Does Jalen Rose have a crystal ball?
If he does, the NBA is due for some strange twists and turns over the next few years. Here's what Rose had to say in a recent installment of his 2013 NBA preview with Bill Simmons:Apparently, Kevin Durant is going to return to his old stomping grounds in Texas and join the Houston Rockets, teaming up withDwight Howard and James Harden to form one hell of a Big Three. And when that happens—which would be 2016, based on current contracts—there's more movement to come.
Russell Westbrook and Kevin Love, who were once teammates at UCLA, will also return to their former homes and team up once more—this time for the Los Angeles Lakers. Maybe they'll even stay in their college dorms.
The basis for these predictions is nothing more than the desire to play with former teammates (Westbrook and Love, Durant and Harden) and the college-town connections. Seriously. That's it.
/Getty ImagesI suppose Durant's support of the bearded shooting guardmight play into this as well. He recently told Noah Coslov ofCineSport that he believes Harden has carved out a place among the league's top 10 players.
Even if Rose does have some inside scoop on what's being discussed around the league, it's not like teams are planning for the 2016 offseason already. Instead, they're currently focused on the upcoming 2013-14 season, and some squads are already thinking about what they can do next offseason, especially since both the free-agent class and the draft are set to be quite stacked.
No one is thinking about 2016.
Well, except Rose. Apparently, he's clairvoyant.
I'm not going to say definitively that his predictions won't come true. There's a possibility that Durant does become a member of the Rockets, and there's also a chance that Westbrook and Love usher in a new era of Lakers basketball.
Sure, why not?
But let's not pretend that we have any degree of certainty here. 2016 is a long way off, and a lot changes each and every offseason.
What if the Lakers re-sign Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol to three-year contract extensions and then land Carmelo Anthony and LeBron James over the offseason? Well, there goes the cap space that would be needed to sign either Love or Westbrook, much less both of them.
It's fun for Rose to make these bizarre, off-the-wall predictions, largely because he doesn't have to be held accountable for them. He can spew whatever nonsensical projections he wants, and it's not like anyone is going to remember them down the road if they don't come to fruition. And if he's right, he gets to look like a psychic.
But hey, at least this is better than predicting Michael Jordan will play a game for the Charlotte Bobcats this year.
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