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Former UCLA stars ready to shineBasketball Betting Lines09/07/2010 - Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Labor Day has passed, the kids are back in school and the leaves will soon begin to fall here in the northeast. That means the calendar has flipped to September and most of America is gearing up for football and postseason baseball. Here on the basketball beat, we are still seven weeks away from the NBA season and still firmly focused on the FIBA World Championships in Turkey. Personnel moves have slowed to a trickle and while there are a few key contributors left on the open market, most of the NBA's general managers have built the foundation for their respective teams and mapped out a strategy for the 2010-11 season. Typically, contenders try to tweak a few things here and there, while the pretenders cry "salary cap constraints," and make plans to take a few steps backwards in hopes of landing the No. 1 pick in the upcoming draft, a prize that figures to be either North Carolina's Harrison Smith or Baylor's Perry Jones next summer. This year, however, things have been a bit different. With their eyes on the prize and the NBA champion Los Angeles Lakers, Pat Riley and the Miami Heat completely revamped their club, pulling off one of the biggest coup's in NBA history by luring LeBron James and Chris Bosh to South Beach to play alongside Dwayne Wade. Meanwhile, the two-time defending champs went the more traditional route, convincing Phil Jackson to stay on as head coach and tweaking a veteran-laden roster by adding defensive-minded role players like Matt Barnes and Theo Ratliff. Players like James, Bosh, Wade and Kobe Bryant are constants, however. You know they are going to be good -- real good. By and large, you even know what veteran complementary pieces like Barnes and Ratliff are going to offer. The fun stuff starts with young players poised for vast improvement. In fact, every year a group of players really elevates their games. Some are surprises and some are expected to reach that next level. Here's one man's view of the five players that are ready to take the next step in 2010-11: 1. - Kevin Love - power forward - Minnesota Timberwolves - I've always "Love'd" Kevin's game dating back to his days at UCLA. With Al Jefferson being shipped out to Salt Lake City, Love will get every opportunity to be the focal point of Kurt Rambis' interior group. Love hasn't garnered a ton of minutes for Team USA over in Istanbul but he makes the most out of every single second Mike Krzyzewski gives him and has outplayed the team's other big men -- Lamar Odom and Tyson Chandler. Love has a top-tier basketball IQ, is a plus rebounder and plays defense with the kind of effort coaches crave. Offensively, he's deadly with the medium-range stuff and can stretch out to 20-feet or so. Health is the only concern when talking about Love. He missed the first 18 games last season with a broken hand. 2. - Jrue Holiday - point guard - Philadelphia 76ers - The book on Holiday before the 2009 draft was the cliched "raw with the huge upside." Normally, I shrug off talk like that since it's become commonplace among NBA personnel people. But one longtime scout who I respect assured me Holiday would be the best point guard from that '09 draft in five years, a bold statement considering Tyreke Evans, Ricky Rubio, Jonny Flynn, Stephen Curry, Brandon Jennings, Ty Lawson and Darren Collison also went in Holiday's class. When the Sixers turned the keys over to Holiday last season, you could see exactly what all the fuss was about. A true quarterback that thinks pass first, Holiday is already one of the top 10 defensive point guards in the league. Experience should turn the former UCLA guard into an All-NBA defender and a more consistent jumper could turn him into an All-Star. 3. - Blake Griffin - power forward - Los Angeles Clippers - Griffin, of course, missed his entire rookie season after suffering a stress fracture in his left knee. You always have to be concerned with leg injuries when you are talking about bigs and the 6-foot-10, 250-pound Griffin plays with the sort of recklessness that will put enormous stress on his body. That said, a stress fracture isn't going to affect Griffin's rare work ethic and outstanding athleticism. He lacks polish on the low post and isn't the can't-miss franchise guy like a James or Dwight Howard, but Griffin should team with Chris Kaman and rookie Al-Farouq Aminu to give new Clips coach Vinny Del Negro an imposing frontcourt. 4. - Rodrigue Beaubois - swing guard - Dallas Mavericks - The Mavs need to get younger and Beaubois flashed some serious athletic skills during limited playing time in his rookie season. Jason Kidd and Jason Terry aren't exactly ready to step aside but Beaubois offers a change of pace that could be a shock to the system of the opposition if he plays with consistent effort. 5. - Darren Collison - point guard - Indiana Pacers - Collison, another former UCLA star, was really good while filling in for the injured Chris Paul during his rookie year in the Big Easy. However, with Paul entrenched for now in New Orleans, the Hornets dealt Collison to Indiana where the second-year player now has an opportunity to grow with one of the game's best young scorers, Danny Granger. Collison probably doesn't have the size or strength to hold-up on the defensive end on a consistent basis but he's already proven he has the ability to run a team and get his own shot.
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FOOTBALL TRASH TALKNFL Football Trash TalkTrash talk has a place in every competitive endeavor (except baseball; those stirrup-wearers are too busy chewing on their sunflower seeds and their supplements to worry about what their opponents are doing). Fantasy sports is no exception. Any intelligent discussion of the subject would probably start with a thesis statement or a definition of terms. Thankfully, this wont be an intelligent discussion. Let me just say that I am happy to take a place in this space alongside my talented colleagues, even our commissioner. (You should see how she bleats like a demented paper boy about league fees on our fantasy site). Trash talking, I would argue, is primarily about amusing your friends, their sheeplike demeanors and sloping foreheads notwithstanding. The best place I have found for football trash talking is at www.SportsAlarm.com. Beyond the entertainment factor, though, I would recognize that the sophomoric ritual has one advantage, when properly applied. It magnifies your fantasy triumphs and mitigates your fantasy failures by transforming the eventual point total into an afterthought. Winning makes it seem like your opponent really is a truss-owning, lapel-pin-wearing nitwit. And in defeat, trash talk can be the air bag to break the fall from your hyperbolic heights. The plug-necked yahoos on your team, you can say, will be sacking groceries by the end of the season. The best trash talk, in my view, is layered and nuanced. And it doesnt focus only on your opponents team. It picks apart your opponent. The idea is to create a shock-and-awe-scale blizzard of nonsense, and the goal is to make your opponent drop his hands from his keyboard in exasperation. What team does your opponent root for? Accuse a Giants fan of having a Joe Namath pillowcase. Wheres your opponent from? Give a look of concern no matter his reply, then say, I'll try to type slower for you next time. Is your opponent into politics? Label everyone a tax-and-spend corporate shill. Cap all that with a liberal application of irrelevance. For instance, dont just conclude by saying your opponent is a twerp who drafts like my grandmother. Say that your opponent is a sweater-wearing, eyebrow-plucking twerp who drafts his team about as well as Zsa Zsa Gabor gave acceptance speeches at the Oscars. By the time your foe makes sense of that, his starting running back will have had puppies. But what about you? Hmm? Recall a memorable slam? Have a tried-and-true technique? Know someone who seems impervious to insult? Take a moment and tells us about it. Put together some (fit-for-publication) thoughts. You wont be too busy returning phone messages from your friends, Im sure, to reply. In addition to the trash talking, the Sports Alarm has a huge gallery of high resolution pictures of beautiful women and models in bikinis. The most popular models are: Lindsay Lohan, Carrie Underwood, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Paris Hilton.
College Football Betting Tips From a ProWhile the NFL is the sport wagered on the heaviest, college football betting lines has become more and more popular as people realize it’s a game that can be beat. The NCAA football season gets longer each year with the addition of numerous bowl games and with that comes more opportunities for more money in your pocket, if handled correctly. Betting on college football is not the same as with the NFL, so make sure you separate the two. Because of the vast number of teams, the parity between college football programs is slight and thus, you are going to see some high numbers in the NCAA. Teams favored by more than 40 points are not uncommon especially early in the season when teams playing their non-conference schedules. The best advice when trying to tackle these enormous spreads and is to just stay away. A team that is favored by 40 points is favored by that many for a reason while teams getting 40 points are bad enough that they shouldn’t be touched. Set yourself a spread limit. Getting rid of these games will cut down on the number of contests that you need to handicap while staying away from backdoor or front-door covers. What is a backdoor and front-door cover you ask? A backdoor cover is a team that is getting beat by more than the spread, but scores late to get within that number thus covering the spread. A front-door cover is just the opposite where the favorite scores late and covers the number they are favored by. These front-door and backdoor covers are common when second and third string players enter games in college football and it can be the worst nightmare for some bettors. These players can also be your best friend, but ask any bettor and he will give you more instances on losing in this situation than winning. It just seems to work out that way even though everything evens out in the end. College football betting has some of the softest lines of any sport and it’s being able to find these lines that will make you a successful college football handicapper. The NFL and NBA have the tightest lines around and while those sports can be beat by looking at situations and systems, college football doesn’t quite work that way. It’s much more manual, but when done correctly, it’s much more gratifying as well. Getting into the nuts and bolts of college football means looking at the many stats in order to beat the number. As opposed to pro football, college football is less dependent on situations and angles and more on certain statistics. Rushing offense and defense, pass efficiency offense and defense and turnover margins are huge. These are vital in the NFL, but even more so when it comes to college football. Being able to run the ball in college football has always been a key factor in the overall success of a team. The same adage also goes for teams who have the ability to stop the run. Putting these two factors together can produce some positive results in a team’s record both straight up and against the spread. These numbers show huge differences in teams and the spread may not take those into effect, which is where the value comes into play. Passing yardage numbers both for and against can be a misinterpreted statistic. However, pass efficiency has always been one of the best ways to look at a teams’ passing game ability both offensively and defensively. But is it really a true indication of how they perform? I wouldn’t say so since they are raw passing numbers with nothing else taken into consideration. I use pass efficiency ratings when doing my handicapping but I adjust my numbers based on a number of factors including power ratings, strength of schedules, personnel and injuries. This gives a much better picture of a team’s ability to pass effectively and also being able to defend the pass. Tweaking pass efficiency stats instead of raw passing yards is the key. Turnovers are the single most frustrating, and at times the most gratifying, aspect of a college football lines, mostly because they are so unpredictable. They are part of the game and most of the time nothing can be done to control them. However, turnovers are contagious and they can carry over from game to game and season to season. It’s important to know how to forecast these unforeseen events and how to use them to your advantage. You can find ways to give yourself an edge by looking at past histories of teams and coaches and how they have fared in turnover wars in the past. Instead of turnovers hurting you at the wrong times, find ways to use them to your advantage. As you can see, college football handicapping is very labor intensive and isn’t just based on where teams are ranked in the AP and coaches polls. Experience, coaching and match-ups are all important since unlike the NFL, college teams turn over much more often with new personnel at most positions every single year. Keeping current on this information is vital. Betting NCAA football can be lucrative if done correctly, but more importantly, it’s just plain enjoyable because it can be beat. College football is one of the best sports to watch with some of the best rivalries taking place in all of sports. The only downfall is that a championship isn’t decided on the field but on a computer-based system that is the Bowl Championship Series. That will change someday and we will all be better off for it. To visit this online sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com for all your NCAA college football betting needs. Mysportsbook.com online sportsbook accepts Visa and Mastercard credit cards. |
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