Betting On NBA Skills A Hot Commodity Before NBA All Star Game

Sports News - February 13th, 2010 - Written By John Ritter

The NBA All-Star game has grown into one of the largest parties in sports because of it's self-promoted playful atmosphere and little importance given to winning. Fans come for the superstars, but stay for the complete lack of defense which drives the point total well into the 300s.

Organizers are expecting a record crowd for this year's game, which means they will need one very important thing.

Entertainment. Lots of it.

Throughout the entire weekend, various All-Stars have been invited to participate in challenges that cater to their particular skill set like the skills, slam dunk and three-point competitions.

Point guards are usually given the most responsibility on the court, thus creating some of the most versatile players in the league. So when the NBA draws together a Skills Challenge featuring dribbling, passing and shooting, players from that position are usually of choice. This year, one of the game's elders will take on three of the game's youngest stars, and actually has the best odds to win.

Phoenix's Steve Nash is favored, according to BetUS, with +175 NBA odds over Utah's Deron Williams, Chicago's Derrick Rose and Milwaukee's Brandon Jennings. Rose was questionable for the game with a banged up hip, but will likely be healthy for the weekend. He is tied with Williams at +250, and Jennings is the longshot at +275.

Williams and Nash are two of the top-three assist leaders this season.

And while the Skills Challenge judges various talents, the three-point shootout is narrowed down to the sharpest shooters of the year.

This year's class includes reigning champ Daequan Cook and 6'11" center Channing Frye, who remarkably shoots at a 43.3 clip from behind the arc. He is the longshot to win the competition, according to BetUS, at +550, but making 120 3-balls on the year certainly makes him an intriguing candidate.

Golden State Warriors guard, and current Rookie of the Year contender, Stephen Curry is the favorite to win the shootout at +175. The seventh-overall pick couldn't be coming into the competition any hotter after recording his first triple-double of the year, scoring 36 points on seven three-pointers, in his last game. He's shooting 43.4-percent from three-point land, which is the high among other participants.

Despite ranking just below Curry in three-point percentage, Denver's Chauncey Billups has the third-best odds behind Cook. Billups, who shoots at 42.2-percent, will payout at +300, while Cook returns at +275. Despite only shooting 30-percent behind the arc in 2010, Cook got an automatic invite for winning last year.

Paul Pierce and Danilo Galinari are at +400.

The three-point play is also a good way to win in the H.O.R.S.E competition.

Kevin Durant won last year's event prior to the All-Star game, and is favored to repeat against Boston's Rajon Rondo and Sacramento's Omri Casspi.

He beat O.J. Mayo and Joe Johnson in an event that seemed to last forever, and is currently second in the league with 29.8 points per game. Casspi is a 47-percent shooter from the field and Rondo goes for 52.9, which should finally signal a competitive game.

In the competition, players must match a previously made shot or receive a letter, starting with H. First player to receive all five letters is out, and the only one left standing without the full word is the winner.