Vegas Watch

Sportsbook and BetUS have minimal, boring odds up on Thursday's draft. Luckily, Bodog comes through with an extensive selection.

While I am trying to determine what is and isn't a good bet, please be advised that my knowledge of the situation comes from reading this Chad Ford column, and looking at DraftExpress and NBADraft.net.

It should be noted that Ford, while having the most accurate mock last year, only called 12/30 picks correctly. This stuff is really hard to call, especially when you get past the first few picks.

Unless otherwise specified, these props are regarding who will be taken in each slot, regardless of who is picking there. The actual props don't have the team name (except for #2 and #10), which I have added in parenthesis.

Who will be the #1 pick in the 2008 NBA Draft? (Bulls)
Michael Beasley, +375
Derrick Rose, -600

We've been slowly moving in this direction for almost two months now, since it was essentially a coin flip. All indications are that Rose will be the guy, but I wouldn't want to pay -600 to find out.

What will Miami do with the #2 pick in the 2008 NBA Draft?
Draft Michael Beasely and Keep him, 2/7
Trade Pick or Draft Michael Beasley and Trade him, 4/1
Draft O.J. Mayo, 9/2
Draft Any Other Player, 3/1

This is kind of surprising, isn't it? This obviously isn't exactly insider information, but Ford says:

We continue to hear that the Heat will probably trade the No. 2 pick if Rose is off the board.

Seems pretty straight forward, doesn't it? I suppose that we probably tend to overrate the possibility of guys getting traded, but +400 on that seems like a pretty good price here. I certainly wouldn't take the other side at -350.

Who will be the #3 pick? (Timberwolves)
Mayo, 2/5
Kevin Love, 9/2
Jerryd Bayless, 7/1
Brook Lopez, 3/1
Other, 8/1

Given the uncertainty of the Draft, I don't think there's a whole lot I would take at -250, and certainly not this. All three mocks have Mayo going here, but Bodog is obviously prepared for that scenario.

Might "Other" be a decent choice here? I am asking--I have no idea. Is there a scenario where the Heat keep their pick and select someone other than Beasley? It seems like maybe the Heat to trade their pick at +400 and "Other" at +800 would be a good combo, with one hedging the other.

Who will be the #4 pick? (Sonics)
Bayless, 5/6
Russell Westbrook, 3/2
Lopez, 3/1
Eric Gordon, 5/1
Other 8/1

Ford has them taking Westbrook, NBADraft.net has Bayless, and Draft Express has Lopez. I get the impression that the Sonics themselves have no idea who they are going to take.

I wouldn't bet on any of the players here, but what about "Other"? I know this is getting repetitive, but are we that sure that Rose-Beasley-Mayo are going to go 1-2-3?

Who will be the #5 pick? (Grizzlies)
Love, 5/9
Gordon, 3/2
Lopez, 5/1
Other, 13/4

Sounds like they're either going to take Love or Gordon. I have nothing to add here.

Who will be the #6 pick? (Knicks)
Bayless, 5/6
Westbrook, 5/6
Danilo Gallinari, 3/1
Joe Alexander, 6/1
Other, 9/2

This is interesting. As you may remember, there was a time that Gallinari was the heavy favorite here, at -150. A lot has transpired since, apparently. Ford says:

We had Danilo Gallinari at the Knicks in our first mock draft, but dropped him when a Suns source said that Knicks coach Mike D'Antoni wasn't a big fan. Apparently Gallinari's workout, combined with some research, has changed that opinion. Gallinari has worked out well everywhere and it sounds like the Knicks are comfortable with him here.

So, there you have it. Chad Ford endorses Gallinari at 3:1.

Who will be the #7 pick? (Clippers)
Gordon, 10/13
Westbrook, 3/1
Alexander, 11/2
D.J. Augustin, 8/1
Other, 2/1

Sounds like this will probably be Gordon, although there's no way I'd pay -130 for it, especially since Ford has Bayless going here.

Who will be the #8 pick? (Bucks)
Alexander, 1/2
Lopez, 7/2
Westbrook, 11/2
Augustin, 8/1
Other, 3/1

The whole world thinks they are taking Joe Alexander. Unfortunately, that includes Bodog.

Who will be the #9 pick? (Bobcats)
Lopez, 10/11
Augustin, 11/2
Donte Greene, 11/2
DeAndre Jordan, 10/1
Other, 10/11

Man, wasn't Lopez expected to go #3 at one point? That didn't last.

The three mocks have Westbrook, Lopez, and Love going here. Other seems like a decent value.

What will the Nets do with the #10 pick?
Draft Danilo Gallinari, 1/1
Draft any other player, 10/13
Trade pick, 4/1

"Any other player" at -130 has to be the play here. It's the 10th pick in the draft, how can they be so confident that a) Gallinari will be available, and b) they'll take him?

Who will be the #11 pick? (Pacers)
Augustin, 13/10
Anthony Randolph, 4/1
Brandon Rush, 11/2
Greene, 15/2
Other, 1/1

John Hollinger would not take Randolph here.

Ford has them taking Augustin. Not at +130 though.

Who will be the #12 pick? (Kings)
Randolph, 5/4
Rush, 7/2
Darrell Arthur, 9/2
Roy Hibbert, 5/1
Other, 6/5

They are supposedly looking at Hibbert; NBADraft.net has him going here, and Ford mentions him as well (although he has them taking this guy).

Who will be the #13 pick? (Trail Blazers)
Rush, 6/5
Greene, 3/2
Nicolas Batum, 10/1
Other, 5/6

Ford thinks the Blazers will either trade this pick (they do that a lot), take Rush, or take some French guy named Alexis Ajinca. DraftExpress has Ajinca going here as well, while NBADraft.net has Rush.

13th pick, only three non-field players, a team that loves to trade, and two of three mocks having a guy in the field selected. Other at -120 seems like the way to go here, does it not?

Who will be the #14 pick? (Warriors)
Kosta Koufos, 1/1
Arthur, 5/2
Greene, 9/2
Marreese Speights, 8/1
Other, 6/5

It is Koufos or Greene here, apparently. I liked it better when the lottery was only 13 teams.

Bodog has some more props, about whether guys will get drafted in the first or second round, and which players will get traded in the offseason. Go check them out, if you want, but those are categories I can't even fake knowledge in.

NA Basketball Player Prop Betting [Bodog]

Photo: NBA.com

First off, Sportsbook followed The Greek's lead and put up odds on the Draft lottery. Strangely, some of them are pretty close to the true odds. The Knicks should be +1216; Sportsbook has them at +1200. I'm not really sure what they get out of this- if they want to have more attractive odds than The Greek, why not put them at +1000? At +1200, they are barely making any money.

They also have odds on who the #1 pick will be; this is somewhat more interesting, since we don't already know what the actual odds are.


This matches my intuition- it's essentially a coin flip between Beasley and Rose, and it'd be a shock if anyone else went first.

Obviously, a lot of this depends on which team wins the lottery. So I figured I'd mess around with ESPN's Lottery Mock Draft thing, and see which teams picked which players when they landed the top pick.

Here are the results, along with the percentage of the time that the team in question is expected to get the #1 pick.

The Pacers (0.8%) and Trail Blazers (0.6%) are noticeably absent from this list. That's because they never won in the ridiculous number of lotteries I ran, so I don't know who they would pick. Edit: Apparently he has both teams taking Rose. Which kind of makes the next paragraph irrelevant.

I question the uniformity in the bottom of this list, with each of the last six teams choosing Beasley. This may be true, but it's also possible that Chad Ford didn't actually break down the "2,184 potential lottery scenarios", and Beasley was the pick for these teams by default.

Mostly on the strength of being theoretically picked by the Heat, Timberwolves, and Grizzlies, Beasley looks like the favorite. I wouldn't bet on him with this information, since I have no clue how accurate Chad Ford's predictions on this are- it's likely that the oddsmakers' predictions are superior. We'll see if the odds change after the lottery, which is on May 20.

I spend a good deal of time on this site looking at odds, and trying to determine whether they're worth betting on or not. Sometimes this is pretty difficult, trying to incorporate all kinds of different factors, and make necessary adjustments.

Sometimes it's really, really easy.

The Greek has posted odds on the NBA Draft lottery. No, not the NBA Draft- the lottery. Like, which ping pong ball will pop up. It's not very hard to figure out what these odds should be-the chances for each team are listed here.

If you bet on these, you have a problem.

Shockingly, there is no value in these. It'd be pretty amusing if there was- if the oddsmakers screwed up and put the Heat at +1750 or something. Alas, no.

Unless...remember this? For anyone who throws these conspiracy theories around, this is your time. Oh, Stern is going to give the Knicks Beasley to get their franchise back on track? Okay, then put $300 down on them at +800.

What would be really funny would be if any of these odds changed. We'd have to assume that someone maxed them out, and The Greek didn't want to put themselves at too much risk on a silly prop. I'd like to interview anyone who actually bets significant money on these, and figure out what their reasoning is.

Here's the video of the end of the WKU-Drake game.

A great Posnanski post about his three favorite professional screw-ups.

Live-blogging a re-reading of Moneyball.

Hank Steinbrenner is ridiculous.

Bob Costas called up Leitch to clarify some things.

Silver details some of the additions to PECOTA.

Some MLB predictions from Braves Journal:

Worst token All-Star: Brian Wilson, Giants
Dusty Baker throws Homer Bailey under the bus: April 17
Dusty throws Joey Votto under the bus: May 22
Braves clinch: Saturday, Sept. 27, in Houston.
Last out: Brad Ausmus

The Nuggets played excellent defense in their 168-116 win last week.

I have watched probably two NBA games all year, but I won't miss the dunk contest on Saturday night. Granted, it's been fairly weak in recent years, but I've been hooked since Carter won in 2000. The opportunity for someone to do something completely absurd always intrigues me. Anyway, here are the odds:


Dwight Howard is the clear favorite, after getting screwed last year. Here is a teaser video of what he has planned for this year- the first and last dunks are pretty impressive. Rudy Gay has challenged him to raise the rim to 12 feet, saying he'll follow Howard and do the same dunk. This seems impressive, but he's actually only two inches shorter than Howard, and his arms are quite long. Gay also posted a video on YouTube, asking for fans to submit ideas.

The annoying thing about the dunk contest is that there are no longshots; one in four odds on a contest involving four people isn't particularly inspiring. It's strange that the tallest guy is the favorite, since it just doesn't look as impressive when the really tall guys do it. He does have the most name recognition (I guess average 22 and 15 will do that). But Gay is ridiculously athletic, and has stirred up this little controversy- he's probably a good bet at 3:1.

By the way, both these sites have odds on the three-point shootout, skills challenge, and game MVP as well. But who cares, really. And Bodog is strangely "down for regularly scheduled maintenance" at the moment, which seems like an odd thing to be doing at 10pm on Thursday night.

Photo: SI.