By Dan Behringer for LVSportsBiz.com
While there’s still no official betting line, the Las Vegas Aces of the WNBA will open their season this week on the road vs. the Phoenix Mercury.
As Winsidr.com noted, the Aces will have a new look when the season tips off. Former GM Dan Padover is gone and has been replaced by Natalie Williams. Former head coach Bill Laimbeer is gone, too, and has been replaced by Becky Hammon, who worked as an assistant for renowned Gregg Popovich of the San Antonio Spurs.
“My heart was saying it was time to go. This is where I am supposed to be right now,” Hammon, 45, who was signed to a five-year contract worth $5 million, told The Associated Press earlier this year. “There were a lot of sleepless nights getting to this conclusion.”
On the court, the Aces resigned forward A’ja Wilson but lost Liz Cambage and Angel McCoughtry to free agency.
How far can the Aces go this year? As Winsidr.com pointed out, there’s no clear blueprint of how Hammon can improve on Laimbeer’s results with what appears to be a drop-off in personnel.
But expectations are high. At Vegas Insider, the Connecticut Sun are the favorite to win the WNBA title at +350. The Aces are right behind at +375. Both the Seattle Storm and defending champion Chicago Sky are +425. At the bottom of the list, the Indiana Fever are +8000.
Tipoff is at 7 p.m. Friday.
Elsewhere:
— Consolation win for Golden Knights: The Vegas Golden Knights closed out a disappointing season on Friday night with a 7-4 thrashing of the St. Louis Blues. It might have been little consolation after the VGK missed the playoffs for the first time in their five-year franchise history, but bettors cashed tickets in the +143 range. A ticket on the reverse puck line obviously would have been even sweeter and would have made for a novel collector’s item.
“The guys played hard. Again, not the greatest circumstances, as we know. But we didn’t mail it in,” coach Pete DeBoer told reporters after the game. “There will be time to reflect on the bigger picture, but at least we can feel good about the effort we put in tonight.”
— Fading the Reds: Sharp-eyed readers noticed that last week we mentioned the Cincinnati Reds were at the bottom of the TeamRankings.com standings. If you’ve been fading the Reds since then, you’ve been cashing tickets with boring regularity. The Reds have now lost nine of their last 10 and own the worst record in Major League Baseball at 3-19. They will be heavy underdogs at division-leading Milwaukee on Tuesday.
“We really just need to play better in all areas,” Reds Manager David Bell told the Cincinnati Enquirer.
— NBA title odds: The Phoenix Suns have edged ahead of the Golden State Warriors at Covers.com. After opening at +1300, they are as low as +290 in some spots. The Golden State Warriors opened at +1200 and are now generally around +300.
A remarkable 14-14 shooting performance from Suns’ Chris Paul helped put away the New Orleans Pelicans, 115-109, in Game 6 and enhanced the Suns’ futures odds prior to the conference semifinals.
The defending champion Milwaukee Bucks are anywhere from +700 to +900.
Futures odds for both the Warriors and the Bucks may have shifted again after they both won their first game Sunday in the conference semifinals.
Upset of the week: The lowly Detroit Tigers were in the +295 range vs. the Los Angeles Dodgers and Clayton Kershaw on Saturday. Kershaw fanned seven to move ahead of Don Sutton on the Dodgers’ all-time strikeout list with 2,700 punch-outs.
“I understand that the Dodgers are a historic franchise and have been around a long time, so the guys that are on that list that I was fortunate enough to pass was a big deal,” Kershaw told reporters. The pitchers he passed, respectively, were Sutton, Don Drysdale, Sandy Koufax, and Dazzy Vance.
But the Tigers won, 5-1, to reward bettors handsomely. Dodgers reliever Evan Phillips was tagged with the loss.