Basketball is open. Nothing is a ticket.

The basketball desk is open. It is $10 a week through the NBA Finals, and that week also opens college basketball. It does not open football, baseball, or hockey. PayPal starts October 20. We do not bill the preseason. The invite for this desk is not published.

The four conditions, and the gate that keeps the hit rate up

The desk already had four conditions: pace, minutes, the building, and who is actually available. Those stay. The gate is the part that raises the hit rate. A side is a ticket only at 56 or better, and only when an absence changes the offense. A 51 is a lean. A lean is not a ticket. A pass is not a miss. A questionable role player is not the gate.

Friday is preseason, so the board is blank on purpose

Dallas and Houston are in Macao. Memphis is at Chicago at 8 p.m. ET. Neither is a ticket. Rosters lock October 19 at 5 p.m. ET. Opening night is Tuesday, October 20: Boston at Detroit, Philadelphia at New York, Oklahoma City at San Antonio. Those games are on the Grid as the slate. They are not written. College exhibitions are not tickets either. Notre Dame and Villanova in Rome on November 1 are the first regular-season college game on the board, and that game is not written. No scorers.