DeShawn Stevenson is bad at gambling

About a year ago, Gilbert Arenas bet DeShawn Stevenson $20,000 that he could make more one handed college three pointers out of 100 than Stevenson could make two handed three pointers. The video made it up on Youtube and it became somewhat of a national story. I know from experience if someone wants to make a bizarre bet like that (say, if they say they can beat you at pool with an axe handle that happens to be sitting by the pool table), you're not winning the bet. Naturally Arenas took Stevenson's money, despite making over ten times as much this season.

Stevenson's sucker bet this year involves a beard growing contest with Drew Gooden. Gooden is five inches bigger and has a history of mixing up his hair going back to Kansas, most notably with his Hare Krishna like patch from last season. It looks like Stevenson has a long way to go, because Gooden already looks like a black Santa.

Sunday Bloody Sunday Night Football

In NBC's handpicked Sunday Night Game this week, the Patriots are a shocking 23 1/2 point favorite over the McNabb-less Eagles, the largest in the NFL since 1976 and the largest in the history of the NFL in a game not involving an expansion team. New England is 9-1 against the spread this year, barely failing to cover a 5 1/2 point spread against the Colts. The fact that the Patriots run up the score is the reason for the huge number.

"Nowadays, you don't see too many spreads over 16 or 17 points," said Sean Van Patten, an oddsmaker at Sports Consultants in Las Vegas. "That's because most teams take their starters out in the fourth quarter of a lopsided game. The Patriots don't. I call this phenomenon The [Bill] Belichick Factor."

The Eagles are 5-5 and have won 3 out of 4. Bill Belichick probably doesn't hate them and might respect Andy Reid, but you never know. Imagine when the Patriots play the 2-8 Jets, who touched off this scorched earth offense with Spygate, at home. A 40 point spread is absolutely unheard of in the NFL, but it's not out of the question. Or the 0-10 Dolphins, whose ex-players and coaches have been making their typical inane comments about how great they were?

I just can't believe that NBC is choosing to air these mismatches. They've got to be losing at least 80% of their audience at halftime, at least based on the people I've talked to, and they're people who don't tend to give up on an NFL game. If you look at Sunday's slate, the three games featuring two playoff contenders are Buffalo at Jacksonville (-7.5), Houston at Cleveland (-3.5), and Washington at Tampa Bay (-3). Philadelphia at New England also is a matchup between playoff contenders, but it's obviously more of a mismatch. The problem is the the NFL has become a purely quarterback driven league, and the only games that get any play are the ones with marquee quarterbacks. So this is what we get in primetime.

New England/Indy is Sunday's worst game

I was looking at the lines for Sunday's games when I came to the realization that New England vs. Indianapolis had the second biggest line at +6, after San Diego/Minnesota's +8 (both games feature big home underdogs). Pats/Colts feature the game's two best quarterbacks, Bolts/Vikes feature the game's two best running backs. Which one of those games will be the most lopsided is yet to be decided, but how about some love for the best 1 o'clock slate of games in NFL history?

There are six games slated for Sunday between teams separated by three spots or less on my power rankings; four of those games have 1 o'clock kickoffs. I agonized over my picks for Broncos/Lions and Packers/Chiefs. Even the games at the bottom of the standings should come down to the fourth quarter - there's no way 49ers/Falcons won't be up for grabs with two minutes left. Bill/Bengals has a 1 point spread. All I'm saying is don't sleep on the early games Sunday.

How big of a dropoff after the big 3?

One thing I hate about the NBA is the extreme unlikelihood of a team coming out of nowhere to win a championship. The Golden State Warriors won a series last year and were won of the biggest Cinderella stories in NBA history. So how unlikely is it for a team outside of the big three (Spurs, Mavericks, and Suns) to take home the hardware this year? Bodoglife.com (they've had issues with their domain name) lists the Spurs as the favorite to win it all at 7:2, the Mavs and surprisingly the Celtics at 4:1, the Suns at 9:2, the Rockets at 5:1, and the Bulls at 9:1. The Nuggets at 20:1 and the Pistons at 15:1 look somewhat attractive, but I'd take Dallas and Phoenix against the field if I had to bet on NBA futures. Defending champs are always overrated, and I'm confident it will come down to one of those three teams. If you take the two with the longer odds I think you're getting 60% odds at a better than 2:1 payout.

I find it pretty surprising that the Rockets and Celtics are in the rare air. I started this entry assuming there'd be a dropoff either after the Suns or Pistons, but Detroit shares the same line with Miami and Cleveland, and there's barely any dropoff after Phoenix. KG is still an elite player, but I don't see how his addition, when you traded half your roster, is enough to go from 24 wins to elite status. And I don't see how Ray Allen is that big of an improvement when he's the clear number three option on offense.