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AC TITTICOCK'S WEEKLY FREE NBA BASKETBALL PICKS AND WINNERS
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AC's Wagercom 2008-2009 NBA Picks Season Record
Wins: 104 Losses: 81 Ties: 0
NBA Picks Winning Percentage: 56%
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AC's outlook on the NBA is an entertaining original column featured here at Wagercom. If you are prone to NBA betting or even just an NBA fan, make sure you come back often to read his articles and free NBA Basketball picks against the spread. AC will be providing us with a weekly outlook during the basketball season including free NBA Basketball picks on some of the weekend games each Friday and Saturday.
Our NBA expert AC has had 6 consecutive winning seasons picking NBA games against the spread making you money including the VIG. AC does this out of the kindness of his heart and for the naked pictures of your girlfriends you send him as a token of your appreciation. So enjoy the columns and the picks..
AC'S NBA 2008-2009 NBA FREE PICKS WEEK 24:
With the NBA season coming to an end, it is time for AC’s annual post season awards.
MVP (The Bird Award):
In most other years Dwyane Wyane Wade and Kobe Bryant would be fighting it out for MVP with Wade having the more impressive numbers but Kobe being on the better team. However, this is not most other years as LeDong James not only has better numbers than Wade but is on a better team than Kobe. LeDong is averaging 28 points, 8 rebounds, 7 assists, and 2 steals per game while shooting 49% from the floor, 78% from the line, and leading his team to 63 wins with four games left to go.
His season has been more dominant than Eddy Murphy’s Hollywood movie run in the 1980’s, more prolific than Philip Roth’s recent book per year output, and more impressive than Kim Kardashian’s well maintained buttocks. The only thing it can possibly compare to is Nipsey Russell’s run on the game show circuit in the 1970s where he owned The Match Game, Password, Hollywood Squares, and The Pyramid in a way that made even Peter Tamarkin and his whammies jealous.
The most impressive thing is that LeDong is doing this without a true number two player. Sure Mo Williams is a nice add on, but he will never be confused for Scottie Pippen, Kevin McHale, or James Worthy. Cleveland has a ton of nice role players who perform their tasks as well as can be expected, but all they basically have to do is not screw up and King James will lead them to victory.
As always, this is LeDong’s world and we’re just living in it.
Least Valuable Player (The Mokeski):
This is among the toughest awards to give out as the competition was intense. Allen Iverson threw his name into contest by dismantling the team chemistry of the Detroit Pistons, refusing to come off the bench, and then quitting on his team under the guise of a back injury. The Pistons will likely finish with the 7th or 8th seed, a far cry from the pre-AI days. Eddy Curry was also, as always, in contention but there were no expectations for him this year since the Knicks have pretty much come to the conclusion that he is as valuable to them as a soccer ball is to Ron Santo (and yes that joke makes me a bad person but I do 100% support Ron Santo for the Hall of Fame. It is a disgrace he is not in the baseball HOF like it is a disgrace that Dennis Johnson is not in the basketball HOF, but I digress). The final runner up is Gilbert Arenas who since signing a huge contract has played in fewer NBA games than the number of sentences with the correct English syntax used in the average rap song (and I know me belittling rappers for their syntax is a bit like Manny Ramirez calling someone flaky, but it is what it is).
However, the winner of this year’s Mokeski award is none other than the LA Clippers’ Baron Davis. Davis signed a 5 year $65MM contract before this year and since then he has led the Clippers to the third worst record in the NBA while missing a little over a quarter of the season. When he was healthy, calling him disinterested on the court would have been like calling Vern Troyer a little short or Paris Hilton a little vapid. He shot 38% from the floor while averaging 15 points and 5 yawns per game. Davis was truly awful this year but the Clippers only have him for 4 more years at $15MM a pop, so a great signing by Mike Dunleavy.
Most Improved Player (The Michael Redd Award):
The contenders are Devin Harris who has taken advantage of increased playing time, Thaddeus Young who makes up for his likely league leading shot to assist ratio by shooting 50% from the floor, and Jameer Nelson whose improved floor leadership propelled the Magic into the upper echelon of teams. Also Danny Granger has seen his scoring go up by 6 points per game for the 4th consecutive year and has catapulted himself into one of the top 10 scorers and one of the top 20 players in the league. Anyone of these guys could have won the vaunted Michael Redd award in a normal year (even Glen Davis who has stepped in admirably in Kevin Garnett’s absence) but this was not a normal year. One player clearly stood out as most improved and that is Kevin Durant.
Before he injured himself, Durant put together a three month stretch where he averaged 27 points, 7.5 rebounds, 3.5 assists, and 1.5 steal per game while shooting 50% from the floor and 87% from the line. Those are MVP type numbers. He is not only rebounding more, but his shooting percentage is up from 43% to 47% from last year and his 3 point shooting percentage went from 29% to 42%. Think about that for a second, he is shooting 42% from 3 point land on the year and most importantly, he has let the game come to him. The scary thing is I fully expect him to improve on these numbers next year and lead the NBA in scoring at 33 points per game.
Least Improved Player (The Kedrick Brown Award):
To be honest, there aren’t very many players up for this award. I guess Shelden Williams is but he was considered to be a bust before the season started and while this award may be renamed after Gerald “The Scarecrow” Green, even MVP voters gave Michael Jordan a break one year and voted for Karl Malone. So given that we are putting Green on hiatus this year, the winner can only be Yi Dingaling of the New Jersey Nets.
Dingling put up exactly the same averages as last year by scoring 9 points, grabbing 5.5 rebounds, and dishing out 1 assist per game. However this year his lowly 42% shooting percentage actually fell to a Baron Davis-esque 39%. Even his free throw percentage dropped from 84% to 78%. In short, there was not one part of his game that improved in his second year which is the year in which most players make a big leap and that is the definition of the least improved player.
Rookie of the Year (the Jordan):
This is the hardest award of the year to give away since there were so many good rookies. In fact, I am going to go on record as calling this the deepest rookie class ever (that’s right, I said ever). Twelve rookies averaged at least 10 points per game and that doesn’t include Anthony Morrow at 9.6 and coming on strong, Greg Oden at 8.8, Courtney Lee who starts for the Magic, and Marreese Speights who if given the minutes easily would have surpassed 10ppg. There are at least 24 rookies this year who will average over 10ppg eventually in the NBA, in fact there may even be 30.
The stand-outs of this deep class are Derrick Rose, Kevin Love, Russell Westbrook, Brook Lopez, OJ Mayo, Eric Gordon, and Michael Beasley. It’s really hard to choose among them since they all did so many things well. In the end, I am going to have to go with Rose just because he had to deal with the most expectations and he firmly lived up to them. Plus he has the Bulls in the playoffs and if you think that team was going to the playoffs with Kirk Hinrich, then I have a bridge I can sell you.
Worst Highly Drafted Rookie (The Chris Washburn Award):
In a draft where even Chris Wallace was able to take a future star, the Milwaukee Bucks distinguished themselves by wasting the 8th pick on potential bust Joe Alexander who was outplayed all season long by their second round pick Luc Mbah a Moute. I called Alexander the Mike Mamula of the draft on draft night and he did nothing to disprove that moniker. He is averaging fewer than 5 points, 2 rebounds, and 1 assist per game. Really just embarrassing stuff considering the Bucks could have had Brook Lopez, Anthony Randolph, DJ Augustin, and on and on and on. The Bucks swinging and missing with the 8th pick in a draft as deep as the 2008 NBA draft is like going to a whorehouse in Thailand with $10k, not wearing protection, and leaving three days later venereal disease free.
Best Coach (The Auerbach):
There really is only one choice for this and that is Mike Brown of the Cavs. Brown has the role players buying into their roles and has LeDong buying into the role players. That there has been no tension is a testament to Brown’s coaching ability and the Brown coached Cleveland lock down defense is why they are going to win the title. If you win 65 games, you get this award.
Worst Coach (The Isiah Award):
I don’t care if the Bulls make the playoffs, Vinny Del Negro is not an NBA coach. Whether it’s his poor play calling, his poor substitution patterns, or his 1970’s porn hairdo, he’s just not cut out for this job. If it weren’t for Derrick Rose, the Bulls would be in the draft lottery once again. Just wait for the playoffs and you will see what I mean. The Bulls are going to get swept in the first round because they will be playing against their opponents and their coach.
Best GM/President (The Auerbach II):
Given that there were few moves made in the NBA this year, there wasn’t a lot of competition for this award. Daryl Morey did a nice job in Houston by getting enough players to make up for the inevitable Tracy McGrady injury and Gregg Popovich did a decent job uncovering Roger Mason Jr.. The best GM though goes to whoever is running the Denver Nuggets and traded AI for Chauncey Billups. Seriously, look at Denver’s roster, it is putrid, really, it is. Billups came in and somehow righted the Nuggets’ ship after they were too cheap to keep Marcus Camby. To be honest, I have no idea who the GM of the Nuggets actually is. I just spent five minutes googling it and the best I came up with is some guy named Mark Warkentien as VP of Basketball Operations and Rex Chapman as VP of Player Personnel. Since I refuse to believe Rex Chapman pulled off that move, this award goes to Mark Warkentien whose last name coincidentally enough is an anagram of “take winner” which is exactly what he did by shipping AI for Chauncey Billups. Oh yeah, the Chris Anderson signing was a nifty little move by the Denver front office as well.
Worst GM/President (The Chris Wallace):
The winner of this award destroyed all of the competition by putting together a team featuring Baron Davis (for 5 years and $65MM no less), Marcus Camby (when they already had Chris Kaman), Zach “two times anal” Randolph (when they already had Chris Kaman and Marcus Camby), and Ricky “sticy icky smoke ‘em if you’ve got ‘em” Davis. Mike Dunleavy did such a bad job putting this team together that even Chris Wallace thinks he sucks. He was so bad that the engineer of the Hindenburg and the doctor who performed the plastic surgery on Bruce Jenner’s face did better jobs. Seriously, signing Baron Davis to a long term contract was a more obvious bad move than picking Ted McGinley to fill in on your TV show (and I could go on with these analogies all night). This roster is just unconscionable. Let me repeat again just for posterity: Baron Davis, Zach Randolph, Chris Kaman, Marcus Camby, and Ricky Davis. Congratulations Mike Dunleavy for temporarily taking this award away from its true owner Chris Wallace, I never thought I’d see the day that would happen.
FRIDAY NIGHT FREE NBA PICKS
Cleveland -7 at Philadelphia:
The loss of Thaddeus Young has really been hard on the Sixers (and yes I said hard on, heeheehee). They are 5-5 in their last 10 games and have lost 3 in a row. Promoting Reggie Evans to the starting line-up just does not work for this team much in the same way that Elton Brand did not work. The Sixers need to run and out-athlete™ opponents. Evans slows them down, plus they lose Young’s 20 points a game which he was averaging in March. I like the way the Sixers team plays but with Reggie Evans starting, they are a bunch of phonies. While the Cavs have dropped their last two on the road, that streak ends tonight. LeDong wants to wrap-up home court for the playoffs and with Boston in Cleveland on Sunday, this is a game the Cavs would like to win. Take the Cavs and give the seven points even if it feels like about 3 points too much.
Miami at Boston over 190:
While I would like to tease this with Boston -6, I would also like to bone Brooklyn Decker but we can’t always do what we please (actually, there is no reason I can’t tease this with the Boston -6, so scratch that last thought). For those of you keeping score at home, the Celtics defense is strongly marginal without KG. Since Boston is going to break 100 tonight, Miami just needs to score 89 and since Dwyane Wyane Wade is good for 32, that means the rest of the Heat only need to score 56 points for the over. That is as achievable as getting passing grades at FSU when you are on athletic scholarship. Take the over and watch Rondo run, run, run.
New Orleans +7 at Dallas:
The Whorenets are limping into the post season like Heather Mills limped into Paul McCartney’s wallet. They have dropped 3 of 4 and are anxiously awaiting the returns of James Posey and Tyson Chandler (who may or may not play tonight). Most importantly though, Dallas just clinched a playoff spot so they may take this game lightly as they breath a huge sigh of relief. Oh yeah, one more important factor, Dallas sucks. Take the Whorenets and the points as you always take a touchdown when you have Chris Paul on your side.
LA Lakers -1 at Portland:
I debated this for a long time with NY +11 at Orlando but I’d rather rely on Kobe giving an ass reaming than Eddy Curry avoiding an ass reaming. Take LA and enjoy the return of Andrew Bynum. Perhaps Bynum and Oden can swap injured knee stories. Speaking of which, what are the odds that both Bynum and Oden hurt their knees on the same play tonight? It’s got be lower than 25:1, right?
SATURDAY NIGHT FREE NBA PICKS
Phoenix at Minnesota Under 223.5:
This line has already moved down 5 points since it opened but AC is still taking the under. The Terriblewolves™ simply are not very good offensively. While we all know that Phoenix plays as if defense will give them herpes, and just any herpes but terminal penis herpes, it doesn’t change the fact that Minnesota is offensively challenged to put it nicely. As always, with a 223 point line it only takes one bad quarter to hit the under and this game should feature at least 3 bad quarters. So take the under and watch Kevin Love grab 20 boards tonight.
Charlotte +9.5 at Chicago:
Ummm, really? Just because Charlotte was officially eliminated from the playoffs the oddsmakers are assuming they are not going to even show up. What the odds makers forgot is that the Bulls officially clinched a playoff spot so they may be in the midst of a celebratory and groupie induced hangover. Either way, I refuse to believe any NBA team is 9.5 points worse than Vinny Del Negro’s Bulls so we’ll take the points and pretend Charlotte will play with some pride.
Golden Shower State +16 at Utah:
The Warriors have been playing better of late, mainly in that they aren’t getting blown out. Anthony Morrow has been quietly and efficiently lighting it up as the starting two guard and Anthony Randolph is finally finding the court. While Utah has lost 5 of their last 6, Golden Shower State at home is the perfect way to break out of a slump. Still, 16 points is 3 too many to give. Take the Warriors and hope they have enough healthy players to keep pace.
Portland -5 at LA Clippers:
The blazers just beat the Lakers last night so either they are tired and will overlook the Clippers or they are just fucking good and hungry for another win. I’ll go with just fucking good here as Nate McMillan teams don’t tend to take nights off and the Blazers are still fighting for seeding and home court in round one of the playoffs. As for the Clippers, I believe it’s time for them to just roll over and die but that also means more shots for Eric Gordon so some good should come out of it. Take the Blazers, lay the points, and enjoy the strippers later tonight.
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