Lue still sour on Cavs firing: ‘I won a title there’

The Oklahoma City Thunder are in the market for a center in free agency. That search has them focused on unrestricted free agent Isaiah Hartenstein of the New York Knicks.

The Knicks have Early Bird rights for Hartenstein, which limits them to offering him a starting salary around $17 million for next season. The Thunder project to have $35 million in cap space to offer a free agent.

One source said Oklahoma City’s interest in Hartenstein is “real.” A suggested path could be to offer Hartenstein a larger initial salary than New York can, but on a short-term deal of two years. That would leave the Thunder with flexibility moving forward, in case the signing didn’t work out.

Daryl Morey’s internal projection system had this year’s Philadelphia 76ers as having the best chance of winning an NBA championship than any team he had previously assembled, including the Houston Rockets in 2018 that lost to the Golden State Warriors in the Western Conference finals.

The Sixers entered the season with the NBA’s fourth best odds of winning a title at 8-1 with an over/under of 51.5 regular season wins.

Morey’s proprietary system usually assigns title contenders as having between a five and 10 percent chance. Morey’s formula topped out at 70 percent when the Warriors acquired Kevin Durant ahead of the 16-17 season.

But the Sixers have struggled with injuries to each of Joel Embiid, Paul George and Tyrese Maxey.

“Except for [Jared] McCain, everything that could go wrong, has gone wrong,” one team source said.