Love meets Linsanity at Target Center

Basketball Betting Lines

02/11/2012 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - It's time for New York's Jeremy Lin to experience a little "Love" when the Knicks visit the Timberwolves on Saturday.

"Linsanity" was in full force Friday in Madison Square Garden when Lin continued his unlikely rise from obscurity, pouring in a career-high 38 points along with seven assists and four rebounds, as New York downed Kobe Bryant and Los Angeles Lakers, 92-85.

Iman Shumpert added 12 points and Jared Jeffries scored 11 for the Knicks, who defeated the Lakers for the first time since January 30, 2007, ending a nine- game losing streak to Los Angeles.

Lin was making just his third career start for the undermanned Knicks, who won their fourth straight contest despite being without stars Amare Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony.

Lin, an undrafted Harvard product, is averaging a startling 28.5 points and 8.0 assists during New York's four-game run and the 114 total points he has scored over that span are six more than he had in his 38 previous NBA games with Golden State and the Knicks.

"The only thing we established tonight was getting four in a row," said Lin about his recent success. "I'm not really too worried right now about proving anything to anybody. I think as a team we're just growing and we're trying to build on this momentum. I think that's what everyone is buying into right now and that's why we're becoming more dangerous."

Anthony will remain on the sidelines tonight with a strained right groin, while Stoudemire isn't expected back from grieving the death of his brother, until next week.

The Wolves, meanwhile, come in after dropping two straight contests, including Friday's 104-97 setback to Dallas at Target Center. Kevin Love returned from a two-game suspension for kicking Houston's Luis Scola in that one and finished with 32 points and 12 rebounds.

"They definitely wanted this one tonight," said Love. "We waited too long to go on our run. That hurt us."

Michael Beasley added 20 points while rookie point guard Ricky Rubio had 10 points and eight assists.

New York has lost six of seven to the Wolves in the Twin Cities.

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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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