Little know fact Kevin Pritchard is from Tulsa Oklahoma. A co-worker went to high school with him. They had a mutual friend, nut case Anna Falling http://friendlyatheist.com/2009/08/...ing-runs-on-platform-of-church-state-merging/
Downtown SF and The MeadowLands! Next year we will be in Newark cause they are playing in a different arena.
I worked in Tulsa for about 10 days a couple summers ago in August. 100+ with 95% humidity. Let's just say I don't very many fond memories of your town.
July and August and the only two months of the year the wind isn't blowing 20 mph here. But the weather is only part of the reason why Oklahoma blows.
Detroit is flat out rough, but of course the Pistons play in the 'burbs. Won't ever forget when I went to see old Tiger Stadium right before the last game was played there. The second the game was over, I hopped a cab and headed to the airport. The cabbie asked where I lived and I said in Seattle. He said, "you don't mean IN Seattle, do you?" He couldn't even picture anyone ever choosing to live in a city. City life to him was Detroit and everyone wanted out badly.
OKC may suck, but from the perspective of a young African American player that is employed in a winter league, Portland might actually be 'worse' (nightlife mostly sucks here, little cultural diversity, lilly white, miserable weather for pretty much the duration of the season ...) I don't think they'll have any more trouble attracting free agents than the Blazers do; as long as the price is right and they have a shot at winning (having a future MVP candidate in Durant helps).
A winning tradition helps with FA's more than anything else. I also think a lot players around the league would prefer playing for McMillan over Scotty Brooks. Having Paul Allen as an owner also has a few perks as well.
I live in one of the top five cities on that list. While it is no San Francisco, it does have a symphony, a nationally ranked engineering school and a campus of one of the top public universities in the nation, an institute of arts with paintings by Picasso, several Impressionists and other artists even you plebs will have heard of, AND an institute of music with a junior orchestra and where my kid is currently learning bassoon. I say Forbes can go suck a big one. And they can go live in Conway, Arkansas, where I have lived before, where I would never ever live again, and which is not on that list. Agree about Memphis, though. That place is WAY overrated.
