Williams, Jazz open road trip with win over Bulls

Basketball Betting Lines

03/09/2010 - Chicago, IL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Deron Williams poured in 28 points with a game- best 17 assists, as Utah used a big fourth quarter to pull away from Chicago, 132-108, at the United Center.

C.J. Miles scored 26 points off the bench, including six treys, while Carlos Boozer notched a double-double with 16 points and 10 rebounds and Paul Millsap came within a rebound of joining him with 16 points and nine boards. Mehmet Okur chipped in with 14 points and seven boards, while Andrei Kirilenko joined Wesley Matthews with 12 points apiece in the win.

The surging Jazz have won 10 of their last 12 road games in the first of a four-game road trip. Utah moved within one game of idle Denver in the race for the Northwest Division crown.

Derrick Rose led the Bulls with 25 points and 13 assists, Brad Miller scored 20 and Luol Deng and Ronald Murray totaled 14 points apiece for the Bulls, who have lost five straight to fall back below .500.

The first quarter was a back-and-forth affair with Utah scoring seven of the last eight points to open a 35-30 edge. Utah maintained its small edge for most of the second quarter, but climbed to a seven-point edge behind a quick six-point flurry for a 63-56 game. However, a Miller three and Murray layup capped the first-half scoring for a 63-61 margin.

The game was tied at 77-77 as late as the 5:20 mark of the third quarter, but Utah used a 15-4 spurt to end the period and begin to turn the game into a rout. The Jazz tallied seven straight points for an 84-77 lead on Boozer's two free throws, and the edge grew to 92-81 by the end of the quarter on Matthews' two free throws with 21.5 ticks remaining.

The Bulls scored five points in a nine-second span early in the fourth capped by Hakim Warrick's slam for a 92-86 game, but Chicago never got closer than that the rest of the way. The margin was as narrow as nine with just over six minutes left, 108-99, on Rose's driving layup, but over the next four-plus minutes, Utah went on a 21-7 stretch to pull away.

Game Notes

Utah shot a torrid 54.2 percent from the floor, including a 12-of-20 effort from beyond the arc...Chicago made 53.9 percent of its shots, but allowed Utah to collect 14 offensive rebounds and Rose committed five turnovers...The game featured three ties and three lead changes...Rose tied his career high in assists, first set on December 29, 2008 at New Jersey...Utah had lost four of its last five trips to the United Center prior to Tuesday's victory.

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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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