Let’s get this out of the way: my name is weird.  Crane Lemon.  Real weird.  I mean, I love my name, but you don’t exactly have to be a stand-up comedian to bust my balls.  And trust me, I’ve heard it all (or so I thought)- probably where I derive my sunny disposition from.  Now, quick tangent here- the definition of a ‘Lemon (automobile)‘, straight from our friends at Wikipedia:

‘A lemon is a car, often new, that is found to be defective only after it has been bought. Any vehicle with numerous, severe issues can be termed a “lemon”, and, by extension, any product with flaws too great or severe to serve its purpose can be described as a “lemon”.’

As a smartass 18-year-old that was friends with mostly other smartass 18-year-olds, you’d think I’d have heard of this.  Not once.  Then one day at basketball practice, my coach is all fired up because someone sold him a lemon.  You mean it was yellow and had a lovely citrus scent?  Nope. Turns out it’s a common term, part of the everyday American lexicon, but still- what the hell?  A reeeeaaaal Munson.  But why do I tell this tale of woe you ask?  Because the first bet I ever post to my new shiny blog goes 0-for-3; a lemon.

I should also drop my theory on parlays.  First, not for the faint of heart.  When you have a 5-gamer out and the Cleveland Cavaliers (minus Kyrie) pull an upset to cost you $500, it feels like this. Get enough in your account that you can throw out $40-$50 parlays that won’t kill you if you lose.  Try and find at least one lock (-200 or more), then look for anything closer to even or a slight underdog, and try to keep them in the 2-4 game range.  The payout for every win is worth 3-4 losses. I also try to exclusively bet moneylines, because spreads suck and there’s nothing worse than your team winning, but not covering because of garbage-time plays that don’t matter.  Last year, this helped me turn $100 into more than $2.5K during football season, culminating in getting the Giants at 10-1 to win the Super Bowl and throwing them in every parlay imaginable for a month straight, which felt like this.  Negative reinforcement? Probably.  Sustainable? Probably not- but whatever- today’s (almost lock) Parlay of the Day (home-team in CAPS):

• Heat (-10) over WIZARDS- bought down to -8
• MEMPHIS (ML) over Phoenix
• Thunder (ML) over NETS

Hope it’s more lemonade than lemon.