Before it murders us all it needs to be able to fix the print area on a spreadsheet.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/anthropic-researcher-says-ai-has-over-10-chance-kill-all-humans-within-next-decade

Great. Can I just have this with the cameras on the back? Without the other screen and for not $2000?

 

Rockets offseason so far

This spring, due to numerous injuries, the Rockets fielded the youngest team to ever win a playoff game.  Then they fielded the second youngest a few days later when they won again with the same group which was:

Alpren Sengun

Amen Thompson

Tari Eason

Reed Sheppard

Jabari Smith, Jr.

Tari is the old man of this group at 25 and he's the only one with much injury history.

Next year, this group will be bolstered by the following men:

Kevin Durant

Fred VanVleet

Steven Adams

Marcus Smart

Bogdan Bogdanovic

This group averages about 10 years old than the group above.  So, it is reasonable to expect that they won't be available all the time.  KD played heavy minutes, and nearly all of Houston's regular season games.  Then he basically played a half game in the playoffs.  Do I need to copy in a picture of Tom Thibodeau here?

Anyway, the two groups combined represent an 10 man deep rotation with Clint Capela (who was available for the playoffs) also under contract and almost certainly needed extensively again as Steven Adams will miss time.  Josh Okogie had a solid season but as a result will probably expect more minutes and money than the Rockets will have.   (That's happened.) And the Rockets will need a spot for Bruce Thornton.  (Under contract so that has happened too.). Hard to believe they would make all those trades to draft him and then throw him away.

It'll be interesting to see what they do with the last roster spot.

Jaylen Brown

 Milwaukie gets:

Alperen Sengun

Jarabri Smith Jr.

Boston gets:

Giannis

Houston gets:

Jaylen Brown

Would shipping out the teammates Kevin Durant criticized end the drama in Houston?

Houston's lineup would be ...

Forwards:

Kevin Durant

Jaylen Brown

Tari Eason

Dorian Finney-Smith (please be healthy)

Centers:

Steven Adams (please be healthy)

Clint Capela

Please draft or sign someone who can shoot.  Please.

Guards:

Amen Thompson (please no more point guard stuff)

Reed Sheppard

Fred VanVleet (please be healthy)

Please draft or sign someone who can shoot.  Please.

Maybe Aaron Holiday and/or Josh Okogie who were both reliable last year

Revising my ideas for fixing the NBA with 32 teams

The NBA season needs to be shorter.  Look at all the injuries going into the post season this year!

There also needs to be more meaningful games.  Let's add some meaningful mid-season games, and NBA Cup that is worth fighting for (instead of worth avoiding) and a final week of the season with lots of consequential games.

No back to back games ever.  And Memphis needs to be in the East - I mean, who cares.  Sorry, Minnesota.

The league is divided into four eight team divisions.  We are making divisions meaningful again!  See below.

Each team plays every team one time.  That's 31 games.

Then each team plays all seven teams in their division as competition for the NBA Cup placement.  This should be somewhat less travel as the divisions are coherent.

All games above are scheduled before the season starts.

NBA Cup standings are now set and influence the end of the season.  The final one to three games of the season can now be scheduled.

The winners of each division advance to the NBA Cup during all star weekend which goes like this:

This weekend moves from city to city each year. like the current all star format.  This also means less travel for the division winners.

Friday night - semifinal games, the two losers go to a silver game and two winners go to the gold game.

Saturday night - the usual all star Saturday with all stars honored, but no lame game.

Sunday night - silver game and then gold game.

Division winners have played 40 games at this point, while all others have played 38.

Days off and trade deadline.

All teams play all other teams again, these games are also pre-set before the season.

NBA cup teams have played 71 and all other teams have played 69.

Then, here's where the NBA Cup reward comes in.  Teams try to avoid these games now, but they wouldn't in this format.

During the last week of the season, the four NBA Cup teams play just one game against the four lowest seeds in the NBA Cup.  That's many days of rest with what will almost certainly be an easy game.

All the other teams need to play three games against their next closest NBA Cup seeds.  These will be tougher games against equals and very important for playoff position since these games are likely to be against teams very close in the standings.  Make the last week of the season exciting, not boring!

With the bottom four teams facing the top four teams, the remains 20 teams are all likely to be fighting for playoff seeding or to get into the play in tournament.

These games should wind up on Thursday.

Everyone has played 72 games at this point.  Everyone has played everyone twice.  Everyone has played their own division three times.

Then the next week is the play in tournament in a Saturday - Monday, Sunday - Tuesday format with the playoffs staring Thursday.

NBA Cup teams finish the season with about 10 days of rest with one "stay in shape" game against a lower team.  I think this makes it more likely that top teams will play their stars for the final game as they will want them sharp for the playoffs.

Playoff teams finish with some tough positioning battles.

Play in teams also finish the tough positioning battles and then go right into the play in.

And nobody asked for any of this but how about I go further and define divisions:

Seattle

Portland

Sacramento

San Francisco

LA

LA

Vegas

Phoenix

--

Denver

Utah

OKC

Minnesota

Dallas

Houston

San Antonio

New Orleans

--

Chicago

Indiana

Detroit

Cleveland

Milwaukie

Memphis

Charlotte

Atlanta

--

Toronto

Boston

New York

New York

Washington

Philadelphia

Orlando

Miami

Playoffs, Baby.

 A season wrap up for myself:

What could this season have been without all the injuries?  Even with the injures without loses to bad teams, and blown leads.  Seriously, the Rockets could easily have won 60 games even with the team they had.

Ime Udoka - Brought the team back to relevance but I think everyone expected more from this team.  He certainly deserves more time as HC and with largely this group.  I rate head coaches by what happens after time outs.  Watch and few Steve Kerr games and you'll see what I mean.  A HC exercises the most influence over the next play coming out of a time out.  It is a chance for him to share what he's players might be missing out on the court.  Ime's results here are poor.  Lots of bad sets, lots of turnovers, lots of bad ideas repeated like having KD essentially play point.  The playoffs will be telling.

Kevin Durant - Better than advertised as an individual player.  His durability has been surprising too.  I anticipated he'd miss a lot of games.  Last year's team seemed very tight knit and unified.  That was part of the formula for over achievement.   This year's group doesn't seem as together.  Is KD the reason?  I'm also surprised by how many lazy turnovers he but makes and causes.  It doesn't show up in the stat sheet but sometimes his passes are to just dispose of the ball when he is frustrated and this put his teammates in bad situations that turn into bad results.

Sengun - Has he reached his ceiling?  All-Star is certainly not a bad one.  He has a James Harden like penchant for trying to get fouls when he could easily get a basket instead and also for taking plays off to yell at the refs.  If he could clean this up and some other dumb mistakes he could nudge up to another level.

Amen - Has truly moved up a level this year.  Late in the season including through some difficult weeks he found the magic of consistency.  Really rooting for him to be an All-Star next year.  Next season will also be the one for him to decide whether to abandon his jumper or fix it.

Reed - Does Ime not like this kid?  Case in point, last night's loss.  Houston lost the game because of three point shooting.  Reed turned in two of the Rockets four makes and played 18 minutes.  The Rockets were outscored by 33 points from the line.  Who watches a guy rip off 30 or drain nine threes and then basically doesn't use him after that?  On a team with a very shaky offense.  He's not an individual defender and never will be but who cares, that is not what this kid is for.  Ryan Hollins compared him to Steph.  I would add a Steph that makes play on defense and can dunk.  He has a very high ceiling but he's going to need lots of playing time to get anywhere.  And run sets for him.  Watching Doc Rivers and Steve Kerr come off Reed and leaving KD open is pure magic for this team.

Tari - If you don't love this guy you don't love sports.  I worry for Reed because of what I've seen with Tari.  He's been firmly shoved into the three and D role and I still think he has more to offer.  If he stays with the Rockets we may never find out.

Jabari - He's improved this year too and may also be reaching something approaching his ceiling.  He's a solid player, maybe a little overpaid.  If he can find consistency he can be can drive winning.

Clint - Welcome back, Clint.  People were puzzled when he was signed and he's all but saved the season.

Josh - Expected to be nailed to the bench, he's instead been a solid contributor.  Ime seems to like him.

Dorian, Fred and Steve - Will these guys be healthy next season and when?  There was a lot of excitement  in September and for good reason.  These three being healthy makes for a very deep team.  These guys will need time to work their way back into game shape and then the team will need to gel around them.  That will take time.

Will the Rockets make big changes this offseason?  There has been a pattern with KD led teams of poor chemistry leading to big changes.  Raphael Stone seems like more of a steady hand, and I believe his put together a team that can complete so I'm hoping for health and not for big changes.

The Rockets have an Amen Thompson Problem

Namely, that he isn't a point guard.  They've spent three quarters of this season trying to transform him into one and it isn't working.

Amen is the Rockets third best player after Sengun.  But neither of them can shoot.  So, what's the point of running a pick and roll to get one of them open?

When Steven Adams was around and sometimes now with Clint Capela, coach Udoka rolls out the double big with Amen still on the floor.  That's three non shooters.

The answer is Reed Sheppard and for maybe the best of reasons - the Rockets don't have any other choice.  I don't think there is a question between him and Amen, the real question is what happens next season with Fred VanVleet comes back from serious injury.  He might have to come off the bench in favor and the more dynamic Sheppard.

Amen needs fewer minutes and those minutes need to be staggered with Sengun so the Rockets can keep shooters on the floor most of the game.  He needs to go back to focusing on being one of the best defenders in the league and an opportunistic dunker on the offensive side.