2014 NBA Trade Rumors: Kevin Love To Boston? Celtics Have Top Offer According To Bill Simmons! 'Clairvoyant Bill!' Has Blown Predictions Before!
The 2014 NBA Trade Rumors are full steam ahead now that the season's over. Kevin Love is still the glittering prize and apparently, his visit to Boston is not exactly a random thing.
No less than Grantland head Bill Simmons, aka The Sports Guy who also boldly assumed the title of Clairvoyant Bill on his preseason videos, has declared Boston the frontrunner. Of course he is a die-hard Celtic fan, but let's see what he's got:
If TWolves trade Love, Celts are heavy favs to get him now. GS won't discuss Klay T. + Bulls are focused on Melo. Boston trumps anyone else.
— Bill Simmons (@BillSimmons) June 18, 2014
From Boston.com: "Golden State and Chicago, along with Boston are widely considered to be the other top contenders for acquiring Love, but that's only if they pony up the young assets to appease the Wolves. While neither team can match Boston's offer of a lottery pick and potentially additional first round picks in a trade proposal, both squads have the young players (Klay Thompson, Harrison Barnes, Jimmy Butler, Taj Gibson, Nikola Mirotic) that would catch Minnesota's eye."
The actual offer from Boston was not cited, but it could comprise of both their draft picks (#6 and #17) perhaps Jeff Green and Avery Bradley-practically anyone on the Celtics roster which the T-wolves fancy except Rajon Rondo.
The problem for the Warriors is their lack of draft picks and their reluctance to include Klay Thompson. The problem for the Bulls is they are focusing on Carmelo Anthony first and they have placed Love as the back-up plan. That doesn't leave a clear path for Boston just yet as more teams are taking chances.
The Houston Rockets have seemingly waved the white flag and are also focused on free agents. The Phoenix Suns and Cleveland Cavaliers have draft picks and young players but they would plummet Minnesota into a slow rebuild. Remember that Love is not a free agent this year and Minnesota can refuse to cooperate and take the risk of Love walking out the following year.
Is Clairvoyant Bill right this time? Just how clairvoyant is he? A site initiated by an NBA reddit user listed down all 30 predictions in his pre-season video series. As of February, he only has 2 out of 30 predictions correct, 5 have been refuted and the others were pending.
Eventually, the only correct predictions he got was the Sixers winning more than 10 games and Luol Deng leaving the Bulls (although not for the reasons he stated). He was correct that Wizards rookie Porter could be a bust (due to injury though).
His worst prediction was that Phoenix would end up as 2nd worst team, Kobe returning to play and having an explosive scoring season and LeBron winning his fifth MVP award.