By David Rudolph
In this day and age of 140
characters and short text messaging back and forth, my blog posts will also be
short and hopefully sweet. (By sweet, I mean chalk full of information!) This
first ever blog post by me however will give you just a little background.
I'm by no means a writer, in fact my
minimal college was used to become a better poker player (Psychology and probability
courses) and my life experience was mainly in the sports betting world when I
was fresh from high school here in Las Vegas. At age 18 totally by fluke
circumstances I saw an ad for a sports service in the classified section and
here we are 21 years later, and I've never left the business. I have worked for
and next to Chuck Edel for exactly 15 years this week. I became the official NBA
handicapper in 2004 for chuck after winning a private season long handicapping
contest that year by a very large margin.
My love for the NBA has been there
my whole life and I really feel I have a good grip on the inner workings
relating to lines as I've shown by never posting a sub-500 record in any year.
I'm often asked who my favorite team is, and the answer is always (besides the
pattern response, "whoever my money is on!") I don't have one. Grew
up watching the Celtics, Pistons, and dominant Bulls, but never really glommed
on to any of them as #1 favorite.
Anyhow, what I'm going to try and
get across in my sporadic blog posts is "what to watch for", or
"interesting sub-plots", and of course money making free play
selections!
Today I'm looking at the Portland/
Lakers game. It would be very easy to say "I'm going against the Lakers
until they win!" They've lost 11 in a row counting the preseason and last
postseason, and last nights season opening shellacking against Dallas was darn
right hard to watch, Lakers fan or not. Tonight on a back-2-back they face a
young Portland team with a ton of upside and a frenzied fan base behind them
cheering (loudly). New head coach Terry Stotts obviously has a long way to go
to bring Portland back to the playoffs after missing them last year, but the team’s
youth looks VERY exciting early! Oakland's own Damian Lillard from Weber state
(Pick #6 in this years draft) has a skill set that seems to me will be more
than fun to watch.
With Lillard at the Point, JJ
Hickson is listed to start at center versus Dwight Howard, but I think 7foot
1inch rookie Meyers Leonard will get plenty of playing time. The Lakers may
have a big 3 but let's take a look at them. Kobe - playing with an injury that
is more than likely going to keep him out some games, so on a back to back,
he'll probably get less playing time tonight. Speaking of less playing time we
have Dwight who coming off major back surgery appeared to have no lift and
looked worse than Blake Griffin at the free throw line! Steve Nash is getting a
lot of mention today in the bloggisphere, because he just didn't look
comfortable, only posting 4 assists. In summation, I'd take a shot with
Portland tonight as a small dog, and this will be our free play which you can
sign up for at ChuckEdel.com and get sent to
you via email daily!
* NBA quick hitter: Hornets guard
Eric Gordon out to start the year with a right knee issue for who knows how
long. It's really a shame, he has the potential to be a top 30 or so player in
the NBA IF ever healthy, but IF is the key word so many times.
Take a look at David Rudolph's BIO!
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