I certainly understand how a pickup basketball game can lead to a discussion. (Lawyers in the room kept calling it a “deposition,” but whatever.) Well, city commissioners are set to have a discussion that has pickup basketball games at its core — kind of.

If you remember, city officials caught some heat last week for an administrative decision that allowed all eight basketball courts at Sports Pavilion Lawrence to be used by the organizers of the large basketball tournament, the Hardwood Classic, which attracted about 300 youth basketball teams to the city. That administrative decision ran contrary to the promises that a previous city commission made during the contentious approval process for SPL and the associated Rock Chalk Park project. Commissioners back then said at least one of the eight courts always would be open to public free-play, since local residents are paying for the bulk of the facility.

At Tuesday’s meeting, relatively new City Manager Tom Markus apologized for the administrative decision. He said he wasn’t fully aware of all the history related to the court issue. He said future requests to close the court during large tournaments won’t be granted, unless the City Commission decides to create a formal policy allowing it. Importantly, though, Markus said he thinks the city should consider such a policy. (My 13-year old son also plans to lobby for a policy that would prohibit me from wearing my 1980s workout shorts during games.)

Markus noted that the city doesn’t have a written policy on the court usage issue. Rather, staff has just been making decisions based on what has been said in past commission meetings. Markus said a written policy is important to have. He also said the city needs to be mindful of how to have tournaments help pay for the facility, which has about a $1.5 million annual debt payment that the city has to pay for about 20 years. Plus, Markus said the facility has good potential to become a major tournament facility in the region, if it can successfully work with tournament organizers.

“One thing I will tell you about the facility is that it is a hit,” Markus said. “It is a huge attraction for our community. It gets so much heavy use that I think you need to think about some other streams of revenue to support it.”

The tournaments — in addition to creating sales tax revenue generated by visitors who come to town for the tournaments — also pay several thousand dollars in rental fees for the facility.

As I’ve noted before, I thought the promise by the past City Commission was going to be a tough one to keep. It seemed a bit more like something you say to quiet a crowd rather than one that was based off of a thoughtful discussion about the best way to run the facility. But, commissioners were emphatic that one court was going to be left open for public free-play at all times. Some residents will be mad if the city backtracks from that position, although staff members note that they ensured other courts at other city owned recreation centers were open for free-play at that time.

Most of the people who will be mad about the issue, though, don’t care much about the availability of basketball courts. Instead, they will be mad that elected officials said one thing because it was advantageous to do so to help win public support for a contentious project. Now that the project is a reality, the position changes. Some members of the public will feel played.

Markus acknowledged the rough history of the project, which was controversial, in part, because the city deviated from its standard bidding practices for large portions of the infrastructure work done at the site. In total, the city spent about $22.5 million on the project.

“When this project was developed,” I understand there was a lot of consternation and some divisiveness,” said Markus. “I’m here to tell you that I wasn’t a part of any of that, and didn’t see any of that. I’m trying to figure out how to make that place work.”

• The city is producing some numbers that show that Sports Pavilion Lawrence is doing well in attracting tournaments to the city. Thus far in 2016, the fieldhouse has hosted 29 tournaments. Original projections made by the city during the development of the project, called for 32 tournaments a year. The city is on pace to go well beyond that total.

Using several sets of spending assumptions, the city estimates that the economic impact of those tournaments has been about $4.4 million in new money injected into the Lawrence economy. The large Hardwood Classic that created the court debate was the biggest contributor with just more than a $1 million economic impact.

Those are good numbers for the community, but they may not be enough. The information I don’t have is how SPL’s operating budget is looking. The city estimated that SPL would need a $1 million operations budget. It estimated $650,000 of that operating budget would come through facility rental fees. I would think that the city is on track to collect that level of fees, since the number of tournaments is exceeding original projections. What’s less clear, though, is whether the $1 million operating budget was a sound estimate. Does it actually take more than that to run the facility? We’ll look into that, but I heard enough at Tuesday’s City Commission meeting to make me wonder.

Remember Markus’ comment from above: “It gets so much heavy use that I think you need to think about some other streams of revenue to support it.” That could be more tournament rental fees, but, absent that, it could be user fees that the general public pays to use the workout facilities and such. The idea has been brought up before but hasn’t ever garnered enough support to move forward. It would be a change in philosophy about how the city treats its recreation centers. The idea didn’t come up specifically at Tuesday’s meeting, but it may be something to keep an eye on.

• One thing that city officials likely are thinking about is competition. Lawrence got into the game early on the idea of a sports complex to attract youth tournaments, but it certainly isn’t the only city making that play.

The one that has been in the news most recently is the Gateway Village project in the Kansas City suburb of Grandview, Mo. It mainly is getting buzz as a large soccer complex, but plans also call for an 86,000 square-foot fieldhouse. Already open and competing for tournaments is a new $14 million youth fieldhouse in Wichita called the Wichita Sports Forum. It has six basketball courts, 10 volleyball courts, a turf soccer field, a trampoline park and other amenities. It is a privately operated venture. The competition for tournaments is likely to do nothing but get more competitive. What type of policies the city creates for use of the facility could become a factor in that competition.

But there’s also something else interesting about these projects. Both projects are part of larger retail and commercial developments. What caught my eye about the Gateway Village project — which breaks ground on Tuesday — is that it recently announced a deal for a Best Western Plus hotel to also break ground.

Rock Chalk Park has commercial property zoned and awaiting development. As we reported earlier this week, a new hotel has plans to build in the city, but it is locating on the eastern edge of Lawrence, far from the northwest location of Rock Chalk Park. The new hotel plans to locate next to VenturePark, the city-owned business park along 23rd Street. Who would have thought that VenturePark would attract a hotel development before Rock Chalk Park?

For whatever reason, commercial development is not progressing well around Rock Chalk Park. The zoned commercial property is still awaiting its first tenant. It seems that the city should figure out why the commercial part of this venture isn’t prospering. I’m certain that previous commissioners were counting on it to do so when they agreed to spend $22.5 million to support Rock Chalk Park. Spurring a new retail and commercial area to develop was one of the hopes of the project.

Will the city have to consider offering some incentives to get that first business to locate at Rock Chalk Park? I suspect there are significant costs related to being the first business to break ground in the development. Retail incentives, however, are not a popular concept with this current City Commission, which doesn’t have a single member who voted for the Rock Chalk Park project.

But, can Rock Chalk Park be considered a success if the commercial development doesn’t happen? Different people probably have different opinions about that. It is kind of a $22.5 million question.