Trying to forecast what looms in a new year is an early January tradition — and I am a traditional guy. Here, then, are eight fearless predictions to tip off the basketball portion of 2019 properly:
Kevin Love Trade Talk
There are only 15 days from Jan. 24, when Cleveland’s Kevin Love becomes trade-eligible in the wake of his July contract extension, to the Feb. 7 trade deadline.
It is not yet clear precisely when Love will make his return — scheduled for this month — from the early November toe surgery that has basically sidelined him all season.
But just watch. There will be plenty of time for the Cavaliers to engage in some meaningful Love trade discussions.
Although the Cavaliers have insisted for months that they want Love, an All-Star forward, to be a cornerstone of a successful post-LeBron James existence (especially in light of their well-chronicled struggles to stay competitive when James left for Miami in 2010), Love continues to be regarded by some rival front offices as a difference-maker who is available for the proverbial right price.
Just one example: Denver has a long-standing fondness for Love, which makes you wonder if the Nuggets will be tempted to make a win-now play for him amid their wholly unexpected rise to the top of the West.
Can I guarantee a Love trade before the deadline? No. Can I promise you that we will wind up talking about Love as a trade candidate in a few weeks? I think I can.
No Team Will Win 60 Games
You have to go all the way back to 2000-01 for the last full season when the NBA did not field a single 60-win team — when the consolation prize was a Western Conference with seven 50-win teams.
But that drought is poised to end.
As 2019 begins, only Toronto (28-11) and Milwaukee (26-10) are within range, leading the league with their 59-win paces. Neither team, though, is even halfway through its West schedule yet, making it difficult to imagine either cracking 60.
Carmelo Anthony Is Done in the NBA
I am hoping that I am actually jinxing myself by predicting doom and thus helping steer Anthony back onto the floor with some faulty forecasting.
The problem is that we are approaching two full months since Anthony, 34, was exiled by the Houston Rockets after just 10 games together. With scant evidence of interest in the former All-Star scoring machine, Melo fans have to be prepared for the growing possibility that he may have no way back.
Thunder Will Rival Warriors
The most encouraging thing you can say about Golden State’s raggedy first half of the season is that you would seriously struggle to identify a team in the Warriors’ conference that you can picture beating the two-time defending champions four times in a playoff series.
Houston has risen from a nightmarish 14th in the West to No. 5 entering 2019, but the Rockets have essentially needed James Harden to score 40 points a night to do so. It is difficult to imagine, as effortless as he can make things look sometimes, that Harden can shoulder such a load for four more months and still have something left in May and June.
With Utah still falling well short of preseason expectations and Denver difficult to endorse as a credible contender considering that these Nuggets have no playoff experience, Oklahoma City looms as the West resident with the best shot at derailing the Warriors from a fifth consecutive trip to the NBA finals.
Chances are that still will not be enough to topple the Warriors, but the Thunder do have the league’s No. 1-ranked defense and two of the game’s top 15 (or so) players with Russell Westbrook and a better-than-ever Paul George.
Kevin Durant Stays With Warriors
I must confess that I am not confidently shouting this one to the world.
Only Durant truly knows what he wants — and there is no shortage of signals in circulation to suggest that the New York Knicks have a real chance of persuading him to walk away from the Warriors in July, when he can become a free agent.
Lots, though, can happen over the next six months. So I am stubbornly clinging to my membership in the camp that believes that the Silicon Valley-loving Durant will ultimately be swayed to spend one season in the Warriors’ sparkly new Chase Center arena in San Francisco before moving on to his next challenge in July 2020.
Kawhi Leonard Will Become a Clipper
Look for several of next summer’s major free agents — Boston’s Kyrie Irving, Philadelphia’s Jimmy Butler and Golden State’s Klay Thompson — to stay put.
But allow me to also pass on one of the wildest predictions shared with me by a trusted colleague recently: DeMarcus Cousins will consider re-upping with the Warriors for one more season even though their lack of financial flexibility and the league’s rules that limit raises will most likely prevent Golden State from being able to offer Cousins a meaningful bump from his current $5.3 million salary.
The Raptors, however, know that they almost certainly have to win it all to persuade Leonard to spurn a return to his native Southern California. It turns out that merely winning the LeBron-less East will be tougher than the Raptors ever imagined because of Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Boston and pesky Indiana.
The Clippers’ hopes of signing Leonard away from the Raptors, as a result, feel rather real as the calendar flips. (A back injury that has sidelined All-Star guard Kyle Lowry for eight of Toronto’s past nine games does not help the situation.) One likewise presumes that a full Toronto teardown, headlined by a Lowry trade, would soon follow if Leonard exits.
Anthony Davis Is a Short-Term Pelican
And you know what that means.
The New Orleans Pelicans will have no choice at that point but to trade Davis to ensure the maximum return for The Brow before he can become a free agent in July 2020.
I suspect that the Pelicans, deep down, know this is the likely scenario. But their preference surely remains trying to get through this season before dealing with their worst nightmare.
Dragging the Davis saga to the summer, remember, brings the Celtics into the mix. Because of restrictions in the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement, Boston cannot enter the trade bidding while Irving is on its roster and on a designated rookie scale contract like Davis.
Of course, with 35days until the trade deadline, rest assured that much more buzz about the Los Angeles Lakers trying to coerce the Pelicans into trading Davis soon is in your immediate future.
The Warriors Will Three-Peat in June
I did not forget about the prize that teams are chasing the hardest.
And, no, I am not ready to let the unforeseen glut of quality teams challenging for Eastern Conference supremacy sway me into fearlessly picking against Golden State.
Sorry, friends. The Warriors will ultimately haul themselves out of their regular-season malaise to win a fourth championship in five seasons. Book it.