Staggering Statistics

- From Mark Bradley's Hawks column this morning: "The same [Josh] Smith who has missed 41 of 54 treys on the season." 24%? Really? If Gilbert Arenas can beat Deshawn Stevenson in a 3pt contest shooting with just one hand, how would he have to handicap himself to make it a fair contest with Josh Smith? Shooting left handed would probably be too easy. I'm guessing he'd have to bounce each ball in HORSE style.

The bigger issue in Bradley's article is what's taking the Hawks so long to make the transition from a bad team into a good one. He puts the blame on Billy Knight which in turn means we don't have a point guard, and also Mike Woodson. I'm not thrilled with a couple of the moves Knight has made, but I"m putting the majority of the blame on Mike Woodson. He's just not a good coach. For some reason the Hawks still aren't pushing the tempo on a regular basis, his rotation makes little to no sense, and he seems to have no influence on the refs (thus Joe gets no foul calls, and Josh Smith & Marvin get called for everything defensively against other teams' stars).

- Heard some guy from the Las Vegas Hilton Sportsbook on Colin Cowherd's show. According to him, big money bettors (five figure or high limit bets) only account for about 10% of all bets placed but make up around 60% of the total money bet on a game. Also he expects just the Hilton to take in around $98 million worth of bets on the Super Bowl. That probably means that at least $1 billion is bet on the Superbowl through sportsbooks. If you were to then throw in the friendly wagers and squares games placed on the big game, we're talking about a ridiculous amount of money being wagered.