CLEVELAND (AP) -Byron Scott has accepted Cleveland's coaching job, his agent told The Associated Press.
Brian McInerney said in an e-mail that the sides are working through some final details, but that Scott has agreed to become Cleveland's next coach - with or without free agent LeBron James. The team is expected to announce Scott's hiring later on Thursday, just as James hits the market and begins hearing offers from other teams.
Scott previously coached in New Jersey and New Orleans. The 49-year-old won three NBA titles as a player and took the Nets to two finals as a coach.
The Cavs have been looking for a coach since Mike Brown was fired on May 24, ending a five-year run with the club.Copyright © 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
<< Now a free agent, King James awaits his suitors
NEW YORK (AP) -Finally free to leave Cleveland, LeBron James is ready to hear reasons why he should.The NBA's long-awaited free agency period opened early Thursday, with teams such as New York and Miami focusing their attention on California.Now all
<< LeBron heads huge free-agent crop
Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The NBA's biggest crop of free agents hit
the open market Thursday morning with LeBron James, Chris Bosh, Dwyane Wade,
Dirk Nowitzki, Amar'e Stoudemire and Joe Johnson headlining the wish list of
several
<< Guerrero burns former team as Rangers top Angels
Anaheim, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Vladimir Guerrero continued to torment his old
team, going 4-for-4 with two homers and five RBI, as the Texas Rangers evened
this three-game set with a 6-4 win over the rival Angels.
Guerrero, who spent the
<< Rockets make pitch to free agent Bosh
HOUSTON (AP) -Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey sure knows how to make a first impression.Morey met with coveted free agent Chris Bosh just after midnight Thursday, making a pitch to an available player at the exact moment free agency open
<< Cavs close to hiring Scott as head coach
Cleveland, OH (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Cleveland Cavaliers are reportedly close
to hiring Byron Scott as their next head coach.
Several media sources report the Cavs were in negotiations with Scott, who
started last season as head coac
Report: Bucks reach deal with Gooden >>
Sunnyvale, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Milwaukee Bucks have reportedly reached
an agreement on a multi-year contract with forward Drew Gooden, just hours
after the NBA free agency period began.
According to Yahoo! Sports, Gooden has
Ex-NHLer Hinote joins Blue Jackets staff >>
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -Former NHL veteran Dan Hinote (HIGH'-note) has been hired as an assistant coach by the Columbus Blue Jackets.The club announced the hiring on Thursday. Hinote helped the Colorado Avalanche win the 2001 Stanley Cup.Hinote will be
Zvonareva reaches Wimbledon final >>
Wimbledon, England (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Russian Vera Zvonareva landed in her
first career Grand Slam final on Thursday by overcoming upstart Bulgarian
Tsvetana Pironkova in semifinal action at Wimbledon 2010.
The 21st-seeded Zvonareva's oppon
Jays, Marcum hope to avoid brooms in Cleveland >>
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Blue Jays were left without an ace when they traded Roy
Halladay this past offseason, but Shaun Marcum has wasted little time claiming
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Marcum will try to prevent his Toronto squad from getting s
Yanks, Sabathia aim to avoid sweep at hands of Mariners >>
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Red-hot Yankees ace CC Sabathia puts his five-start winning
streak and unblemished home record on the line this afternoon against the
Seattle Mariners in the finale of a three-game series from the Bronx.
Sabathia has pitch
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.
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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