Welcome back, NBA bettors, to another Gambling Guru column. It’s been an interesting start to the season with road dogs dominating in November, and as expected more home teams are starting to win now as the grind of the season starts to take it’s toll. On a personal note I’ve found the lines overall to be pretty stable. The bookmakers have nailed most of the national TV games, which is a good lesson for you all out there, try and grab the
For the last three years, the Philadelphia 76ers have embraced the philosophy that one way to win big is to lose big. So it makes perfect sense that on Monday, their youth movement continued with the addition of a 76-year-old man. It is significant that Jerry Colangelo showed up in Philadelphia less than three weeks before Santa Claus. That likely answered the Christmas wish of many Sixers fans, because Colangelo no doubt arrives bearing the gift of common sense. Since becoming general
PHILADELPHIA – For nearly five decades, Jerry Colangelo has been pro basketball’s version of Annie Sullivan: a miracle worker. No, he never taught a blind and deaf Helen Keller how to “read.” But he did take over the expansion Phoenix Suns in the late 1960s and build them into a legitimate NBA power, twice winning the Western Conference and coming close to a championship with a team that was almost always respectable. That made him an institution in the Valley of the
Is the NBA inching toward parity? Or slowly sinking into mediocrity? Those may seem like strange questions during a season in which the Golden State Warriors have imposed their dominance over the rest of the league in unprecedented fashion. Yes, at 22-0 the Warriors have obliterated the best start in NBA history and have looked downright unbeatable while the clock was ticking during a vast majority of those 22 games. In that sense, they present a very strong argument against the notion
After winning the MVP last season and leading his Golden State Warriors to an NBA championship, Stephen Curry has been even better over the first quarter of this 2015-2016 season. Like a lot better, to the point where his offensive wizardry and shot-making mastery has become unfair to opposing defenses that are seemingly rendered helpless by his abilities. The Warriors are now 22-0 after blowing past the Brooklyn Nets on Sunday night, the best start to an American professional sports season after
We’re a quarter of the way through the regular season and the NBA landscape has shifted dramatically. Kobe Bryant is retiring after this season and wants to be remembered as a “talented overachiever” when it’s all said and done. Meanwhile, Bryant’s Los Angeles Lakers (3-15) trail only the Philadelphia 76ers (1-19) for the league’s worst record. With every loss, the Lakers grow closer to keeping their top-three protected draft pick and potentially land top prospect Ben Simmons. On the flip side, the Golden
On Tuesday night, Kobe Bryant played his final game before his hometown crowd in Philadelphia. A rare sellout crowd at the Wells Fargo Center got everything it could’ve hoped for: a flurry of early threes from Bryant that touched off off a hard-fought game and ended in a standing ovation and a rare 76ers victory. The Philadelphia faithful – who had booed Bryant in many past visits – continued to chant “Ko-Be!” after the final buzzer sounded, praising him for a
The troubling part of Kobe Bryant’s descent into mediocrity – to be kind and properly deferential – is that the more gullible among us shared his vision of himself. Yes, we were aware of Achilles, knee and shoulder injuries that caused him to miss 123 of 164 games the last two years. But this is basketball’s version of the bionic man. Some of us believed what Lakers coach Byron Scott said after Bryant’s right rotator cuff injury in January. “I think the