An Analysis of Steven Cheah's Trust the Data
Analyzing Performance, Trends, and Key Insights from Steven Cheah's Trust The Data Bets from the 24-25 NBA Season
As a proud member of the Cheah Hive, I am no stranger to the ups and downs of this season's Trust the Data bets. And as a proud data nerd, I knew I had to do a deep dive into what is really going down.
With that in mind, I manually went through all the Trust the Data tweets since the start of the season and logged every bet. (I wanted to pull the data via X's API, but the free version only retrieves about 100 tweets a month. Thanks, Elon.)
Overall Performance
Total Units: -6.15u
Record: 54-73 (42.52%)
ROI: -3.47%
Player Betting Trends
We all know Steven's favorite player to bet on: Karl-Anthony Towns. He has bet on him 12 times—more than double the next closest players, Donovan Mitchell and Kevin Durant, who were each bet on five times. Next is Rudy Gobert at four bets, followed by several others at three bets.
Here’s how the top eight most frequently bet players performed in terms of units won:
Steven's top three favorite players to bet on performed well, each bringing in over six units won. On the other hand, avoid Giannis at all costs—Steven is 0-3 when betting on the Greek Freak, down 3.85 units.
Prop Type Insights
Steven has bet a wide variety of props this season. Here are the prop type distributions and the results from the top 8 most frequently bet props.
Rebounds was the most bet prop and resulted in the biggest losses.
Rebounds + Assists was the second-most bet prop and had the biggest wins.
Ladder vs. Parlay vs. Single Bets
Hand up—I was skeptical when Steven first started betting ladder bets. But after seeing the data? I'm all in. Every bet should be a ladder bet.
Also, no more parlays. Some of the parlays this season were no-sweat bets (shoutout DraftKings), but aside from those and Steven's NFL parlays, I'm officially out on parlays.
While single bets made up the majority of the volume, ladder bets were the real stars, bringing in over 7.5 units won.
Cumulative Performance Over Time
Now, let's visualize the full betting season of Trust the Data.
Big Cat Saves the Data
After a rough first three weeks of the season, Steven found himself down over 11 units. Only one man was brave enough to step in and save the data: Big Cat.
His strategy was simple: "Who is the best player playing tonight? Bet his over on combined Points, Rebounds, and Assists." This strategy, which took him roughly 10 seconds of work each day, proved to be a winner. Big Cat won three straight days before finishing 3-1 (+2.8u) and handing the reins back to Steven Cheah.
The KAT Attack
This stretch of Trust the Data was essentially: Bet Karl-Anthony Towns' Rebounds + Assists and profit. During this period, Steven bet on KAT eight times—seven on Rebounds + Assists and one on Rebounds alone. The result? A perfect 8-0 record, winning 10.37 units on KAT alone. It was an incredible run and was desperately needed.
Assists Ladders
This 11-day stretch produced some of the biggest winning days of the season, all thanks to assists ladders.
Four assists ladders were placed, and all four hit. The winners?
Kevin Durant: +4.55 units
D’Angelo Russell: +3.67 units
D’Angelo Russell (again): +5 units
Karl-Anthony Towns: +5.08 units
Absolute domination.
We Don't Talk About This
…
This analysis is as of March 1, 2025. As of writing this blog, Steven has decided to take a bit of a break. In the meantime, it’s March. It’s time to bet college basketball.
Big Cat is 8-0 and may never lose again!