I’d like to start this column out with a big Thank You to Kevin Durant, whose gutless defection to Golden State has rendered my preseason predictions much easier. Now both conferences will begin the season as foregone conclusions. What fun! . . . Anyway, all snark aside, I do love NBA hoops, so here are 10 fearless predictions about the upcoming season, starting with the most obvious of all . . . 1) We’ll get to “enjoy” a third straight NBA Finals encounter between the Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers. This time, the pendulum will swing back the other way and the Warriors will win . . . 
2) Your NBA MVP will be Russell Westbrook, who’s set to go nuts with KD gone. He might lead the league in scoring, too . . . 3) Minnesota’s Karl-Anthony Towns will make the first of twelve straight All-Star appearances, but his T-Wolves will finish ninth in the West and miss the playoffs . . . 4) The Chicago Bulls will struggle to find a way to mesh the games of Dywane Wade, Jimmy Butler and Rajon Rondo. They’ll still make the playoffs as a seventh seed, though . . . 5) L.A. Clippers fans will rue the day that Doc Rivers signed his mediocre son Austin to a three-year deal. Oh wait, they already do . . . 6) Draymond Green’s crap is going to get old for the majority of NBA fans. The voyage from “lovable underdog” to “obnoxious loudmouth” has proven to be a remarkably short one for the multi-talented blowhard . . . 7) People will stop talking about Anthony Davis as if he’s going to be the greatest player in the league and will accept him as what he is: a really good player on a really bad team, but hardly an era-defining talent (that would be the aforementioned Karl-Anthony Towns) . . . 
8) DeMarcus Cousins will be traded before the All-Star Break . . . 9) Kyrie Irving will continue to be the league’s most overrated star, a one-way player whose spectacularly terrible defense is the only reason the Cavs won’t run away in the East . . . 10) The Atlanta Hawks will ring in the Dwight Howard Era by missing the playoffs, while Howard pouts and points fingers through the last half of the season, finally shutting it down with a few weeks to go because of a “bad back” . . . First Team All-NBA 2016-2017: LeBron James, Karl-Anthony Towns, DeAndre Jordan, Russell Westbrook, Stephen Curry 
. . . Western playoff teams: Warriors, Clippers, Spurs, Jazz, Thunder, Trailblazers, Grizzlies, Rockets . . . Eastern playoff teams: Cavs, Celtics, Raptors, Pacers, Pistons, Knicks, Bulls, Heat. Call your bookies . . . And finally, the worst record in the league will once again belong to the Philadelphia 76ers. In a surprise move, Commissioner Adam Silver will follow the international soccer model and relegate the Sixers to the NCAA. The Kentucky Wildcats will then join the league as the newest member of the Atlantic Division. Heard it here first!
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