Maddux Sports Blog

What the hell is going on with the Clippers? Just over a month after they relieved Mike Dunleavy of his coaching duties and mad him a full-time GM they have now removed him from that position as well. The reason they gave us that they are tired of losing as they have throughout the Dunleavy era, and that they want to win now. First, I don’t actually believe that the Clippers are determined to win because nothing they have done in the last decade has made us believe that that is the case. Second, how is getting rid of Dunleavy now going to do anything to help them win now? What will help them win is getting Blake Griffin healthy, adding another nice lottery pick this year to play with him, and starting to make some decisions that aren’t moronically driven by being incredibly cheap. That cheapness hasn’t been Dunleavy’s fault – it’s the fault of the ownership. I have no problem with the moving away from Dunleavy, but I don’t understand why they felt compelled to do it in such a dramatic, distracting way.

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I’m later than normal writing this because that incredibly dull broadcast of the Oscars put me into a coma and I am just waking up. That was a lot of things tonight, but entertaining is not one of them. The Hurt Locker was a good movie, and I am glad it beat Avatar wherever it mattered, but I thought that Up in the Air was better and should have won more. Or at least it should have won something. This is the second year in a row that my favorite movie got totally shut out – I liked Frost/Nixon best last year. Oh well.

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Rough break for the Spurs tonight – pun intended. Tony Parker broke his hand, and he’s out for up to six weeks – the rest of the regular season, in other words. The Spurs aren’t exactly locked into a playoff spot – they are just one game out of eighth place in the West, and though there is a gap between them and Houston, Memphis, and New Orleans – the teams out of the playoffs – but it’s not an insurmountable lead if the Spurs don’t keep their act together. Without Parker this isn’t the same team (obviously), so this will be very interesting to watch. There’s a very good chance, though, that the public will overcompensate for this injury – at least in the short term. George Hill is a competent player who is putting up some solid numbers (11.7 ppg), and he’s more than capable of stepping up, playing more, and doing it well. The Spurs have already had to play 10 games without Parker this year thanks to various ailments, and the team is 5-5 in those games. The Spurs aren’t likely to self-destruct in the short term without Parker, so there could be value.

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1. Still giddy about that hockey game yesterday. That’s going to be the case for a long while.

2. How crazy was Canada for this game? There are 34 million people in the country. 22 million were watching when Sidney Crosby scored his goal. That’s two-thirds of the freaking country. Freaking crazy.

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Olympic Bet of the Day – Another day of coming close. I won three of the four events I played and was only let down by Canada’s women curlers. Losing at curling doesn’t make me happy, but I am happy to forgive considering my boys will be playing for gold – and kicking the crap out of the Americans – on Sunday. What a game that’s going to be, but more on that tomorrow. Today we’ll have one last shot at a big parlay. The events will be: Canada (-1.5 -150) in the men’s curling final, Slovakia +194 over Finland in regulation time in the bronze medal hockey game, Jasey Jay Anderson (-125) over Benjamin Karl in the snowboarding, and Silvan Zurbriggen (-130) over Michael Janyk in the slalom. That will pay $1460.

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Olympic Bet of the Day – If you put a bunch of monkeys in a room of typewriters you’ll get a book eventually, and if you let an idiot pick parlays long enough he’ll eventually hit a winner. With Yu-Na Kim’s dominating win of the figure skating I clinched my first parlay win of the games. That’s a profit of $562 on the day, and that decreases the loss on the games to just $80 with three days left to get positive. In an attempt to eradicate that deficit I’ll try to get lucky with a parlay again. I’ll go with: Canada (-385) over Slovakia in hockey, Norway (+160) to win the men’s biathlon relay, Canada (-191) to win the women’s curling gold medal, and U.S. (-105) to beat Finland in hockey. That will pay $874.

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Olympic Bet of the Day - You know you’re not running hot when your parlay is derailed because the best speedskater in the world forgets what lane he is supposed to be in and gets disqualified. I’ll keep throwing good money after bad and try yet again to get out ahead. I’m $542 down in this mythical pursuit of profits. Parlays aren’t treating me well, but I’m obviously not smart enough to learn from that. Today’s version will include Martina Sablikova (-525) to win the 5000m speedskating, Nina Li over Xinxin Guo in the aerials (-221) as well as Li over Alla Tsuper (-248), Norway (+119) to win the cross country men’s relay, Great Britain (-1.5 +136) to beat Sweden in curling, and Canada and Russia hockey over 5.5 (-155). That would all pay $1753.  [Update: I dropped the Norway bet because the snow conditions are a total mess. The five event parlay would now pay $842.]

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Olympic Bet of the Day - That was just a bad, bad day all-round. That’s all I’m going to say about that. Tomorrow is the quietest day of the games, and absolutely nothing of interest pops out, so the bet of the day is going to be to not make a bet. Tuesday’s a much more interesting day.

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Olympic Bet of the Day – I knew that there was a reason I don’t typically play parlays. I threw in the curling yesterday because they were the two games I felt most sure of. They were the only ones I lost. Annoying. These parlays are a lot of fun, though, so I’m going to keep trying. I pretty much have to because I have a bit of a hole to get out of – $342 – and only a week to get out of it. Here’s what I’ll be including today: Kristina Groves to win 1500m speed skating (-107), Ole Einar Bjorndalen (-265) over Michael Greis in 15km biathlon, Ivica Kostelic (-169) over Benjamin Raich in Super Combined, Russia (-145) over Czech Republic in hockey, and Canada (-188) over U.S. in hockey. That would pay a whopping $998 if it won. That would help.

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Olympic Bet of the Day - I had an easy win yesterday – I needed Finland to win by three goals, and they win by six. That means a modest profit of $83 on the day, and a loss up to this point of $242. Not great, but not bad all things considered. Today there is a lot going on, so I am going to do a big parlay to have a cheering interest in as much of it as I can. Here are the events: Sweden (-330) to beat France in men’s curling, Great Britain (-225) to beat the U.S. in women’s curling, Andrea Fischbacher (-110) to beat Fabienne Suter in Super G, Petter Northug (-205) to beat Dario Cologna in XC skiing, and Shani Davis (-400) to beat Chad Hedrick in 1500m speed skating. $100 on that will pay $568.

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