Average Knicks fan reaction to us signing away their chance at actually competing this year ^

The Tulsa Parks system is getting a facelift.

The City of Tulsa has launched the largest effort in Tulsa Parks history to upgrade nearly all playgrounds and sports courts across the city’s parks system. Improvements are planned for 98% of the city’s sports courts, as well as replacements to 29 playgrounds, the addition of two playgrounds and 20 enhancement projects to existing playgrounds.

“So we'll be refurbishing many of them (sports courts), which will stay the same use,” said Anna America, parks director and chief of culture. “But then we'll convert quite a few. We'll be adding pickleball courts (and) basketball courts. We're really short on both of those.”

Sports courts will be updated or converted to maximize accessibility and use. Modern play equipment will be installed at playgrounds, and community input will dictate future playground updates. Safety and accessibility features will be added to many parks.

The $9.8 million in playground upgrades are funded through the Improve our Tulsa I and II capital improvements packages, as well as other Park funds, grants, and private partnerships. Upgrades and renovations to sports courts are funded through Improve our Tulsa II, with a total cost of $4.8 million.

The first phase of sports courts renovations will cost roughly $900,000 and will create 32 new pickleball courts; five new basketball courts; three new volleyball courts; one new futsal court; one new "all sports" court for sports such as field hockey, bike polo, futsal and court soccer; and one court for chinlone, a traditional Burmese sport. Thirty-three existing tennis courts and 11 basketball or half-basketball courts will be resurfaced.

That is very cheap rent.

Sengun was 138 in defensive EPM last year. https://dunksandthrees.com/epm

That is not so bad that you are incapable of having an above-average defense, but it is bad enough at the most important defensive position that it is a very real fault as a player. You can still be a great team with a mediocre defensive center, but so far he is worse than mediocre still and to become a great team in that case you need him to hit his absolute peak potential on offense.

Sabonis is a pretty clear example of a player with that build that can still be really really good, but is just not an optimized playoff type of player. I think he still gets the max from Houston and I'd be fine giving it to him, but I don't think he should be untouchable in trades and he isn't someone I'd count on being the best player on a team making it past the first round of the playoffs.

It’s not unless you are taking back other long term bad contracts. The only value it has is in being used to take back even WORSE contracts.

His ceiling is limited by the fact that he doesn't have the body or athleticism to be a real lockdown paint protector or be able to switch and guard on the wing. And at least currently he can't shoot 3s well enough to make up for that defensive limitation. You could imagine a world where he develops a good 3 point shot which would be necessary for him to become a legit All-NBA type of player, but the defense is hard to change.

https://tulsaworld.com/news/local/business/effort-for-tech-hub-funding-in-tulsa-gets-big-political-boost/article_03ed3748-f054-11ee-b81f-6b55b68a048c.html

This is something state leaders have been pretty good about supporting so far.

Tulsa will receive about $51 million from the federal government for tech innovations and production projected to create up to 56,000 additional jobs in the next 10 years, officials said.

Tulsa was one of 12 cities that will receive funding from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration — out of 31 cities initially designated “tech hubs” last year.

A formal announcement of the funding is expected Tuesday by federal and local officials.

The roughly $51 million will go to the Tulsa Hub for Equitable & Trustworthy Autonomy, a consortium led by Tulsa Innovation Labs.

The Tulsa Hub for Equitable & Trustworthy Autonomy will leverage funding to support projects that will:

• Increase coordination on commercialization strategies among universities and the startups they support;
• Build a state-of-the-art testing and simulation environment — with a focus on cyber and data management — for companies, researchers and regulatory entities to address barriers to commercial adoption;
• Develop programs to identify opportunities for manufacturers in supply chains and build out a manufacturing demonstration center where small companies can scale their capabilities;
• Create an artificial intelligence center of excellence to expand opportunities and increase exposure to technology for underserved communities;
• Expand workforce programs to align training with industry needs, provide upskilling and offer on-the-job training opportunities; and
• Establish governance structures to execute projects, pursue additional funding and drive the hub’s strategy.

Shai is 25 now, a when this was a serious idea 2 years ago he was 23. Lauri is currently 27. There is a big difference there.

At first glance I think Detroit, Portland, Brooklyn, Charlotte and Washington are all easily worse than Utah.

After that there is a tier of San Antonio, Toronto, Chicago and maybe like Atlanta as similar level teams. Plus there is usually 1-2 teams like Memphis that get killed with injuries and throw the towel in on the season.

Utah is around the 6th worst team in the league, but could easily end up being closer to the 10th worst if they have even just a short run of wins at the beginning of the year. That’s not a very good spot to be in and seems like the ideal time to trade your star to make sure you are in that bottom tier.

And even with a terrible finish you were still the 8th worst team which is a pretty bad spot to be in.

The absolute worst thing I think Utah could do would be trade for another star. The West is stacked right now and they’d still be a fringe playoff team if they had made the Mikal Bridges trade or anything like that.

Like yes, Utah’s position is relatively good enough that it isn’t crucial to absolutely maximize your value on every player, but it just seems like the very obvious answer for the best long term move to trade Lauri now, bottom out this year for a strong draft class, and be in one of the best rebuilding positions in the whole league by trading Lauri for a haul.

I’d rather start both over iHart but have all 3 play roughly ~25 minutes.

Chet could play 30 minutes and iHart 25 minutes and you’d only have 7 minutes of overlap + a good center in the game at all times.

The Jazz are in a terrible spot where they aren’t good enough to make the playoffs but also likely won’t get a top 6 pick in the draft.

They can solve that issue almost completely by just trading Lauri and maybe Sexton for a big package. They wouldn’t be worst team in the league level bad but they’d easily be able to tank for 1-2 more seasons and they’d have another 3-4 first and a couple more young players to roll into the future with.

It seems incredibly obvious why they would want to trade him. The really confusion is why they haven’t already. We just saw the Raptors in a similar situation wait too long to trade Siakam and get less in return than they could have if they pulled the trigger a year earlier.

It’s much easier to rebuild quickly when you are willing to actually blow it up when your good players are still good. Most teams wait until too late to start the tank and that’s the difference between the OKCs and Utahs vs the Detroits and Chicagos.

The Jazz are in a terrible spot where they aren’t good enough to make the playoffs but also likely won’t get a top 6 pick in the draft.

They can solve that issue almost completely by just trading Lauri and maybe Sexton for a big package. They wouldn’t be worst team in the league level bad but they’d easily be able to tank for 1-2 more seasons and they’d have another 3-4 first and a couple more young players to roll into the future with.

It seems incredibly obvious why they would want to trade him. The really confusion is why they haven’t already. We just saw the Raptors in a similar situation wait too long to trade Siakam and get less in return than they could have if they pulled the trigger a year earlier.

I think the starting 5 is SGA/Dort/Caruso/Jdub/Chet.

SGA/Jdub playing ~32-34 minutes

Chet playing ~ 30 minutes

Caruso/Dort playing ~25 minutes

Hartenstein playing ~25 minutes.

Isiah Joe/Aaron Wiggins/Cason Wallace playing ~ 18-20 minutes

And Dieng/Jaylin Williams/Kenrich Williams fighting it out for the last ~15 minutes or so.

All of those guys are in the regular season rotation if I had to guess. Playoffs you take out any minutes from that last group and give them to your stars.

Their 2nd and 3rd best players were also both drafted in 2022, one of them was a rookie last year. I think you could easily assume just natural light improvements from those two is a few added wins this year.

the whole point is you need to be a good team with valuable players on it still when you make that decision. A team like the Warriors or Kings could set themselves up incredibly well for the future but instead, they are going push for a play-in and have no treasure chest of assets to help them in the future.

The Thunder's current roster could easily grow to be at the level of the Celtics. I think they have some similarities too.

SGA = Tatum - Score first elite guy who is MVP candidate
Jalen Williams = Jalen Brown - 2nd option on offense that can also defend at a high level
Chet = Porzingus - Dominant paint protector that can shoot 3s and score at a good clip
Caruso/Dort/Wallace = Jrue and Derrick White - Smaller guards that are elite defenders and good shooters. Boston's guys are better obviously, but OKC has more depth there and more youth that could continue to improve.

Then add on guys like Isiah Joe, Aaron Wiggins and Hartenstien and OKC has a deeper bench than last year's Celtics.

Was kind of assuming a Klay signing there but as I think about the list more I could move them down.

Way too early West standings prediction:

1. OKC
2. Minnesota
3. Mavericks
4. Denver
5. Memphis
6. LA Lakers
7. New Orleans
8. Sacremento
9. Phoenix
10. Houston
11. LA Clippers
12. Golden State
13. San Antonio
14. Utah
15. Portland

Thank you Clippers

I mean there’s a good 7-8 guys any given year that at least become role players and 2-3 that become above average starters most years. That’s enough value to not just waste easy opportunities to get them that cost you nothing.