with frequent gambling.

Layup Lines is written 100% by human beings with visual assistance from AI tools. We very much appreciate you reading and will see you back here next week.

— Everett Cook, Founder & Editor