Injuries are taking its toll on the Hornets

Basketball Betting Lines

12/26/2006 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Injuries are destroying the New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets season. They own a disappointing 11-15 record, after they started the season with four straight wins.

The Hornets are without three key players. Peja Stojakovic (lower back) is expected to miss at least two months, and David West (right forearm/elbow) is out indefinitely. Guard Bobby Jackson has a cracked left rib and has not played since November 28th.

Stojakovic is averaging 17.8 points per game and last played on November 24th, while West, who is averaging 17.4 points and 8.3 rebounds, has not played since November 12th.

Jackson is averaging 10.9 points and 4.1 boards. He has missed 11 straight games with his injury.

On Tuesday, the Seattle SuperSonics close out a three-game homestand as they welcome the Hornets to KeyArena. It is the second meeting of the season between the clubs this season. On December 8th, Chris Wilcox had 19 points and eight rebounds to lead Seattle to a 94-74 win over the Hornets at KeyArena. The SuperSonics have won two of the last three contests in the series. The Hornets have lost two in a row and five of their last six at Seattle.

The Hornets will host the Sonics on February 23, 2007 and April 4, 2007 in the final two contests of the season between the squads.

New Orleans/Oklahoma City will try and get back on the winning track against the SuperSonics. Tony Parker scored 19 points and handed out nine assists as the San Antonio Spurs routed the Hornets, 112-77, on Saturday at the Ford Center.

Chris Paul scored 20 points in the loss to San Antonio for the Hornets, who have lost five of their last six games overall. Rasual Butler ended with 16 points and Jannero Pargo added 11 off of the bench in defeat.

New Orleans/Oklahoma City is 5-9 on the road this season. The Hornets will visit Portland on Wednesday. The Trail Blazers defeated the Hornets, 92-91, on November 10th at the Rose Garden.

The Hornets are 0-6 when they allow over 100 points this season.

Paul leads the Hornets in scoring (18.9 ppg) and assists (9.0 apg). He has scored in double-digits in five straight games and is averaging 22.0 points, 5.0 rebounds and 8.6 assists in that span.

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FOOTBALL TRASH TALK

NFL Football Trash Talk

Trash talk has a place in every competitive endeavor (except baseball; those stirrup-wearers are too busy chewing on their sunflower seeds and their supplements to worry about what their opponents are doing).

Fantasy sports is no exception. Any intelligent discussion of the subject would probably start with a thesis statement or a definition of terms. Thankfully, this wont be an intelligent discussion.

Let me just say that I am happy to take a place in this space alongside my talented colleagues, even our commissioner. (You should see how she bleats like a demented paper boy about league fees on our fantasy site).

Trash talking, I would argue, is primarily about amusing your friends, their sheeplike demeanors and sloping foreheads notwithstanding. The best place I have found for football trash talking is at www.SportsAlarm.com.

Beyond the entertainment factor, though, I would recognize that the sophomoric ritual has one advantage, when properly applied. It magnifies your fantasy triumphs and mitigates your fantasy failures by transforming the eventual point total into an afterthought. Winning makes it seem like your opponent really is a truss-owning, lapel-pin-wearing nitwit. And in defeat, trash talk can be the air bag to break the fall from your hyperbolic heights. The plug-necked yahoos on your team, you can say, will be sacking groceries by the end of the season.

The best trash talk, in my view, is layered and nuanced. And it doesnt focus only on your opponents team. It picks apart your opponent. The idea is to create a shock-and-awe-scale blizzard of nonsense, and the goal is to make your opponent drop his hands from his keyboard in exasperation.

What team does your opponent root for? Accuse a Giants fan of having a Joe Namath pillowcase. Wheres your opponent from? Give a look of concern no matter his reply, then say, I'll try to type slower for you next time. Is your opponent into politics? Label everyone a tax-and-spend corporate shill.

Cap all that with a liberal application of irrelevance. For instance, dont just conclude by saying your opponent is a twerp who drafts like my grandmother. Say that your opponent is a sweater-wearing, eyebrow-plucking twerp who drafts his team about as well as Zsa Zsa Gabor gave acceptance speeches at the Oscars. By the time your foe makes sense of that, his starting running back will have had puppies.

But what about you? Hmm? Recall a memorable slam? Have a tried-and-true technique? Know someone who seems impervious to insult? Take a moment and tells us about it. Put together some (fit-for-publication) thoughts. You wont be too busy returning phone messages from your friends, Im sure, to reply.

In addition to the trash talking, the Sports Alarm has a huge gallery of high resolution pictures of beautiful women and models in bikinis. The most popular models are: Lindsay Lohan, Carrie Underwood, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Paris Hilton.