Lakers shoot for another season sweep of Warriors

Basketball Betting Lines

03/15/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Pacific Division foes square off for the last time this season on Monday when the defending NBA champion Los Angeles Lakers head up the California coast to take on the Golden State Warriors.

The Lakers - Warriors rivalry has been rather lopsided in recent years and LA will be shooting for a ninth straight win over Golden State tonight, and a sweep of the season series for the second straight year. Overall, the Lakers are a gaudy 24-4 in their last 28 meetings with the Warriors.

Most recently, LA took care of second place Phoenix in the desert last Friday when Kobe Bryant finished with 21 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists, as the Lakers earned a 102-96 victory over the Suns.

Andrew Bynum had 18 points and nine boards for the Lakers, who have won two in a row after losing a season-high three straight. Pau Gasol, Ron Artest and Derek Fisher each scored 15 points in the victory as Los Angeles took the season series with its Pacific Division rival, 3-1.

"We just took what they gave us," Bryant said. "Shot distribution was pretty good. I think all in all we attacked wherever they put two guys. Wherever they doubled we did a good job spacing out, making shots, shot the three-ball pretty well. That opened the game up for us."

The Warriors, meanwhile, are coming off a rare win on Saturday after rookie star Stephen Curry finished with 35 points and Monta Ellis added 31 to help Golden State end a six-game slide with a 124-112 win over the Toronto Raptors.

Curry, who was one point off his career high, added 10 assists and six rebounds, while Ellis was playing in his second contest since a six-game absence. They sank five three-pointers apiece to lead Golden State's potent long-distance attack, as the Warriors finished 16-of-27 from beyond the arc overall.

"Oh, it's great to see," Warriors head coach Don Nelson said of Curry and Ellis. "They've played some really good games together and of course they've played some not-so-good games together. It's great to see when they share the ball and take care of each other when they're open."

Corey Maggette added 20 points in the victory, which got Nelson closer to Lenny Wilkens' all-time record for coaching wins. In his 31st season as an NBA head coach, Nelson now has 1,327 wins and is six away from breaking Wilkens' record of 1,332.

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FOOTBALL BETTING : Crabtree's base deal: six years, $32 million

Football Betting

In the wake of the news that the 49ers have signed receiver Michael Crabtree after an extended holdout, there has been not a hint of the dollars to be paid to Crabtree.

And since this means that his agent hasn't leaked the numbers, it means that his agent feels no specific motivation to do so.

Possibly because his agent isn't all that thrilled to have his name on the deal.

So the numbers will come from sources other than Crabtree's agent. And we've gotten our mitts into them.

Per a league source, Crabtree has signed a six-year, $32 million contract. (The total includes guaranteed money, base salaries, and the one-time incentive based on achieving minimum playing time.)

The deal also includes $17 million in guaranteed money.

As reported elsewhere, the deal can void to five years based on performance triggers, wiping out a final year base salary of $4 million. But they won't be easily reached.

The source tells us that, in his first four seasons (including 2009), Crabtree must either qualify for two Pro Bowls, or he must qualify for one Pro Bowl in one year and he must participate in 80 percent of the offensive snaps in a separate year in which the team makes the playoffs.

In other words, if in 2010 he qualifies for the Pro Bowl and the team makes the playoffs and he participates in 80 percent of the snaps, he'll still need to make it to the Pro Bowl or achieve the 80-percent/playoffs in another season.

Since the chances of Crabtree making the Pro Bowl or participating in 80 percent of the offensive snaps this year is roughly zero percent, he'll have three years to get it done.

And it won't be easy. Frankly, he'll be hard pressed to make it to one Pro Bowl in three years with the likes of Larry Fitzgerald, Calvin Johnson, Anquan Boldin, Steve Smith, the other Steve Smith, Hakeem Nicks, DeSean Jackson, Johnny Knox, Percy Harvin, Greg Jennings, Roddy White, T.J. Houshmandzadeh in the same conference for sportsbook betting.

So, by all appearances, it's a six-year deal. And at $17 million in guaranteed money, the per-year guarantee is a tepid $2.83 million per year.

There's another problem with the deal -- it has no mid-tier incentive package. Instead, the additional $8 million that Crabtree can earn (pushing the max value to six years, $40 million) requires the kind of unrealistic, mega-star performances that no rookie is likely to ever achieve.

So while the contract paid to Packers defensive tackle B.J. Raji covers five years and pays $22.5 million, he has the ability (if he's a solid player) to make up the difference between his base deal and Crabtree's five-year, $28 million haul via the mid-tier incentive package in Raji's deal.

And unless Crabtree meets the performance thresholds necessary to void the sixth year, he'll be stuck under contract for another year at a base salary of only $4 million.

There's one other area of concern with the deal. Crabtree, per the source, received no option bonus. Instead, he has significant money tied to a fairly new device known as a "discretionary salary advance," which unlike an opition bonus is subject to forfeiture if Crabtree decides in a year or two that he wants to hold out for a better deal. (We're also told that the 49ers have included language that would make certain escalators subject to forfeiture, too.)

Meanwhile, the deal falls well short of the mark for which Crabtree and agent Eugene Parker were aiming -- the five-year, $38.25 million contract paid by the Raiders to receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey, the seventh overall pick in the draft.

Even if Crabtree successfully voids the final year, he'll make more than $2 million per year less on average than Heyward-Bey.

Thus, as we explained earlier in the day, this is a deal that Crabtree could have done in July, which would have given him a much better chance of making a contribution to the 49ers during his rookie year.

So while the final outcome can be described as win-win, the broader view suggests that it's really a lose-lose situation.

NFL Betting Lines

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