Back to NBA betting today. Here’s how my day started–I get an email from a friend asking me ‘dude, is this really Greg Oden in this picture?’ I foolishly open the attached graphic, thinking it’s some grainy shot of Oden dancing at a party with some blond chick or something like that. Nope–the first thing I see this morning is Greg Oden’s penis. Had I been paying attention to actual sports news instead of watching horse races on TVG, I would have known that this is a full blown media frenzy.

There’s nothing I enjoy in sports more than awkward athlete media appearances and today offered a classic of the genre as Oden had a press conference for the Portland media where he apologized to everyone who may have inadvertently seen his third leg.  Personally, I like Oden–he’s a good guy who has dealt with a tough start to his NBA career with grace and humor.  And you can’t say he didn’t own up to the pictures being him.  Of course its not like he had any reason *not* to–a female media member at the presser actually used the words “very impressed” in referring to the Oden family jewels.  Or as a commenter on Deadspin put it “I didn’t know Barbaro was an organ donor”.

The funniest part of the presser was Oden suggesting that he’s getting the business from his teammates about the pictures.  A Deadspin commenter used this analogy:  “In related news, Bill Gates is tired of his friends hassling him for having dumptrucks full of money and Tiger Woods wishes his Stanford cronies would lay off about winning majors and pulling chicks”.  Anyway, they’re playing a basketball game in Portland tonight and hopefully we’ve seen the last of Blazer genitalia photos:

UTAH JAZZ VS. PORTLAND TRAILBLAZERS

Blazers welcome the Utah Jazz to the Rose Garden tonight and will once again be without Brandon Roy.  And we’ll once again talk about the public tendency to overvalue injuries in terms of the pointspread.  Good teams respond well to short term injuries to superstars with role players getting bigger minutes and picking up the slack.  That’s what Portland has done and they’ve covered three of four without Oden in the lineup.

This is a big game as the Jazz and Blazers are tied for fourth in the Western Conference, but Utah v. Portland has been a huge rivalry since dinosaurs like Clyde Drexler and Karl Malone roamed the hardwood.  It’s also been very much a home team dominated series.  Utah has only won 7 of the last 32 games played in Portland, with the Blazers holding a 22-9-1 ATS edge.  More recently, the Blazers have won and covered the last four at the Rose Garden.  They won and covered both games last year by double digits.

Even without Brandon Roy in the lineup, we’ll gladly take the Blazers as home underdogs here.  We’ll also play the game Over the total.  Jazz have gone Over in 7 of their L10 and Portland is Over in 12 of their L16.

PLAY PORTLAND +3 OVER UTAH
PLAY PORTLAND/UTAH OVER 195′