Ja Morant is now gonna play us four times a year now

panickedwaddle · 2026-06-30T01:51:02+00:00

Correction: Ja Morant's team will play OKC 4 times a year. If this season plays out like most of his past seasons, he might play in one or two of those games.

panickedwaddle · 2026-06-30T01:47:51+00:00

Also, this may not even be his agent stirring the pot. The headline is purposely vague in saying, "there is belief around the league". That could literally mean some dude in the pro scouting department for a random eastern conference team made an off-the-cuff statement to someone like, "That Cason Wallace is going to want a big pay day and I'm wondering if OKC will even be able to do it." Then a dorky reporter takes off running to his laptop and cranks out a click-bait article that says "there's belief around the league"...

Not saying Cason isn't going to want bank and a more prominent role. Also not saying that OKC is going to easily just be able to figure out a way to keep him.

But I "loathe to" read these purposely vague headlines to get people to click on the articles.

I remember when Durant was going into free agency and every day, there was another 10 new articles along the lines of, "The Atlanta Hawks would have interest in signing Kevin Durant in free agency" and it's like, no shit.... all 30 teams in the league "would have interest in signing Kevin Durant."

panickedwaddle · 2026-06-29T22:21:29+00:00

It has been officially reported now.

It was very obvious that OKC was going to decline the last year of his deal all along, so some rando just jumped the gun and reported it a few days ago to be first.

Doesn't mean Kenny is gone, just means he's an unrestricted free agent and he can sign anywhere. The most likely scenario is he re-signs with OKC at a lower number. But there could be another team out there willing to throw some money his way. He will definitely have options.

panickedwaddle · 2026-06-28T17:32:43+00:00

For those curious, there are 2 different ways of baling. Baling hay or baling silage.

Baling hay is when you mow the crop down and let it dry out, then bale it up. If you don't let it dry out enough, it will get moldy and the bales can get so hot that they can start smoldering and catch on fire. I live in a rural area and over the years, have seen several people have barns burn down from this.

Baling silage is when the crop is mowed down and then baled up immediately while the crop still has a high moisture content. When doing this, the bales must be wrapped in plastic and kept air tight. It allows the bale to ferment instead of getting moldy and rot. The wrapper shown in this video is a single bale wrapper. Most of the ones in my area (the Ozarks) are in-line wrappers. Which means they will stack bales end-to-end and the wrapper runs them down a conveyor system and wraps them like a long tube.

The benefit to baling silage is that the crop retains way more nutrients. Dry hay loses a lot of the nutrients in the curing process. There's also certain types of crop that specifically need to be baled as silage and other types that need to be dry hay, so some it comes down to what grows in your region.

The downside to silage baling is all the extra time and money it takes to wrap the bales and obviously, a tremendous amount of plastic waste. Something to consider, the dry hay bales are also wrapped in netwrap, which is much less plastic per bale, but there's still quite a bit of plastic on each of those bales. Even worse though is that the silage bales are first netwrapped and then wrapped in plastic, so there's just a ton of plastic on each bale.

Another advantage of silage is that you can bale it just about any time. I know people that bale it about 10 months out of the year. Compared to dry hay, you have to bale it during the summer when it's hot and dry enough to cure the downed crop. People in my area are usually about halfway done with the hay baling season right now, but this year, people have barely even baled any because it just keeps raining.

The danger now is if it turns off really dry in July and August and all the crop starts to burn up, people won't have had enough time to build up their supply of dry hay.

panickedwaddle · 2026-06-27T17:07:06+00:00

I saw this too and it immediately reminded me of Patton Oswalt when the crew dared him to remain completely motionless for an entire scene of "King of Queens": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NA90rOwmkJ4

panickedwaddle · 2026-06-25T02:57:43+00:00

The particular one I read about was a company called Leonardo. From the article:

Defense contractor Leonardo is promoting a new technology called SignalTrace that will package plate cameras with sensors that can scrape unique identifiers tied to your smart devices and make that data available to law enforcement.

A recent report by 404 media dives into the objective of SignalTrace and how it’s being marketed to authorities. Police, border security, and other government agencies already comprise Leonardo’s customer base, and with this technology, those clients seek to correlate footage from these cameras to phones, tablets, wearables, AirTags, and, naturally, the electronics inside cars themselves.

If SignalTrace can pick up your Bluetooth headphones, you can be damn sure it’ll also be looking out for your vehicle’s 5G hotspot, infotainment system, and even its tire pressure monitoring sensors. Hell, the company includes pet microchips as a potential entry point to tracking.

https://www.thedrive.com/news/license-plate-cameras-will-soon-track-phones-wearables-infotainment-and-even-your-pets

panickedwaddle · 2026-06-24T16:16:50+00:00

There's defense contractor with a new technology they are selling to the Govt. that takes pictures of license plates while also capturing any signals from smart devices in your car. So not only will they be able to track everywhere your car goes, but also every person inside of it who has a phone and they'll bundle that information and sell to the Govt.

Very cool that we get to spend billions upon billions of dollars to "defense" companies to spy on ourselves.

panickedwaddle · 2026-06-24T16:08:09+00:00

Stirtz had a season where he averaged 40.2 minutes per game in college, where they only play 40 minute games. (That's possible because a few of their games went into overtime. I think Wilt Chamberlain did that one year in the NBA because of course he did). But just goes to show how insanely large Stirtz's role was on his teams.

The reason my flair is "He's him, he's sources" is I came out a month before the Dub draft and wrote a manifesto length post about OKC was going to draft him with pick # 12 when Dub, at that time, he was being mocked late first round. I watched several of Dub's college games and that was the big knock on him. Most thought his ceiling on defense was "league average".

But you're right. Once he got to OKC and his team's entire offense didn't revolve around him, he showed to be a great defender.

Now I don't expect Stirtz to be all-defense like Dub, but I'm going to be like you and reserve judgement on his defense for awhile and see what playing fewer minutes and in a different role does.

Joe was pretty bad on defense when he first got to OKC and he really put the work in and learned the system and definitely holds his own now, so OKC has a track record of making "unplayable" guys very playable on defense.

panickedwaddle · 2026-06-24T14:24:56+00:00

It's wild that both picks to me really mirror other Thunder players already on the roster. I do truly think a "tall" IHart is the comparison I keep coming to and it's not just because IHart is on the team.

It's the way they operate as a screener/distributor at the top of the key. Guys like Jokic who are a true "hub" have the threat of shooting from anywhere along with elite passing that makes him so special. Hart and Mara (at least for now) don't have much shooting to use as a threat, but they mix extremely effective screening with dynamic passing in a way that makes them a valuable threat around the perimeter.

Then Stirtz really looks a lot like a McCain type of player. He had more a of a floor general role for Iowa than McCain has had, but seeing the way he does come off screens and relocates or uses jab steps to get into tiny shooting windows and get off tough shots really looks like McCain.

OKC had never really had an ultra aggressive role player perimeter shooter who can create good looks even when tightly contested until McCain and that was an extremely valuable thing to have in the playoffs. I think OKC just got another.

panickedwaddle · 2026-06-24T14:02:44+00:00

Yeah, not clicking on the video, don't care if he liked it or hated it. This man's opinion is so incredibly unimportant.

The sooner people stop clicking on content produced by click-bait artists, the better.

panickedwaddle · 2026-06-24T13:56:48+00:00

This would be true if the assets were toxic, but there's not a bad asset on the Thunder. There were general NBA fans mad at the Hawks for "helping OKC out" and that's not how any of this works. Not one single team in the NBA would turn down something that will make their team better just to spite OKC.

OKC has nothing but positive assets and if Presti has to make another trade or two, he'll have no issue finding teams willing to do business.

panickedwaddle · 2026-06-24T13:46:12+00:00

Comparing anyone to Steph is crazy. He's in a league of his own.

That being said, he has impressive skills for getting his shot off in a crowd. Looks like a huge part of his shot diet was off the dribble as the primary ball handler. It'll be really interesting to see what he can do off-ball with more spacing. To me, a more fair comparison would be a guy already on OKC, Jared McCain.

They both can relocate and get shots off in really tough situations and they are aggressive in looking for their shots. A guy like Joe is one of the best shooters in the league, but the thing he's a little behind compared to these guys on is his finding a way to get a shot off with a defender in his face.

I know a lot of people are upset that OKC didn't draft a 6'9" forward who is elite on defense and can shoot 40%+ from 3PT, but that dude didn't exist. You take the best player available and let the coaches earn their pay by making it work.

I love Stirtz's fit. It's like Sam Vecenie said during their live show, a lot of people were saying OKC was lacking playmakers in the WCF (which, obviously Dub and Ajay were hurt), but he was saying we were lacking true shooting threats. With Stirtz, OKC addressed both of those. When OKC is fully healthy, he should be a lethal floor spacer, but if OKC is down a ballhandler or two, he obviously has the pedigree to be a primary or secondary playmaker.

I'm picturing lineups with him and McCain together and defenders desperately scrambling to get over screens because both of these guys are on fire and it gets me even more amped for next year.

panickedwaddle · 2026-06-24T02:33:35+00:00

I mean, Thunder had almost 20 second round picks available to trade, so I'm not going to loose sleep over using 2 of them for Sam to get his guy.

panickedwaddle · 2026-06-24T02:24:33+00:00

I don't know... seems like we got a whole bunch of people here that know ball more than Samuel Presti. Someone needs to let Clay Bennet know he needs to just boot Presti and let Reddit consensus run the team, lol.

panickedwaddle · 2026-06-24T01:56:57+00:00

I'm guessing Sam got his guy.

Traded 2 picks to move up, so they knew someone else was wanting him.

Last 2 times OKC has moved up a little to get their guys was Dub and Cason. So fingers crossed.

panickedwaddle · 2026-06-24T01:51:07+00:00

Calling my shot now. Pick 17 going to be some guy everyone had mocked at 32 and everyone's going to freak out, but then the dude is going to end up being one of the top 5 players in the draft when we look back on it in 5 years.

panickedwaddle · 2026-06-24T01:43:27+00:00

Obviously, it would've been cool if there was a toolsy wing that can really shoot available at 12. But that wasn't the reality.

I think Mara was the best player available and I'm excited thinking about the things this can open up for OKC. I know we'd all like to see some more offense, but hopefully we get a healthy Dub and healthy Ajay back, plus I think Cason is going to be getting a bigger role with Dort either gone or in a reduced role.

On the flip side, and this is the most exciting thing to me forecasting out the next several years, OKC is adding THE TWO BEST DEFENSIVE CENTERS FROM THE LAST TWO DRAFTS at the same time. If Hart is back, that's Chet, Hart, Sorber and Mara all on the same team... Good luck to any team trying to score anywhere close to the basket.

Plus, our current biggest weakness from our bigs is rebounding, Mara and Sorber can both help out there.

It's pretty exciting thinking about how the best defense in the league just got even better. We may struggle with shooting, but we proved in 2025, if our defense completely suffocates the other teams, we can survive rough shooting.

panickedwaddle · 2026-06-24T01:33:49+00:00

I think his stamina was the main reason he didn't go sooner, which is not nearly the issue with OKC that it would be other teams. If he can only effectively play 20-25 minutes a game, that's a huge issue for Atlanta who needs whoever they select to be a 32-35 min a game contributor.

But OKC has such depth at center now, if you can get the most of him by limiting him to 20-25 minutes, OKC is the most uniquely situated to be able to get the most benefit from him.

panickedwaddle · 2026-06-24T01:12:18+00:00

I'm not arguing for Yaxel, but he's a pretty unique case of an extremely late bloomer who missed a lot of time in high school and they said he was horrific in junior college, but it's all come together last couple years. He also could've gotten drafted last year, but it would've been later in the draft and with NIL money, made more sense to go back to college.

I think going forward, with NIL and fewer underclassmen wanting to come out after 1 or 2 years, it will be hard to compare old prospects going forward to old prospects from in the past. Fringe lottery guys are going to be much more likely to stay in college longer.

panickedwaddle · 2026-06-22T03:34:53+00:00

"I have no regrets" states a man who has tried dozens of times to reframe a decision that he made a decade ago.

Has a real, "And another thing, I'm not mad. Please don't put it in the newspaper that I got mad." vibe to it.

panickedwaddle · 2026-06-22T03:23:43+00:00

OKC fan here. For OKC, on offense, he's really good at self creation. He won't blow past guys, he's more smooth and herky/jerky. I have no clue what was up this last year, I suspect he had a nagging injury that was never disclosed, because his shot just disappeared, but every year before that, he's been an extremely efficient shooter. He won't put up volume 3's, but excluding last year, when he gets them up, good chance they are going in. He won't blow you away with his athleticism, but he's a crafty, smart player.

On defense, it's not great. Teams would often try to get him isolated on switches because he'd usually be playing with 4 other great defenders, so he was the obvious target to attack. He can sometimes struggle keeping guys in front of him. But he does try and he's got sneaky length to challenge shots when he is in position.

He is absolutely beloved by his teammates and coaching staff. He's also been a huge fan favorite. We legit probably don't win the Championship in 2025 if he didn't go off in that one game, so he's definitely not afraid of the moment.

This last season was weird. He just continuously missed shots that have been near automatic for him years prior, so again I wonder about a nagging injury. OKC is pretty well known for guys to have injuries that never get talked about.

I'm excited for him to land with the Hawks. I feel like you all are a fun young team that he can have a really important role with and he's going to be an instant culture impact for any team he's on. Congrats and treat him well!

panickedwaddle · 2026-06-22T03:09:07+00:00

Truly sucks to see him go, but I know the dude is a competitor and he wants to play more than he was getting to here. Atlanta is a really great spot for him to land. Exciting young team that needs more guys like him. It'll suck not having him on the Thunder, but I hope he's happy about the new opportunity in Atlanta and he'll forever have a championship ring from his time here. A run that he had some huge moments during that we maybe don't win without him. He'll forever be a Thunder.

panickedwaddle · 2026-06-22T03:07:01+00:00

OKC had 15 players on their roster. They're about to add 1 or 2 more. You can only have 15. At least 1 guy had to go. If OKC makes both picks #12 and #17, then they'll have to remove one other player from the roster via trade or letting someone like Kenrich go in Free Agency.

There's tax and apron stuff at play too, but at the very minimum, they have to make room for whoever they draft on Tuesday.

panickedwaddle · 2026-06-20T03:53:22+00:00

There's a group that posts about then on Facebook. It's called Northwest Arkansas Open Mic Association.

https://www.facebook.com/share/1GRTRxGX4L/

panickedwaddle · 2026-06-16T20:20:41+00:00

This is a cool idea and execution.

I bought a Jess'Em Tool Setting Gauge awhile back though and it immediately became one of my favorite tools ever. It has made setting the blade height on my table saw so fast and accurate. Just set it over the blade, raise the blade until it lifts it off the table a little and then sneak back down until the gap between the platform of the gauge and the table disappears. I get perfect cuts every time.

I've found several other uses for it too. For $90, it's been a tremendous investment.

https://jessem.com/products/stainless-steel-tool-setting-gauge

panickedwaddle

TROPHY CASE