PHOENIX SUNS

Heim

EOG Master
I'm amazed you can still get +1350 for them to come out of the West.

The site Cleaning The Glass has them as 2nd best team in NBA.

Their odds have remained constant from +1650 to +1350.

Market for some reason not very bullish on their chances.
 

choslamshe

EOG Master
As good as they've played this irrelevant regular season, CP3 has shown he can't step it up when games become relevant. I look up and down their roster and don't see their role players being the next Miami Heat. Won't surprise me to see them bounced early.
 

choslamshe

EOG Master
Also, with the new NBA of 32 minutes being a full workload, I think Ayton will be a huge risk on the floor if he's asked to play 35+ minutes.

Saric/Kaminsky going to be key front court cogs? I'll pass.
 
Long time Suns fan here and I think +1350 is not enough. This is their learning year, how to handle the expectations for what's really a young team plus CP3. Monty has been a home run hire. Booker continues to produce even though the NBA screws him over almost nightly. The guys they drafted in recent years finally handled the modest roles they have been asked to do. It's all good from here, bit I also know they don't have another gear to hit which you know all the top teams do. I think this is a huge off-season to see if they can bring in one more asset, preferably a productive guy at the 3. That plus Ayton needs to get his ass kicked a bit and come back an angry man next season. He takes way too many fadeaways and far too few times does he just go LeBron style hard to the hole and dare refs to whistle him. He can be a very bad man dominating inside in a league where few have an answer to that. Once teams decide they have to stop him the offense will open up wide and they can legitimately take their title shot.
 
Long time Suns fan here and I think +1350 is not enough. This is their learning year, how to handle the expectations for what's really a young team plus CP3. Monty has been a home run hire. Booker continues to produce even though the NBA screws him over almost nightly. The guys they drafted in recent years finally handled the modest roles they have been asked to do. It's all good from here, bit I also know they don't have another gear to hit which you know all the top teams do. I think this is a huge off-season to see if they can bring in one more asset, preferably a productive guy at the 3. That plus Ayton needs to get his ass kicked a bit and come back an angry man next season. He takes way too many fadeaways and far too few times does he just go LeBron style hard to the hole and dare refs to whistle him. He can be a very bad man dominating inside in a league where few have an answer to that. Once teams decide they have to stop him the offense will open up wide and they can legitimately take their title shot.
I used to be a die hard long time Suns fan until David Stern robbed them of a title with the bogus Amare suspension against the Spurs in the Western Conference finals.

I gave up on the NBA after that as it was my final confirmation it was a rigged league with rigged outcomes
 
I used to be a die hard long time Suns fan until David Stern robbed them of a title with the bogus Amare suspension against the Spurs in the Western Conference finals.

I gave up on the NBA after that as it was my final confirmation it was a rigged league with rigged outcomes

I know and since then I haven't spent much going to games or even watching games on TV. Thing is not being as big a fan and you can see the teams and the game for what they are. I agree it's hard to imagine the NBA letting LBJ lose, but they already gave them one title so one can only hope they tone it down. I mean what mickey mouse league let's a team send an open letter complaining they don't get enough calls and then rewards them? Any player from another team complains after a game and they get hit with a fine. Or in Booker's case bounce pass a ball to the ref and get ejected. It's comical what the Lakers get away with.
 

MrTop

EOG Master
NBA is no different than WWE

As long as LBJ can step on the court refs will put Lebron into the finals



Lebron sells tix and tv...Lebron like Brady......50% bet on him.... 50% bet against him ....Just like MJ... nothing better than building the top star up.
 

John Kelly

Born Gambler
Staff member
Scala did not impress me.

He fell for Donaghy's story.

"Tim is a flawed character but he cooperated and what he told us was true," said Scala.

Hmmm...
 

John Kelly

Born Gambler
Staff member
Interesting story about David Stern's $7.4 billion rights deal with ESPN and Turner Sports five days after the NBA was informed about the Donaghy gambling scandal and about three weeks before The New York Post broke the story.

Stern obviously had incentive to make a quick deal with ESPN and Turner Sports.
 

John Kelly

Born Gambler
Staff member
Donaghy ratted out a lot of NBA refs who were betting on sports, according to Scala.

However, Scala did not say the other refs were betting on basketball.
 

John Kelly

Born Gambler
Staff member
Scala detailed the ways in which David Stern stonewalled the investigation and silenced the NBA community.
 

John Kelly

Born Gambler
Staff member
Stern's cunning saved the league and saved his legacy.

Good line by podcast host Tim Livingston.
 
Bit of hyperbole there. Donaghy was just greedy. Some could say he had a vendetta against certain teams but I think he just was out to make a buck where convenient and easy. Easier to call fouls against certain guys or feel more comfortable giving a few extra free throws to certain players knowing they would make them. If not greedy and more self aware of how such things would look he could have done this for years and years. If he and his backers would settle for making a bet 60% likely to win instead of 80% they could have made a fortune over time and the books and NBA would have little to suspect. As with all cheaters they get greedy and full of hubris and it eventually ends. As one guy said it well on a show a bank robber who hits one bank a year may never get caught but bank robbers never can help themselves and almost always get caught by leaving a pattern.
 

John Kelly

Born Gambler
Staff member
Bit of hyperbole there. Donaghy was just greedy. Some could say he had a vendetta against certain teams but I think he just was out to make a buck where convenient and easy. Easier to call fouls against certain guys or feel more comfortable giving a few extra free throws to certain players knowing they would make them. If not greedy and more self aware of how such things would look he could have done this for years and years. If he and his backers would settle for making a bet 60% likely to win instead of 80% they could have made a fortune over time and the books and NBA would have little to suspect. As with all cheaters they get greedy and full of hubris and it eventually ends. As one guy said it well on a show a bank robber who hits one bank a year may never get caught but bank robbers never can help themselves and almost always get caught by leaving a pattern.


Greed and gambling is a lethal combination.

Donaghy was making over $200,000 a year as an NBA ref.

Dumb dumb dumb.
 

John Kelly

Born Gambler
Staff member
I always felt Tim Donaghy lost money betting football.

He was in deep to the wrong people.

And then those people used Donaghy's debts to manipulate the pace/outcomes of NBA games.
 
I always felt Tim Donaghy lost money betting football.

He was in deep to the wrong people.

And then those people used Donaghy's debts to manipulate the pace/outcomes of NBA games.

I'm sure that was part of it but it's also a power thing I'm sure. Person who becomes good at being a ref has some issues with control and power and those had to spill over here. Being a pro because the money and prestige is there would be how most of us would think about it, but those who are the best don't live or think that way. He got in there and realized that the NBA is a big powerful world run by the athletes and the refs are just minor cogs. By being corrupt and asserting control over something he could control, a betting outcome, he gave himself what he really wanted.
 

John Kelly

Born Gambler
Staff member
Donaghy was a true weasel once he got pinched.

He "ratted out" the entire league to save his hide.
 
Thanks for sharing, HEISENBERG.

Listening now...
Glad you listened JK.

The rushed TV negotiated deal was news to me. Cunning but totally dirty deal by Stern

Sterns leaking of the story to the press during the investigation proves to me Donaghy wasn’t a “lone gunman”

I can’t think of a more crooked leading figure in sports history more than Stern
 
Donaghy was a true weasel once he got pinched.

He "ratted out" the entire league to save his hide.
I can see his point of view though. Stern shut down any investigation into any and all possible other culprits to put it all on TD to save his own ass.
 
Glad you listened JK.

The rushed TV negotiated deal was news to me. Cunning but totally dirty deal by Stern

Sterns leaking of the story to the press during the investigation proves to me Donaghy wasn’t a “lone gunman”

I can’t think of a more crooked leading figure in sports history more than Stern

Crooked but made billions for his bosses. Sadly that's what the commissioner job is all about.
 

John Kelly

Born Gambler
Staff member
I can see his point of view though. Stern shut down any investigation into any and all possible other culprits to put it all on TD to save his own ass.


Tim Donaghy was trying to save his ass and David Stern was trying to save the league's reputation.

Stern's damage control was textbook.

Why blame Stern for protecting his bosses, especially if he felt Donaghy was a "rogue" official?

I thought Donaghy duped FBI lead investigator Philip Scala and that's where the investigation went sideways.
 
The reality is he can't be the only one out there. However I am certain the risk and likelihood of rogue refs is 100 times higher in college basketball. The NBA creates a lot of accountability in these guys and announcing rotations ahead of time adds to the accountability. Could be done on a smaller scale on an occasional basis, but more of creating an edge as opposed to a sure winner. In college hoops so easy to get away with this forever. The five fouls and you're out makes foul calls so critical, all you have to do is give a guy two questionable fouls and you have shifted the game. Plus so many games are essentially meaningless for teams, almost half the NCAA teams need to win a conference tourney to get to the dance so what does it matter if a game in mid-January isn't called 100% kosher? Problem is if this was all revealed the NCAA and the media would blame gambling companies and gamblers in general for what their refs and players did. Create a situation that makes it ripe for fixing on the margins and then complain when someone takes advantage. Hypocrisy at its best.
 

John Kelly

Born Gambler
Staff member
College basketball is ripe for a scandal.

Not only are there more officials in faraway spots, but there's far fewer eyes on the product and far less money for oversight/enforcement.

The one positive: Most people who gravitate to a life of enforcing the rules often follow the rules themselves.
 

John Kelly

Born Gambler
Staff member
I'd have to think credit scores are a big factor now in certifying an official for a high-level post.

You don't want referees/umpires in severe financial straits.
 

FairWarning

Bells Beer Connoisseur
I'd have to think credit scores are a big factor now in certifying an official for a high-level post.

You don't want referees/umpires in severe financial straits.

Credit Karma patches on the sleeves of NBA refs would be the best thing since Guaranteed Rate(and the big red downward arrow) signed with the White Sox.
 

MrTop

EOG Master
I can see his point of view though. Stern shut down any investigation into any and all possible other culprits to put it all on TD to save his own ass.




had to save the league and other sports. The lone gunman angle covers all bases. He knew when he handed over the job that sports betting would be legal one day..
 
Tim Donaghy was trying to save his ass and David Stern was trying to save the league's reputation.

Stern's damage control was textbook.

Why blame Stern for protecting his bosses, especially if he felt Donaghy was a "rogue" official?

I thought Donaghy duped FBI lead investigator Philip Scala and that's where the investigation went sideways.
The investigation went sideways by David Stern leaking the story early to the NY Post
 

GameBred

I Trade Therefore I Am
NBA is no different than WWE

As long as LBJ can step on the court refs will put Lebron into the finals

You are so fucking dumb, it truly defies credulity. Anyone, who takes anything you say seriously, is serioulsy a fucking moron.
 

GameBred

I Trade Therefore I Am
This dude is laughable, this drivel passes for NBA analysis? JFC. Tonality doesn't translate via text because I'm not even upset, it's just absurb and someone needs to say something. .
 

GameBred

I Trade Therefore I Am
NBA is no different than WWE

As long as LBJ can step on the court refs will put Lebron into the finals

This might have something to do with it.

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Now, I understand you and many posters here are way too fucking dumb to understand his brilliance but some of us don't share your ignorance. I know in your mind, that makes us 'LBJ Ball lickers," but I'd call us, "The Chosen Ones."
 
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