It will only end in tears.
Sure, ESPN has wasted millions in airtime pontificating (as only they can) on the benefits of acquiring problem players. You’ve seen the highlights: Dennis Rodman kicking people, Terrell Owens doing inning crunches, Darryl Strawberry wiping white powder under his nose, Steve Howe returning to the Yankees after his 1000th suspension for drugs. You know what? For once, I agree with the Boys from Bristol. The Sacramento Kings deal for Ron Artest is fool’s gold. The idea that Artest will suddenly be a good citizen in the most boring city in the league (okay, Salt Lake City and Orlando, I see you waving your hands) is silly. Oh sure, he’ll do just fine for a couple of months, and maybe even make the playoffs without being filmed shirtless and in flip-flops, mugging and screaming on an opposing team’s bus. But eventually, and soon, the Kings will wish they hadn’t heard his name.
I assure you, they didn’t give up much – Peja Stojakovic seems disinterested these days (although Indiana can give it a try for a couple of months, and if they don’t like it, they get a lot of cap relief for letting him go). But my argument is that a sensible NBA franchise shouldn’t have faced Artest even for free. He’s just a spoiled, immature jerk with personal problems that make Robert Downey Jr. look like the Dalai Lama. You’ll wake up to your tea and scones one morning, turn on the subway, and find that Artest has barricaded himself in a Denny’s and is refusing to come out unless Michael Jackson frees Blanket. Or you’ll drive home from work, tune in to sports radio, and hear a report that Artest is in trouble because his latest rap song calls for the overthrow of the Brazilian government. Really, that’s the only fun left with guys like Artest and TO: the impossible spectacle of their inevitable detonation.
Of course, before they detonate themselves, they will surely detonate their teams. Best of luck, Sacramento.
What was your impression of the AFC and NFC title games? How did public betting on those games fare?
Greg Jorssen, BoDog: Sure the two Jakes didn’t come to play last Sunday, did they? Plummer lived up to the belief that he couldn’t pull it off, and the Seahawks did an incredible job stopping the Delhomme / Smith passing attack. The betting public did quite well in the Steelers ‘win as they jumped on the Pittsburgh bandwagon, however they did not fare very well in the Seahawks’ win. Bettors were raving about Carolina, based on the Seahawks’ strength on the vs. Carolina and the Panther Highway Record. I guess they forgot about Seattle’s secret weapon: the twelfth man. Wow, that stadium was rocking on Sunday afternoon! The only saving grace for the books this past weekend was that the final scores wiped out most of the advances. Given that both wins were blowouts, this helped turn what should have been a losing day for the house into a money-making day.
We’ll have another week to really dive into the Super Bowl analysis, but what is your first impression of the Pittsburgh / Seattle line? Not asking for a pick, but just your expert thoughts on how the line got to where it is, if you expect it to move, etc.
GJ, BoDog: The line opened as expected and should finally settle around Pittsburgh -4 ½. Two things come to mind as to why a # 6 AFC team would be the favorite over the # 1 NFC team. First is the strength of the schedule. Seattle ranked last in schedule difficulty, which is expected, considering the poor season the NFC West showed. The Steelers, on the other hand, were in ninth place, and a good chunk of their losses were due to key injuries. The second factor is, of course, emotional. People love the homeless and will jump on the bandwagon until the bitter end. I expect some hard money late in Seattle; however, it is already clear that the house will cheer on the Seahawks!
How many prop bets do you expect to see on the various boards? Do you have a favorite from the past that you remember? Something particularly funny or outrageous?
GJ, BoDog: I can’t speak for the other books, but bodog will have over 150 props at the Super Bowl. The all-year favorite is, of course, the coin toss, which gives us tremendous handling. As for the outrageous, the one that comes to mind is our support for the duration of the National Anthem! We don’t offer that one anymore, because it was too difficult to put at a disadvantage (some singers love to be in the limelight). We’ve also had support during the 2001 Super Bowl on whether Shaq would score more points than the St. Louis Rams, and we’ve had similar support every year since. Hmmm, after Kobe’s performance on Sunday, maybe a line on whether Kobe will surpass both teams in the Super Bowl … let me work on that!
Completely shifting gears: I guess if Kobe Bryant scored 82 points the other night, he missed a pretty big bet, huh? What’s the problem with Kobe taking 81 of his down?
GJ, BoDog: The Lakers are now “The Kobe Show,” and he’s someone who has now put an early stamp on the MVP award. The bigger question is: why didn’t the Raptors duplicate it? Did you think that it would eventually get cold, that it would eventually get lost? No wonder they lost to the Israel National Team! At halftime, Kobe decided to take matters into his own hands, because the Lakers had a lot to do with such a bad team. He had no choice but to do it himself, and I really don’t think there are many others in this league who can do what he did. Many will say that this is bad for basketball, that it is a team game, etc. I don’t buy that. Kobe stole the headlines from both NFL conference championships. One man shifted sports focus from the NFL to the NBA. That in itself is just amazing. People no longer say that he is the “next Jordan.” After his performance on Sunday, he will be known as “the first Kobe!”