CP3 summit in New Orleans

Basketball Betting Lines

07/26/2010 - Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The New Orleans Hornets have prepared for their scheduled sit-down with All-Star guard Chris Paul by fending off the latest flurry of trade calls received from teams salivating over adding the game's best pure point guard.

Opposing general managers are circling New Orleans like sharks smelling blood in the water, with most convinced Paul will formally request to be moved at a planned Monday meeting, and furnish new Hornets GM Dell Demps a list of teams to which he would like to be dealt.

Paul's desire to move away from New Orleans reportedly stems from watching his close friend LeBron James land in Miami with fellow Team USA teammates Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade. In fact some have even speculated that LeBron and his lackeys, Maverick Carter and William Wesley, have been pushing Paul to force the Hornets' hand.

"Best of luck to my brother," James wrote on Twitter about Paul. "Do what's best for you and your family."

Of course Demps has no reason to panic and pull the trigger on an ill- conceived deal right now. The Hornets still have two full seasons before CP3 can opt out of his deal in the Big Easy and become a free agent in the summer of 2012.

Monday's tete-a-tete with Paul will be Demps' first face-to-face meeting with his star since taking over basketball operations from Jeff Bower last Wednesday. He and new coach Monty Williams are hoping to sell Paul on the new regime slowing being put in place, and address concerns over the team's inactivity in free agency and delay in ownership transfer from George Shinn to Gary Chouest.

That's a tough task, since Paul urged the Hornets to be an active player in the market and their only move thus far has been re-signing backup center Aaron Gray.

Likely wary of the public backlash James received for ditching Cleveland on national television, Paul has been careful to play both sides of the fence. During the recent Las Vegas Summer League, Paul told his new coach he would like to stay in New Orleans.

"I'm not going to jump to any conclusions off of something that's been alleged," Williams told the New Orleans Times-Picayune. "We've already had dialogue and all of it has been great and everything that he said to me is what I'm going off of. He wants to be in New Orleans, and he hadn't said anything to me about any kind of movement, and we're going to sit down again."

What is clear at this point is Paul has been looking at the new NBA landscape and now realizes he has little chance to compete for an NBA championship unless things change drastically in New Orleans. In fact, Paul is suffering from a severe case of envy. Like LeBron, he wants to be part of a super team.

It looks like the competitive juices that defined players like Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird just doesn't exist in this generation.

"There's no way, with hindsight, I would've ever called up Larry, called up Magic and said, 'Hey, look, let's get together and play on one team.' In all honesty, I was trying to beat those guys," Jordan recently said when discussing the James-Wade-Bosh Holy Trinity in Miami.

To players like M.J., the rings may have defined them, but it was the competition that fueled them.

The battle cry of today's NBA player should be "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em."

Paul is just the latest superstar that wants to tap out just as things are getting a little tough.

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MySportsbook.com: New College Football Clock Rules Examined

Coaches and bettors alike are desperate to make sense of the new time-keeping rules on the NCAA gridiron. One of the big stories to come out of the Ohio State-Texas clash last weekend was Texas coach Mack Brown's criticism of the NCAA's new clock rules that are intended to shorten the duration of college football games, therefore affecting college football betting.

"They scored with six minutes left and the game was over before we had a chance to do anything," Brown told ESPN.com. "I really hope whoever made these changes will go back and look them over."

Sure, it might be sour grapes; the Buckeyes thoroughly trounced the defending national champion Longhorns 24-7. However, Brown isn't alone in giving the changes their due thought. Bettors are also wondering about them, albeit for a completely different reason. Most experts agree that the changes will result in games being shortened by anywhere from 10 to 20 plays. The obvious consequence is lower scores, with more time rolling off the clock during changes of possession. (The Ohio State-Texas game flew well under the total of 52.)

According to research at the online sportsbook MySportsbook.com, more than 18 plays a game disappeared last weekend into thin air. That's a 10-percent reduction. In 2005, a typical game had 168.58 plays. For 2007 already, it's down to 150.26.

As a result, teams combined to gain an average of about 100 fewer yards a game last weekend versus the 2005 openers. Scoring was also down by about 4.5 points (attention Las Vegas sports lines).

Of course, oddsmakers were able to adjust to the changes before the season started. Proof of that came as the over went a balanced 8-9 at My Sportsbook on Saturday.

Other angles to consider:A shorter game should theoretically result in shorter lines. Whereas Team A might have been a 14-point favorite in a 168-play game (last year), if there are 10 percent less snaps in 2007, the line should also be reduced by 10 percent (to 13 or 12.5). Of course, this is an over-simplification of the matter, but something to keep in mind.
Less possessions means a better chance the game will be decided by three or seven points. For example, what might have been a 20-10 final score in 2005 may end at

17-10 in 2007. Granted, a 24-17 game last year might end at 21-17 these days, but the former - a three- or seven-point advantage being preserved as opposed to created - is the most likely scenario.

*UPDATE* - Sept. 25, 2007

New Clock Rules Boon for online bookmakers

By adjusting the time-keeping rules to shorten the duration of college football games, the NCAA hoped to make its product more enjoyable for the fans. While the NCAA's success in this regard is still up for debate, bookmakers couldn't be happier with the results.

"We are seeing a massive jump in college football betting," noted the MySportsbook.com management team. "With all the early Saturday games (12 a.m. ET) ending before the second wave begins (3:30 p.m. ET) - something that didn't always happen before the changes - bettors are now able to re-invest their winnings from the morning session in the afternoon games."

While not all bettors will choose to roll over their winnings, it doesn't take much for an impact to be seen on the bottom line. "Not all of the millions of dollars in morning payouts get re-bet. In fact, it's probably only 10 to 20 percent," noted the sportsbook management team. "Still, the increased football betting lines window will create a ton of growth for us over the course of the season."

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Big 12 Conference betting odds

Work left to do: Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, Kansas State

Texas joins Texas A&M and Kansas as locks after getting league win No. 11. Texas Tech greatly helped its own hopes and crippled OK State's with the two-point win Saturday. Is K-State the last reasonable hopeful? Could be an elimination match in Stillwater on Tuesday, at least for the Cowboys.

Work left to do:

Texas Tech [18-11 (7-7), RPI: 44, SOS: 12] A critical two-point win over OK State leaves the Red Raiders with Baylor and at Iowa State left. Get both and the Red Raiders likely are good to go. Get one and there could be some interesting comparisons with a K-State team that could finish two or three games "ahead" of them in the standings but doesn't have any of the quality wins Texas Tech has. Not a lot in nonconference play (against Arkansas in Little Rock being the best win, by far) to lean on.

Oklahoma State [18-9 (5-8), RPI: 50, SOS: 35] Still without a road win, the Cowboys now need to win two on the road just to get to .500 in conference play. It's hard to recall a team (OK, other than Clemson) falling so precipitously from lock status to almost certainly out of the NCAAs at this point. There are wins to be had in the last three, including a very big home game against K-State on Tuesday, but this team is reeling. Can you tell the pressure to win is getting to them with the way the final possession played out at Texas Tech? There are some good nonconference performances to lean on, specifically beating Missouri State and Syracuse on neutral floors and Pitt in OK City, but if the Pokes don't right this very, very soon, that won't be enough.

Kansas State [20-9 (9-5), RPI: 56, SOS: 96] It pays to be in the Big 12 North. The nine league wins are Colorado (twice), Missouri (twice), Iowa State (twice), Baylor, Nebraska and (a good one against) Texas. That helps explain the middling computer profile. The win over USC is nice, but the nonconference leaves a lot to be desired. The game at OK State in Stillwater on Tuesday is huge, as it could KO the Cowboys and leave K-State with a home date against Oklahoma with which to work.