Kaman could be a keeper elsewhere

Basketball Betting Lines

01/28/2012 - Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - You can forget about blowing the whistle on ageism in sports.

After all, it's not only accepted it's expected.

If you were wondering why the New Orleans Hornets are actively trying to trade center Chris Kaman, understand the former All-Star is about to cross a very important threshold on April 28 of this year -- his 30th birthday.

Thirtysomethings simply do not fit into rebuilding plans and at a Western Conference-worst 4-15 the Hornets are resigned to starting one.

New Orleans, of course, acquired Kaman back in December as part of the blockbuster deal that sent the face of the franchise, Chris Paul, to the Los Angeles Clippers.

Even then most thought the Big Easy was just a transitory stop for the former Central Michigan star with the conventional wisdom believing the Hornets acquired an asset to move before the March 15 trade deadline.

And Kaman remains an alluring piece to a number of puzzles. He's got skill and perhaps more importantly, an expiring deal worth just over $14 million this season.

Already the oldest player on the Hornets' roster Kaman quickly fell out of Monty Williams' rotation in favor of Jason Smith and promising Mexican Gustavo Ayon.

"It's just something (where) we want to play our young guys and we certainly don't want to disrespect Chris at all," Williams told the media before Friday's upset against the Magic. "This is something we want to keep internally. It's certainly not disciplinary and he understands and I talked to him.

"We're going to play Jason Smith, Gustavo Ayon and Al-Farouq Aminu. It's just difficult to play that many bigs and I understand how difficult it is for (Kaman) to not get the minutes he wants."

It didn't stay internal for long. By the third quarter Hornets GM Dell Demps had released a statement.

"We've informed Chris that we are looking into possible trades and he was understanding about the situation," Demps said. "We're working together on this. Chris has been the ultimate professional since he joined us.

"In no way is this a disciplinary action. We had discussions about extending his current contract when he first came to the Hornets, but the organization decided to go in a different direction."

Since Kaman was not with the team on Friday, it was easy to speculate that perhaps he had run afoul of either Williams or Demps. I mean, it's one thing to bench a guy for a youth movement but it's another to jettison him from practice and his teammates.

The "ultimate professional" as Demps described Kaman wouldn't be happy losing minutes, perhaps, but he certainly wouldn't want to stop working either.

New Orleans is trying to spin things as best it can, fueling rumors that the club approached Kaman and his agent, Rob Pelinka, once they settled on the youth movement. From there both sides reportedly agreed that Kaman would be deactivated until a trade is consummated.

On the surface that seems a bit far-fetched but Kaman has certainly been injury prone and giving him mop-up minutes here and there could be a risk to any potential deal, something neither Kaman or the Hornets would want.

Either way, New Orleans isn't exactly going to get a king's ransom for a player that is seemingly on the downside, has lost minutes to a pedestrian player like Smith and could be complaining.

On the other hand, in a league short on competent big man, it's not outlandish to think one or two teams might remember 2007-08, Kaman's breakout season with the Clippers when he averaged 15.7 points, 12.7 rebounds, and 2.8 blocks per game. And remember as late as '09-10 he averaged 18.5 ppg and 9.3 rpg.

Building for the future is what the Hornets are all about now but others are concerned with competing and renting a 7-footer that can play could pay dividends.

Cbssporstonline Basketball Betting News

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Sportsbook Betting Lines

Who 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 Made

The 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 Change

Once 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.”

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