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.]
The Other Stuff
Bad, bad news out of Boston. Paul Pierce is out of action with both the flu and a thumb injury. He’s officially day-to-day, but the way they are talking about it makes me think that there could be more to it than that. In the short term the team is okay without Pierce, but over the long term they would be absolutely cooked without him. He’s their most valuable player right now, and an already fragile team would be all but hopeless if he’s not playing and healthy down the stretch and into the playoffs.
The Wizards have absolutely no luck at all. They get Josh Howard from Dallas, and he promptly tore his ACL and ended his season. That leaves the Wizards with just 10 active players on the roster, but that hardly matters – the team was already a lost cause. The issue for a team trying to rebuild, though, is that this injury along with the stories about his attitude and behavior in Dallas will significantly erode any market value he has, and limit the options Washington has. Just what they need.
First Tomlinson, and now Westbrook. It sure doesn’t take long for a top level running back and playmaker to wear out his welcome with a team. If you missed it, the Eagles cut loose Brian Westbrook today rather than pay him the $7.5 million he is due next year. He and Tomlinson are now both 30 and are coming off of lousy years. It will be very interesting to see where the two of them land, and what kind of a resurgence they can have in their careers in new settings. It’s a risk, but I wouldn’t look down on any team that took either of them – though I would take Tomlinson first.
