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Malone, Pippen and Dream Team inducted into Hall of FameBasketball Betting Lines08/13/2010 - Springfield, MA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Karl Malone and Scottie Pippen highlighted the 2010 class inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame Friday night. Malone and Pippen were both members of the original "Dream Team," the 1992 U.S. Olympic squad that easily won a gold medal in Barcelona. That entire team, along with the 1960 U.S. men's Olympic squad, were also inducted. Lakers owner Jerry Buss, former NBA players Dennis Johnson and Gus Johnson; former WNBA star Cynthia Cooper, famed high school coach Bob Hurley Sr., and Brazilian legend Maciel Ubiratan Pereira were other ones inducted Friday. Malone was a two-time NBA MVP, 14-time NBA All-Star and two-time Olympic gold medalist. In addition to the 1992 team, he also played on the 1996 team that won gold in Atlanta. Last year, his long-time Utah Jazz teammate, John Stockton, was inducted into the Hall of Fame. An All-NBA First-Team forward from 1989-99, Malone was named one of the league's 50 greatest players in 1996 and ranks second on the NBA's all-time scoring list with 36,928 points. He finished his career with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2003-04. "I want to thank the NBA this little snotty-nosed kid from Louisiana got an opportunity to play the game," Malone said. "I hope I did it the way my peers did it before me. I didn't do anything but try to play hard. I didn't have a motive. It wasn't about me, never was about me. It's not about me tonight. It's about a lot of other people." Pippen, who was the first one inducted, had Hall of Famer and former Bulls teammate Michael Jordan standing nearby on stage as his presenter Friday night. Pippen was a seven-time NBA All-Star and a member of six championship teams with the Chicago Bulls. He also played in the 1996 Olympics, was a three-time All-NBA First-Team member and was voted to the NBA All-Defensive First Team from 1992-99. After leaving the Bulls, Pippen played for Houston in 1998-99 and Portland from 1999-2003. "For me, idolizing guys like Larry Bird and what he did in the game, has given me the opportunity to be here today," Pippen said. The 1992 Olympic team dominated the Barcelona Games, winning all eight of its games by an average of 43.8 points. Coached by the late Hall of Famer Chuck Daly, the "Dream Team" was the first team made up primarily of NBA players who were eligible to compete in international basketball because of the change of FIBA rules in 1989. Eight players from the team -- Charles Barkley, Bird, Clyde Drexler, Patrick Ewing, Magic Johnson, Jordan, David Robinson and Stockton -- have already been enshrined into the Hall of Fame. Malone and Pippen made it 10. "We want to say thank you to coach because he was the architect that put it all together," Johnson said of Daly, who passed away in May 2009. "He made sure we checked our ego at the door. He made sure we were just about playing with one another and playing for one common goal and that was to bring home the gold medal." Before the "Dream Team," there was the 1960 Olympic squad that ran through the Rome Olympics with an 8-0 record on the way to a gold medal. That squad, with six members -- including Walt Bellamy, Jerry Lucas, Oscar Robertson and Jerry West -- enshrined in the Hall, won their games by an average of 42.4 points. Buss has owned the Lakers since 1979 and the team has captured 10 NBA titles under his stewardship. During his ownership, the Lakers have also won 17 Western Conference titles and have recorded the most wins and the highest overall winning percentage in the NBA. Dennis Johnson, who died in 2007, earned nine straight NBA All-Defensive Team honors during his 14-year career with Seattle, Phoenix and Boston. He led the Sonics to the 1979 NBA title, earning Finals MVP honors, and helped the Celtics to NBA crowns 1984 and '86. Gus Johnson, who died in 1987, was a five-time NBA All-Star in the late 1960s and early '70s, and won an ABA championship with Indiana in 1973. He led the Baltimore Bullets to five playoff appearances in nine seasons, including the 1971 NBA Finals. In 10 NBA seasons, he averaged 17.1 points and 12.7 rebounds. Cooper won a pair of NCAA women's titles at Southern California and captured four WNBA crowns with the Houston Comets, earning the Finals MVP honor each time. She was twice the league's MVP and won an Olympic gold medal in 1988. Hurley is a New Jersey high school coaching legend, having compiled more than 900 wins as head coach at St. Anthony's in Jersey City since 1972. He has led the school to 25 state parochial titles, and became only the third person elected exclusively for their service to high school basketball, joining Morgan Wootten and Bertha Teague. Pereira, who died in 2002, is widely considered one of the greatest players in South American basketball history. A member of three Brazilian Olympic teams, Ubiratan led his countrymen to the bronze medal at the 1964 Olympic Games.
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Sportsbook Betting LinesWho Makes the Sportsbook Betting Lines?Las Vegas Sports Consultants (LVSC) is the world’s premier oddsmaking company and the most respected authority on making the lines. Mike Seba is a Senior Oddsmaker at LVSC and has been making lines for the last six years. In our extended interview, Seba explained that there are 4-5 oddsmakers assigned to make lines for each of the major sports (pro & college football and basketball; MLB, NHL, boxing, golf). Each of these oddsmakers bring unique opinions, strengths and weaknesses to the process. Oddsmakers at LVSC are professional sports junkies who love what they do and would probably do it for nothing if you asked them, but they do get paid for it. By necessity their approach is very research-oriented and concise, since with millions of dollars at risk there is little margin for error. “You either have a passion for it or you don’t,” Seba said. “The #1 thing for us is to make a line for each game that creates good two-way action. We do this by drawing from past experiences and applying them to current situations. People think it’s much more complicated, but it’s not. “What are the Football Betting Lines Trying to Accomplish?There is a common misconception that point spreads represent the oddsmakers’ prediction of how many points the favorite will win by. That is not the case at all – their intent is NOT to evenly split the ATS result between the teams; rather, their goal is to attract equal betting action on both sides. Stated another way, they want to create a line that half the people find appealing to bet one way while the other half find it appealing to bet the other way (known as ‘dividing the action’).Divided action means the sportsbook is guaranteed a profit on the game because of the fee charged to the bettor (called juice or vig – typically $11 bet to win $10). How the Opening Line Is MadeThe opening line is the first line created by the oddsmakers, which is then sent out to sportsbooks. Of course there is an entire method to the madness on how the opening line is created. Seba explained that it all starts with each oddsmaker creating a line on each game based upon their own personal approach. This usually includes having up-to-date power ratings on each team.Power ratings are the oddsmaker’s value of each team and are used as a guide to calculate a "preliminary" pointspread on an upcoming game. The power ratings are adjusted after each game a team plays. Examples of non-game factors that would require an adjustment to a team's power rating are key player injuries and player trades. Once a game’s power rating based pointspread is determined, the oddsmaker will make adjustments to that line after considering each team's most recent games played and previous games played against that opponent. Also, adjustments are made after reading each team’s local newspapers to get a sense of what the coaches & players are thinking going into the game.Since the oddsmaker’s ultimate goal is equally dividing the sports betting action, public perception and sportsbook betting patterns must be taken into account. For example, the public might have heavy betting interest week after week on a popular college football betting team such as USC. If an oddsmaker comes up with a preliminary line of USC -7, then an adjustment up to -7.5 or -8 would be made in response to the public’s expected USC bias. The last step in the line-making process for each oddsmaker is taking one final look to determine whether or not the line "feels right." This is where common sense and past experience with how games are bet enters into the picture.A round-table discussion among the 4-5 oddsmakers involved in making the line for each sport is then conducted and a consensus line is decided upon by the Odds Director before it is released to the sportsbooks. Of the 4-5 oddsmakers, generally the 2 most respected opinions are weighed more heavily by the Odds Director before he decides on the final line. Why Sports Betting Lines ChangeOnce the opening line is released by LVSC, the individual sportsbooks decide if they want to make any adjustments before offering it to the public. Reasons for such adjustments include:Experts working for the individual books having a strong opinion on the game Individual books having players who consistently bet with certain tendencies (such as an extreme bias toward favorites or toward a certain popular team like USC)The purpose of these adjustments, like all line adjustments, is to more equally divide the betting action. Once betting begins, sportsbooks can adjust the line at any time. In doing so they attempt to make more attractive the team that is getting less action. By moving the line, sportsbooks can influence how the public bets on a particular game.For example, if the pointspread on a game is 7 and most of the money is coming in on the underdog (taking the +7), sportsbooks will then move the number down to 6 ½ to try and attract money on the favorite. Moving the line is the oddsmaker's effort to balance betting action, and often times such moves can have a major impact on a bettor’s decision. Oddsmakers can also change the line depending on various event-related factors such as player injuries or weather. Obviously, if the line comes out a week ahead of the event (which is the case in football), there is much that could happen during the week leading up to the event that could affect the line. Oddsmakers have to determine if any changes are necessary and send out an "adjusted line."“The main objective is that our clients get equal action on both sides,” Seba said. “We’re not trying to pick the team that covers the spread, we’re trying to make it a coin flip, a tough decision (for the bettor). If we’ve done that, we’ve done our job.” To visit this internet sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com for all your sports betting needs and World Series odds. |
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