Surreal draft night in Portland

Basketball Betting Lines

06/24/2010 -

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -There were rumors the Portland Trail Blazers were going to make a big move on draft night. What happened was downright surreal.

A report surfaced less than an hour before the draft started that general manager Kevin Pritchard had been fired - but was still going to be involved in the draft process.

The Blazers immediately went into lockdown and no one would comment - even off the record - on the dismissal. Pritchard was sequestered in the so-called war room. A sampling of representatives for current Blazers players were in the dark, having only heard the rumors.

In the meantime, Portland conducted a solid, but lackluster, draft.

First the Blazers selected Memphis swingman Elliot Williams with the 22nd pick. Williams averaged 17.9 points, four rebounds and 3.8 assists with the Tigers last season as a sophomore after transferring from Duke.

The Blazers also traded forward Martell Webster to Minnesota in exchange for forward Ryan Gomes and 16th overall pick Luke Babbitt of Nevada.

And finally, Portland selected Nevada guard Armon Johnson with the 34th pick in the NBA draft. Johnson averaged 15.7 points, 3.4 rebounds and 5.6 assists with the Wolf Pack last season as a junior.

When it was all over, the Blazers confirmed it. Pritchard, a fan-friendly GM who had ushered the team out of the Jail Blazers era, was ``relieved of his duties.''

Pritchard ducked out of the Blazers' practice facility without commenting.

``Parting ways with a popular general manager is not something we take lightly,'' billionaire owner Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, said in a statement. ``In the end, we decided to make a change.''

The picks Pritchard helped to make Thursday night could figure into a bigger deal when free agency opens on July 1 - a deal that will be made without him.

Babbitt, a 6-foot-7, 215-pound forward, averaged 21.9 points and 8.9 rebounds for the Wolf Pack before deciding to leave school after his sophomore year. He was the highest pick out of Nevada since Kirk Snyder was selected at No. 16 in 2004.

Gomes spent the past three seasons in Minnesota after coming over from Boston in the Kevin Garnett trade. He averaged 10.9 points and 4.6 rebounds last season.

After transferring from Duke, Memphis native Williams was able to play for the Tigers last season because he was granted a hardship transfer to care for his ill mother.

The last two Tigers drafted in the first round went on to become NBA rookies of the year - Tyreke Evans last season and Derrick Rose the season before that.

Pritchard, aware he's been in the hot seat for several months, said last week he would fight for his job, repeating the phrase ``may the best man win.'' So there was speculation that he would make a major move in an effort to save his job.

But no such blockbuster materialized.

Earlier this week the Blazers were in talks with several teams about deals involving swingman Rudy Fernandez, according to a source close to the negotiations who did not want to be identified before a deal was official. No deal was struck.

There also was talk the Blazers are interested in New Orleans' Chris Paul. Portland is in position to make sure a move, because it holds a mid-level exception worth about $6 million, and the expiring contracts of guard Andre Miller and Joel Przybilla, which total about $14 million.Copyright © 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

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SPORTS BETTING - Tennis is an underrated and under-utilized bettors' sport.

Ten years ago, at just about this time, I called Alan Boston in Vegas and left him a voicemail that went something like this (abridged version): "Hey Alan, Chad Millman from ESPN The Magazine calling. I want to do a book about wise guys, you in?"

A couple weeks later I got a message back (abridged version): "I don't know, maybe," Boston said. "Call me and we'll talk about it. But not later today. I got $1,000 on Andre Agassi to win the French Open at 40-1, and he's in the finals."

Here's what happened next (abridged version): Agassi won his tourney. Boston won his $40,000. I wrote sportsbook.

In the ten years since, how much has been wagered on the big-time tennis events? Put it this way: The Nevada Gaming Commission doesn't even track the number year by year because it's so small.

"Tennis makes up about one-tenth of one percent of our take," says Lucky's bookmaking boss Jimmy Vaccaro. "The last big golf major we probably had $100,000 worth of bets. In tennis, we might have written two big tickets."

Tennis' lack of popularity amongst the American bettoratti is no surprise, really. For starters, the biggest sports betting holidays -- the Super Bowl, the NCAA tourney -- are must see TV. People, at least the degenerates I know, plan vacations around watching those events in Vegas sports books.

But Wimbledon? Doesn't exactly reel in the whales. "Seriously, it's the nuts as an event," says Boston. "But who even knows when it's on?"

Here's another reason that helps explain why golf gets traction, something I call "The Bubbe Theory." My Bubbe is pushing 95 and has cataracts so bad that, to her, even the most crystalline Chicago day is mostly cloudy. But she still listens to the Cubs games, and she still calls me in a fit if she disagrees with something Rick Telander writes in the Chicago Sun Times. She's a sports fan. If she doesn't know you, you're just filling a niche. And niche players, even historically good ones like Roger and Raf, don't drive betting volume. Only the highest profile names attract square money, which inflates wagering totals like a shot of saline to the lips. Bubbe, and the public, loved Agassi, tennis' last cross-the-rubicon, mainstream draw. She also has a crush on Tiger. She's given me standing orders to put a sawbuck on the big cat whenever I walk through a sports book (or mistakenly tap into one via my Internet machine.) That explains why the Masters is getting $100K in action at some books while the four tennis majors might not get that combined this year.

This isn't a case of tennis being a difficult sport to bet. In fact, in Europe, it's probably the second most popular sport for gambling after soccer. Granted, as the WSJ football betting last week and The Mag's Shaun Assael examined in even greater depth last year, that might be because gamblers across the pond see it as an easy game to fix. But it could also be because, over there it holds the kind of sway the big two do over here.

Street corners in Spain are peppered with public courts and kids doing their best Raffy impressions. In some war torn parts of Eastern Europe poverty-stricken kids view tennis as an escape route, like football or basketball here. A couple years ago The Mag's Lindsay Berra wrote a great piece about Belgrade's Jelena Jankovic, Ana Ivanovic and Novak Djokovic. They learned the game as kids while bombs were raining down on their homeland. They practiced in drained swimming pools. Not exactly Nick Bolletierri conditions.

In the United States, casual fans think tennis is played four times a year. But on the tightly packed European continent, national interest in homegrown talent runs deep every weekend. Of the ATP's current top 20 players, only two, tennis betting and James Blake, are American. Fourteen are from Europe, representing six different countries.

No wonder fans from Lisbon to Bhudapest get jacked up for the net game, whether it's Wimbledon or a low-level tourney like the Estoril Open in Portugal (congrats to Spain's Albert Montanes for winning that one, btw). Chances are good that someone representing their flag will not only be playing, but have a shot at winning.

And that's all any bettor can ask for.

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