Suns select Georgia Tech's Lawal with 46th pick

Basketball Betting Lines

06/25/2010 -

PHOENIX (AP) -The Phoenix Suns, working with a general manager who will walk away from his job next week, have selected Gani Lawal of Georgia Tech with the 46th pick overall in the NBA draft.

Lawal left college after his junior season, when he averaged 13.1 points, 8.5 rebounds and 1.4 blocked shots. The Suns have plenty of scorers, but the 6-foot-9, 234-pound forward could help address the team's need for rebounding and inside strength.

Phoenix also had the last pick of the draft, No. 60 overall, and the chose another athletic forward, 6-8 Dwayne Collins of Miami.

The Suns had no first-round pick. It was sent to the then-Seattle SuperSonics, now Oklahoma City Thunder, as part of the Suns' salary-dumping trade of Kurt Thomas in 2007.

Steve Kerr announced last week that he was leaving after three seasons as general manager and will explore opportunities in broadcasting. Kerr, who was part of five NBA championship teams, was a color analyst for TNT for four years before owner Robert Sarver hired him as general manager.

David Griffin, Phoenix's senior vice president for basketball operations, also decided to leave after 13 years in the Suns organization.

Kerr didn't talk to the media. That was left to coach Alvin Gentry, who will increase his involvement in management until a new general manager is found.

Gentry said Kerr and Griffin ``still have the best interest in the team.''

``Those guys have a lot of pride and they're going to try to do the best job they possibly can,'' Gentry said. ``The two picks that we had, to get those kids at 46 and 60, I think is phenomenal.''

Gentry said he had no interest in adding general manager to his title.

Sarver had no comment on whether he would like to talk to Kevin Pritchard, who was fired Thursday after seven seasons as general manager of the Portland Trail Blazers.

``Over the next 30 days, the process will play out,'' Sarver said.

Gentry called Lawal and Collins ``young kids that have the potential to do some good things.''

``You can never have too much size,'' Gentry said. ``You saw that in the Lakers series. We think both of those kids have an opportunity to turn into special players. The thing with Gani is he was the leading rebounder playing alongside (Derrick) Favors. Obviously that was a big factor for us.''

Lawal, whose father was born in Nigeria, explored the possibility of leaving college after his sophomore season but decided instead to stay at Georgia Tech, where he was a third-team all-ACC selection for the second straight year.

Lawal was a McDonald's all-American at Norcross, Ga., High School. He had 12 double-doubles last season and was ACC player of the week after 21-point games against Georgia and Duke. He scored 29 against Charlotte and had 17 points and a career-high 18 rebounds against Miami.

Collins, who has a 7-foot, 4-inch wingspan, led Miami in scoring (12.0 points per game), rebounding (7.8), blocks (1.1) and field goal percentage (.604).

The Suns got the 46th choice in the trade that sent Boris Diaw and Raja Bell to Charlotte for Jason Richardson and Jared Dudley. The No. 60 pick came as part of the trade of Shaquille O'Neal to Cleveland.

Kerr has denied widespread reports that he was dissatisfied with Sarver's offer for a new contract after building an overachieving team that made it to the Western Conference finals.Copyright © 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

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SPORTS BETTING: NFL Football Sportsbook Betting

NFL owners, already life's biggest winners, want to try their luck with the lottery.


That was the news out of their meetings last week, where team bosses voted unanimously to allow stamping state and local lottery tickets with franchise logos, if, ahem, any governments wanted to do a deal.

A shocker: Within days the Pats announced they'd be sponsoring the Massachusetts state lottery, the Skins said they'd slap their sticker on Virginia scratch-offs and the Ravens admitted they were talking to Maryland lottery bosses. In all likelihood, it won't be long before every team is a presenting sponsor of scratch-offs or just plain old pick fives. "The change in policy was approved 32-0," said NFL spokesman Greg Aiello. "So you can expect to see more deals soon."

It's a branding opportunity too big for the owners to ignore, and one a couple of dozen baseball franchises have enjoyed for years. The fact the NFL has been slower to act than those slack-brained Seligites is indicative of its complicated relationship with all forms of gambling. Consider this: Last Thursday, as the Pats and the Redskins finalized their new lottery deals, a lawyer representing the NFL argued before Delaware's Supreme Court that the state's newly signed sports betting law should be repealed.

The NFL betting is the face of opposition to sports gambling . And as much as it would like to share that responsibility with other leagues, that's not going to happen as long as more than 40% of all money legally wagered on games is bet on football. That's why the Brewers can do a multi-million dollar deal with a local casino, or the Celtics can make their own pact with the Mass lottery, and the response is, "Sweet, let's play." But when the NFL does it the stakes are higher, and everyone from NPR's Frank Deford to the Associated Press to the guys blogging at Deadspin will line up to play gotcha.

So I asked Aiello, who surely knew there'd be piling on, how the league can rail against being bait for sports bettors, then allow its franchises to be just that for lotteries, the most insidious and addictive form of gambling around. He emailed me this response: "We are not moral crusaders. NFL personnel are permitted to engage in legal forms of gambling, except for betting on NFL games. We are making a distinction here between the spread of gambling on the outcome of our games and supporting state lottery scratch-off games, that have nothing to do with the outcome of our games."

Here's where I should rip him. But, the thing is, he's right. Not to get Obama on you, but this is a complicated, nuanced issue. As much as lotteries are considered a tax on the poor, the NFL isn't a socially obligated government program -- it's just a business. Scratch-off's help the bottom line, sports betting doesn't. Now, it's okay to call the league hypocritical when it releases injury reports, which players have told me only helps bettors … But when it supports other forms of gaming? Big Deal.

Now, it's okay to call the league hypocritical when it releases injury reports, which players have told me only helps bettors. And it's okay to mutter something obscene when the league pretends gambling doesn't help drive TV ratings and fan interest and put money in owners' pockets. But when it supports other forms of gaming? Big Deal. The Bears should put an orange "C" on every deck of cards dealt at Harrah's in Joliet; the Eagles should slap their logo on roulette wheels at the Borgata in Atlantic City; the Dolphins should hold training camp at the El San Juan in Puerto Rico.

Seriously.

The NFL's problem, when it comes to the gambling world, isn't hypocrisy, it's worse: The bosses lack vision. That's why the league is picking unwinnable fights in Delaware and taking pot shots from critics after making smart sponsorship deals. Roger Goodell and his gang are acting and thinking locally rather than globally, which is rare for them, especially compared to their professional (and amateur) counterparts.

The NBA held its All Star game in Las Vegas and David Stern's kingdom didn't crumble (although the town did bring plenty of players to their knees.) I'd say it's 6 to 5 and pick 'em that Lebron will make a road swing through Sin City before his career is over.

Even the NCAA College Football Betting is more progressive on this issue than the NFL. Several years ago Rachel Newman Baker, college sports' gambling czar, opened a dialogue with Vegas bookmakers to learn about how they do business. She's visited Nevada sports books, studied their operations and listened to how they regulate action. Now she knows she can expect a call from bookmakers, who lose money when sports are fixed, if they think something sketchy is going on in NCAA games. She's not in favor of sports betting, but, as she once told me, "I know it's not going away, either."

The NFL can't seem to accept that. And until it can find peace with the idea, it'll get flack, even when it's right.

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