Clippers finish road trip in Dallas

Basketball Betting Lines

02/13/2012 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Los Angeles Clippers hope to tie a bow on a successful road trip by securing their first win in over five years in North Texas when they take on the reigning NBA champion Mavericks.

The Clips have lost nine straight in Big D, last tasting victory there on April 19, 2006.

But this is a much different Clippers team, one that improved to an impressive 4-1 on their current Grammy Road Trip trip in Charlotte on Saturday. Blake Griffin scored 21 points and pulled down 10 rebounds in that one as Los Angeles dominated the hapless Bobcats, 111-86, at Time Warner Cable Arena.

Each of Griffin's fellow starters also scored in double figures, with Chris Paul netting 18 points and 14 assists, Caron Butler picking up 16 points, Randy Foye adding 12, and DeAndre Jordan finishing with 11 points and 12 boards.

"I thought we got some easy plays, especially with our defense, which was good," Clippers head coach Vinny Del Negro said.

The Mavs, meanwhile, won their third straight on Saturday by opening up a three-game homestand with a 97-94 double overtime win over Portland. Delonte West scored six of his 10 points in the second extra frame to fuel the Mavericks in that one.

"The coaches have shown a lot of trust in me, putting me in in tense situations like that," said West.

Dirk Nowitzki scored a team-high 20 points for the Mavericks, who led by as many as 14 points in the third quarter before allowing Portland to claw its way back into the game. Jason Terry added 19 points off the bench as Dallas improved to 10-5 on its home floor.

"We're used to close ball games and being a veteran team doing what we have to do to get the win," Terry told the Mavericks' website. "You would have liked to have seen us kind of close things out [better], but it didn't happen."

The Clippers already snapped an overall 10-game skid against the Mavs with a 91-89 win in LA back on Jan. 18 when Chauncey Billups hit his first "Big Shot" for the Clips, draining a go-ahead three-pointer with one second left in regulation.

Billups, however, has since been lost for the season with a torn left Achilles.

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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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