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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SPORTS BETTING: NFL Football Sportsbook Betting

NFL owners, already life's biggest winners, want to try their luck with the lottery.


That was the news out of their meetings last week, where team bosses voted unanimously to allow stamping state and local lottery tickets with franchise logos, if, ahem, any governments wanted to do a deal.

A shocker: Within days the Pats announced they'd be sponsoring the Massachusetts state lottery, the Skins said they'd slap their sticker on Virginia scratch-offs and the Ravens admitted they were talking to Maryland lottery bosses. In all likelihood, it won't be long before every team is a presenting sponsor of scratch-offs or just plain old pick fives. "The change in policy was approved 32-0," said NFL spokesman Greg Aiello. "So you can expect to see more deals soon."

It's a branding opportunity too big for the owners to ignore, and one a couple of dozen baseball franchises have enjoyed for years. The fact the NFL has been slower to act than those slack-brained Seligites is indicative of its complicated relationship with all forms of gambling. Consider this: Last Thursday, as the Pats and the Redskins finalized their new lottery deals, a lawyer representing the NFL argued before Delaware's Supreme Court that the state's newly signed sports betting law should be repealed.

The NFL betting is the face of opposition to sports gambling . And as much as it would like to share that responsibility with other leagues, that's not going to happen as long as more than 40% of all money legally wagered on games is bet on football. That's why the Brewers can do a multi-million dollar deal with a local casino, or the Celtics can make their own pact with the Mass lottery, and the response is, "Sweet, let's play." But when the NFL does it the stakes are higher, and everyone from NPR's Frank Deford to the Associated Press to the guys blogging at Deadspin will line up to play gotcha.

So I asked Aiello, who surely knew there'd be piling on, how the league can rail against being bait for sports bettors, then allow its franchises to be just that for lotteries, the most insidious and addictive form of gambling around. He emailed me this response: "We are not moral crusaders. NFL personnel are permitted to engage in legal forms of gambling, except for betting on NFL games. We are making a distinction here between the spread of gambling on the outcome of our games and supporting state lottery scratch-off games, that have nothing to do with the outcome of our games."

Here's where I should rip him. But, the thing is, he's right. Not to get Obama on you, but this is a complicated, nuanced issue. As much as lotteries are considered a tax on the poor, the NFL isn't a socially obligated government program -- it's just a business. Scratch-off's help the bottom line, sports betting doesn't. Now, it's okay to call the league hypocritical when it releases injury reports, which players have told me only helps bettors … But when it supports other forms of gaming? Big Deal.

Now, it's okay to call the league hypocritical when it releases injury reports, which players have told me only helps bettors. And it's okay to mutter something obscene when the league pretends gambling doesn't help drive TV ratings and fan interest and put money in owners' pockets. But when it supports other forms of gaming? Big Deal. The Bears should put an orange "C" on every deck of cards dealt at Harrah's in Joliet; the Eagles should slap their logo on roulette wheels at the Borgata in Atlantic City; the Dolphins should hold training camp at the El San Juan in Puerto Rico.

Seriously.

The NFL's problem, when it comes to the gambling world, isn't hypocrisy, it's worse: The bosses lack vision. That's why the league is picking unwinnable fights in Delaware and taking pot shots from critics after making smart sponsorship deals. Roger Goodell and his gang are acting and thinking locally rather than globally, which is rare for them, especially compared to their professional (and amateur) counterparts.

The NBA held its All Star game in Las Vegas and David Stern's kingdom didn't crumble (although the town did bring plenty of players to their knees.) I'd say it's 6 to 5 and pick 'em that Lebron will make a road swing through Sin City before his career is over.

Even the NCAA College Football Betting is more progressive on this issue than the NFL. Several years ago Rachel Newman Baker, college sports' gambling czar, opened a dialogue with Vegas bookmakers to learn about how they do business. She's visited Nevada sports books, studied their operations and listened to how they regulate action. Now she knows she can expect a call from bookmakers, who lose money when sports are fixed, if they think something sketchy is going on in NCAA games. She's not in favor of sports betting, but, as she once told me, "I know it's not going away, either."

The NFL can't seem to accept that. And until it can find peace with the idea, it'll get flack, even when it's right.

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Huskers' Lucky hospitalized for undisclosed reason

LINCOLN, Neb. -- Nebraska running back Marlon Lucky was hospitalized Monday for undisclosed reasons after Lincoln police responded to a call at his residence.

The Nebraska athletic department said in a release Monday that Lucky was admitted Sunday night.

MySportsbook.com has the Cornhuskers listed at +2500 to win the BCS National Championship odds.

A nursing supervisor at the hospital said all questions about Lucky were being referred to the athletic department. The athletic department said there would be no further comment from the department or Lucky's family.

A Lincoln Police spokesman said officers responded to a call at Lucky's residence 11:30 p.m. Sunday. The spokesman said he didn't know Lucky's condition at the time he was taken to the hospital.

Lucky, from North Hollywood, Calif., started six games last season as a sophomore and was the team's second-leading rusher, with 728 yards and six touchdowns. He also caught 32 passes for 383 yards. He averaged 19.1 yards on eight kickoff returns.

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