We made it. Congratulations to everyone, because the NBA’s offseason is finally over, and real, meaningful basketball is finally here again. Go celebrate with a nice dinner or something, but make sure you’re home and in front of your television by 8 p.m. EST, because that’s when the Boston Celtics and the Philadelphia 76ers tip off the 2018-19 campaign.
Before things tip off, our roundtable wanted to look at a few broad topics surrounding the NBA. We picked our NBA champions for this upcoming season — spoiler: the Warriors — but also decided to look at the trade block, free agency, and more.
Previous 2018-19 NBA preview roundtables:
Individual award winners
Eastern Conference preview
Western Conference preview
What teams will end up winning the NBA championship?
Jeff Siegel: It’s still Golden State’s league until we see them felled, but the Boston Celtics have as real a shot as anybody has had over the past two years to knocking them off. If Gordon Hayward is back at the level he was before moving from Utah to Boston, the Celtics can go almost toe-to-toe with the Warriors in terms of superstar talent and have a deeper and better bench to add to the proceedings.
Chris Barnewall: The Warriors are still the greatest collection of talent ever and have a chance to make their mark on history. It’s gonna be them again.
Nekias Duncan: It’s going to be the Warriors barring the apocalypse. That, or the planet overheating, which, well…
Mike Zavagno: The Warriors pull off the first three-peat since 2002.
Jamie Cooper: The Warriors. I’m afraid the Rockets missed their window. The Celtics, on the other hand, have so much talent and so much depth that it’s tempting to believe in them. I still have to go Warriors, though.
Konata Edwards: The Warriors. Golden State is like Deebo from Friday. Unfortunately, there are no Craigs in the league, just a lot of Reds.
Robby Kalland: The Warriors will win, but it’s all about the journey, not the destination, folks. The NBA is the rare league where the end result of the season is as close to a foregone conclusion as can be in pro sports, but the season remains fascinating to watch for other reasons.
Bill DiFilippo: In the song “Broken Cash Machine” by Modern Baseball, the following lyric appears: “The sun explodes, we die, the world ends.” There is the circumstance upon which I think the Warriors don’t win a title this year. Next year should be more fun — scroll to the final question for more — but this year, it’s Golden State and everyone else, even if Boston is really, really good.
Which coach is the most likely to be fired?
Siegel: It’s still astounding to me that Tom Thibodeau still has his job after everything we’ve seen with the Jimmy Butler saga. Outside of Thibodeau, there’s significant pressure on Terry Stotts after the Trail Blazers were swept out of the first round of the playoffs last season. Fair or not, Stotts will likely be the fall guy before general manager Neil Olshey.
Barnewall: Tom Thibodeau might not make it to opening night at this rate.
Duncan: I have no idea how Tom Thibodeau survives this week, much less this season.
Zavagno: It’s Thibs and it HAS to be Thibs. But to step away from that situation for a second, I think Dave Joerger’s seat in Sacramento has to be warming up. The Kings appear headed for another top-5 pick and their roster construction offers no clear path through the darkness. While probably unfair to Joerger, he seems like the one who may sink with the ship.
Cooper: It’s hard to imagine Thibs making it out of this unscathed, but there’s a fantastical scenario in which he fully convinces Jimmy Butler to come back home and all is right in Minnesota. Over in Washington, Scott Brooks is definitely in the hot seat this season. If the Wizards see more locker room turmoil combined with underwhelming efforts on the court, Brooks might be looking for employment elsewhere.
Edwards: I’m stunned no one picked Fred Hoiberg for this. This Bulls team has all of the ingredients to get a coach fired by December. While Thibs will make Glen Taylor fire him, he might not beat Hoiberg to the unemployment line.
Kalland: Thibs is almost for sure gone but I wouldn’t be surprised if Joerger was far behind. The Kings are a disaster and I don’t know how much of their problems, if any, belong on the shoulders of Joerger. But if they’re as bad as they can be, this would be his third season in Sacramento and a third season taking a step backwards in wins. That tends to be a recipe for a coach getting the axe, especially if a front office wants to shift blame off of themselves.
DiFilippo: To repeat what everyone else said: The answer should be Thibs, but I’m not discounting Hoiberg and Joerger in the race to get canned. A bonus prediction: Joerger getting fired would have a similar reaction to when David Fizdale got fired in Memphis last year, and if he’s unemployed once next offseason rolls around, a smart team is hiring him.
Which team ends up trading for Jimmy Butler?
Siegel: Nobody! He stays in Minnesota on the most awkward team in NBA history, then he specifically chooses another Northwest team (Utah, anyone?) so that he can come back to Minnesota twice a year to drop 40 and hold Andrew Wiggins to 2-for-10 from the field.
Barnewall: The Heat. After everything that happened, they have to be the only team in the NBA that still wants him.
Duncan: It’ll be Miami. It has to be Miami at this point.
Cooper: I’m gonna go out on a limb and say the Rockets stage a major coup at the 11th hour and change the whole trajectory of this season. Make this happen, Morey.
Edwards: Houston. If Miami was gonna get Jimmy, it’d have happened weeks ago. Now? This is screaming for Morey to swoop in around Dec. 15.
Kalland: If the Clippers sputter out of the gates I could see them finally putting Tobias Harris into a deal and going for this in hopes that adding Butler now will set them up to add a second star this summer. The Heat are still frontrunners here and I know Houston will try but it’s hard for them to part with enough to make it happen, so I’ll ride with the Clippers to try and pick up some buzz from the LeBron circus in the same building.
DiFilippo: The Heat seem like they can get him at any point if they want, but I have this nagging feeling that the Clippers can throw that plan out of whack in a nanosecond. If they start slow, why not swing for the fences and try to grab a superstar on their star-less roster? Plus as some of my colleagues have alluded to, Daryl Morey can never be counted out.
Outside of Jimmy Butler, who is the biggest star to get traded?
Siegel: Will anybody take Eric Bledsoe from the Milwaukee Bucks? Somebody is going to have to fall in love with his athleticism at the point guard spot — maybe Orlando is willing to move on from Terrence Ross in a deal to upgrade their point guard situation.
Barnewall: Someone would have to tear everything down mid-season, maybe that’s the Wizards once they inevitably disappoint us?
Duncan: The answer should absolutely be Kemba Walker. Charlotte needs a reset badly. But living near that area, there’s almost next to no chance Charlotte even picks up a phone call about him. They love him, and he loves the organization, the fans, the community, all of it. Maybe Cleveland pulls one from the Clippers playbook (sorry Blake) and starts fielding calls for Kevin Love near the deadline.
Zavagno: I’ll take a swing here and say Kevin Love. The Cavs have wildly high expectations going into the season relative to their talent level. While Love did just ink an extension, it also created a gateway to move him for increased value at the trade deadline. When Cleveland inevitably falls short of its internal goals, Love may be available for the right price.
Cooper: I’d like to see Kemba Walker in a new situation somewhere he can compete. He’s a criminally underrated point guard who could be the missing ingredient for a lot of teams. I’d like to see him maybe paired up with Giannis in Milwaukee in exchange for Eric Bledsoe. Walker will be a free agent next summer. Time to strike while the iron’s hot.
Edwards: It’s going to sound crazy, but Aaron Gordon is a name I wouldn’t be surprised to see head elsewhere. Orlando has way too many guys who play the 4 or 5 spot and while he did just sign a huge extension, it’s not entirely crazy to find a team willing to make the numbers work.
Kalland: Kemba and Love will have rumors all season, but I don’t think either get dealt due to demands from ownership to hold on to both. I’ll take Bradley Beal as the actual star-level player most likely to get dealt, simply because his contract’s much more palatable than Otto Porter or John Wall’s and if Washington does hit the reset button, that’s the most likely option. The thing is, I think the deadline will come and go without an actual star being dealt and it’ll be, like, Jeff Teague that’s the biggest name.
DiFilippo: To go a little off the beaten path, I’m fascinated by what Portland does if this season goes south. I don’t think it will — they’re still a good basketball team — but if it does, do they take calls about C.J. McCollum? Dare they listen to calls about Damian Lillard? My guess is no, and Robby’s scenario likely ends up happening with someone like Teague or Kyle Korver being the biggest name moved, but the Blazers (and the Wizards, as some people alluded to) are a wild card.
Once the summer rolls around, who is the biggest name to change teams in free agency?
Siegel: Since I think Butler is going to be with the Timberwolves all year, I’ll go with him. It should be noted that there’s almost no way we make it through the whole year with Butler on the Wolves, but I’m just rooting for chaos and awkwardness here.
Barnewall: Kevin Durant will take his three-peat and go give it a shot somewhere else. He’s had his fun in Golden State, but there’s just something off about that whole situation.
Duncan: I, too, think it’s going to be Kevin Durant. Nobody really knows what he wants, but it seems clear that the only thing he values more than winning is being loved. That’s not a bad thing, per se, but he’s not going to get the love he desires in Golden State. Even if he’s better than Steph Curry, he’ll never be embraced like that.
Zavagno: I’ll join the Durant choir. I think Durant is still searching to derive something from the game of basketball that he has yet to find.
For a bolder take, I will say Kyrie Irving. While Irving voiced publicly his desire to re-sign with the Boston Celtics, I am still not convinced that the Celtics will fully commit to him. Given his injury history and the upcoming contracts of other players on the roster, I would be wary of signing Irving to the full five-year max. Perhaps that doesn’t matter in the end and the sides find a middle ground, but it is certainly a situation I will be monitoring throughout the year.
Cooper: There’s a lot of speculation about Durant, but I think the safest bet is Kawhi Leonard. He didn’t end up in his preferred destination in Los Angeles this summer, and despite its sparkly allure, I just don’t think there’s enough incentive for him in Toronto to stick around.
Edwards: Bradley Beal, but it’d be a trade. Think after a certain point, Washington is gonna have to rip the band-aid off and retool around the one contract you can’t move in John Wall.
Kalland: Durant’s gone.
DiFilippo: [extreme I am from the tri-state area voice] KEVIN DURANT’S A KNICK.
