Once a team is out of contention, its incentives invert: draft position beats winning, and stars start sitting for vague reasons. Coaches telegraph this in press conferences days before the market believes it. You track elimination status, draft-lottery positioning and coach language, then fade teams whose motivation has quietly evaporated — and equally, back teams still fighting for seeding against opponents who have already checked out.
Markets on Polymarket where tanking & rest-incentive detection is the natural play:
