DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – NASCAR has successfully closed its acquisition of the International Speedway Corp., merging its operations into one company moving forward.

The new company will remain based in Daytona Beach, Fla., and will continue as NASCAR. As part of this process, ISC has been delisted from NASDAQ.

In leading the new, combined company, Jim France will serve as the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, with Lesa France Kennedy as Executive Vice Chair. Steve Phelps has been appointed President and will oversee all operations of the merged entity.

“The merger of NASCAR and ISC represents a historic moment for our sport,” France said. “There is much work ahead of us, but we’re pleased with the progress made to position our sport for success. Delivering for our race fans and partners is job number one and we look forward to doing that better than ever for years to come.”

As part of the new organization, the Board of Directors will consist of France, France Kennedy, Mike Helton and Gary Crotty, Chief Legal Officer. Phelps’ direct reports will represent executives with deep industry experience, including Ed Bennett, Executive Vice President & Chief Administrative Officer; Jill Gregory, Executive Vice President & Chief Marketing and Content Officer; Craig Neeb, Executive Vice President & Chief Innovation Officer; Steve O’Donnell, Executive Vice President & Chief Racing Development Officer; and Daryl Wolfe, Executive Vice President & Chief Operations and Sales Officer.

In addition, Helton and John Saunders will serve as senior advisors under the new leadership structure.

“This sport has meant so much to our family and we are committed to leading NASCAR through this next chapter of growth,” said France Kennedy. “Combining the two companies will allow us to capture the best aspects of both operations. Our stronger organization will allow us to take advantage of the tremendous opportunities to grow the sport over the next decade plus.”

The International Speedway Corp. was the parent company of several tracks that hosts NASCAR events, including Daytona Int’l Speedway, ISM Raceway, Auto Club Speedway, Darlington Raceway, Homestead-Miami Speedway, Kansas Speedway, Martinsville Speedway, Michigan Int’l Speedway, Richmond Raceway, Talladega Superspeedway and Watkins Glen Int’l.

This is the second such merger to impact the NASCAR industry in recent months, with Speedway Motorsports Inc. recently went private after merging with Sonic Financial Corp. Both organizations were primarily owned and operated by Bruton Smith and members of the Smith family.

“With great racing across all of our series, an exciting 2020 schedule on tap, and the Next Gen race car in development, we are better positioned than ever before to lead the sport into a new era of growth,” said Phelps. “We have a strong, experienced leadership team in place with incredibly dedicated employees at every level throughout our organization. Our best days are ahead of us and our new organization is going to allow us to better deliver great racing to our fans everywhere.”

Advising NASCAR on this transaction were Goldman, Sachs & Co. LLC as exclusive financial advisor and Baker Botts L.L.P. as legal counsel. Dean Bradley Osborne Partners LLC served as financial advisor and Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz as legal counsel to the ISC special committee. Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr LLP served as legal counsel to ISC and BDT & Company served as financial advisors to the France family.

HERRIMAN, Utah -- The first time Nick Rimando crossed paths with Kyle Beckerman, the goalkeeper felt compelled to engage in something of a rescue operation.

It was the summer of 2000, and Beckerman was a teenage rookie who had just signed on with the Miami Fusion after starring for the U.S. under-17 national team. He was living with the late Doug Hamilton, Miami's general manager at the time.

"It was like kind of still living at home, but at somebody else's house," Beckerman said in an exclusive interview with ESPN at Real Salt Lake's training facility.

Rimando, who was also in his first professional season, caught wind of the arrangement and decided to intervene.

"We had a place to live with [former Fusion midfielder] Martin Machon. We had an extra bedroom," Rimando said. "I told him, 'Get out of there, man, you're more than welcome to come stay with us.' It was really easy. [Beckerman] fit right in. Just an easy kid, eager to play, eager to prove himself in a new environment. We had all of these veterans, so we had that bond of being the young kids on the team."

Beckerman was grateful for the invitation.

"Just having a guy who was a bit older, having gone to college and me coming from high school, it was good to have somebody to have different things to do with, and just a more experienced person," he said.

It's a connection that is now in its 20th season. It survived not only the Fusion folding in 2001, but multiple trades as well. The two eventually were reunited in 2007 with Real Salt Lake, where they're now club icons. It's seen them share incredible highs, including the 2009 MLS Cup title, as well as trip to the 2014 World Cup with the U.S. men's national team. There have been disappointments as well, including the near-miss that was RSL's run to the 2011 CONCACAF Champions League final.

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Yet the relationship is about to change.

Rimando is set to retire at season's end. With the MLS Cup playoffs set to begin this weekend, his final game could come as early as Saturday, when RSL hosts the Portland Timbers in Round 1 of the Western Conference playoffs (10 p.m. ET, watch live on ESPNEWS). At best, it will conclude at the MLS Cup final on Nov. 10. Regardless, his career has less than a month to run.

While Beckerman has been noncommittal about his plans, he seems likely to soldier on. Combined with the retirement of defender Tony Beltran on Sept. 13, Rimando's pending departure will make Beckerman the final link to RSL's glory days of the late 2000s and early 2010s. For now, he and Rimando are ready for one last title push.

"We're good teammates. We're tight," Rimando said of Beckerman. "In the beginning, when you're single, we're out in Miami, going out to dinner all the time. Then you get a girlfriend, you get a wife, kind of do your separate things. Then you have kids and you're throwing a lot of things up in the air. We're definitely not hanging out as much because we've got a lot on our tables, both sides. It never takes away the teammates and friends that we are when we're on the road or on the field or in the locker room."

The two RSL mainstays have also seen their careers span a period that's made the league they entered in 2000 barely recognizable today. Rimando recalled that on the day he was drafted by the Fusion, he was picked up by a team administrator and taken to a hotel "where nobody was staying."

"I remember seeing a Miami Subs across the street. I was like, 'I guess I'll go there for dinner,'" he said. "That's changed a lot."

The team trained at Fort Lauderdale Stadium, which at the time was the spring training home of the Baltimore Orioles. The training gear consisted of all-cotton T-shirts. By the end of the season, Rimando's had stretched down to his knees. When that vision is set against the palatial digs of RSL's training facility, opened in 2018, or even the investment in players made by recent expansion teams like LAFC and Atlanta United, the contrast is jarring. Yet it was still professional soccer, and it proved an important baptism for both players even though their experiences couldn't have been more different.

The Fusion were managed by current beIN Sports broadcaster Ray Hudson, and the roster was full of veterans such as Preki, Chris Henderson, Ian Bishop and Alex Pineda Chacon, as well as a young Pablo Mastroeni.

"It was a pretty much a pirate ship, that Miami Fusion team," Hudson said. "There was a few Blackbeards, you would say."

In the wake of an injury to starting keeper Jeff Cassar, Rimando quickly won Hudson over and was the starter for much of his time in Miami.

"[Rimando's] ability with the ball at his feet, he had what I called a sidewinder. It was a f---in' weapon for us, that he would launch it out of his hands," Hudson said. "You didn't see that s---. It was like maybe you'd see in Mexico. We would be laughing on the bench. It didn't always work out, but I'd just throw my hand up and blow him a kiss sort of thing. His agility, his speed off the line, Iker Casillas-like, a Keylor Navas type, jackrabbit quick. He was f---in' monumental."

Beckerman wasn't as fortunate, a victim of an utterly stacked midfield as well as a broken ankle he sustained while on loan. But despite a lack of playing time, he still values his stint in Miami in that he learned plenty from the team's veterans.

The Fusion folding after the 2001 season -- a year in which they did win the Supporters' Shield -- meant Rimando and Beckerman were among those snapped up by clubs around the league. Rimando ended up with D.C. United, where he won an MLS Cup in 2004. Beckerman was sent to the Colorado Rapids, where he became a regular alongside his old Fusion teammate Mastroeni.

That they both ended up in Salt Lake came as a result of two of the more noteworthy trades in MLS history. Rimando was actually traded three times in three months, first from D.C. to Real Salt Lake in late 2006, as a throw-in on the deal that brought Freddy Adu to RSL. Then he was shipped to the New York Red Bulls the following February. But when nominal RSL starter Scott Garlick abruptly retired, RSL was forced to scramble, and reacquired Rimando just two weeks after he'd been shipped East. He got word as he was getting his physical with the Red Bulls, though he had other things on his mind.

"My car had gotten broken into the night before in New York. I was like, 'Get us out of here,'" Rimando said.

The 2007 trade that brought Beckerman to Salt Lake is one of the most lopsided in MLS history, a deal that saw him swapped straight up for Mehdi Ballouchy. What made the deal odd was that it was swung by John Ellinger, who had been fired as RSL manager just weeks before but was asked by owner Dave Checketts to stay on as acting GM.

Adding another layer of oddity, manager Jason Kreis wasn't sure he even wanted Beckerman. He loved Ballouchy's skill on the ball. And Kreis and Beckerman had gotten into a verbal altercation during a preseason game the previous February.

"Beckerman was running his mouth as he often does, goading me a lot," Kreis said. "I was of course a veteran, experienced player, towards the end of my career. I didn't take too kindly to that. We got into it a little bit. It's kind of incredible that not even six months later we were trading to bring him here with me as the head coach."

For Kreis, any doubts that RSL got the better of the deal quickly evaporated. "His mentality in the training increased the level of competitiveness and the level of intensity in the sessions from day one," Kreis said of Beckerman. "He was a turnkey figure for us right away."

Given the slick passing game Kreis wanted to implement, he soon discovered that in Rimando, he had the ideal goalkeeper to implement that plan.

"With a guy like Nick Rimando in the goal, you always felt like you had an extra player on the field," Kreis said. "So much so that I told the guys, 'Look, give the ball back to him. If you feel like you're under any sort of pressure, you always have the outlet to go backwards to Nick, and he'll pick out the next pass.'"

Other key players like Nat Borchers, Javier Morales and Fabian Espindola soon arrived, turning RSL into a league power. But Rimando and Beckerman were the pillars even as the team was eventually broken up, bit by bit.

"They were incredible to manage and very, very strong leaders," Kreis said of the pair.

Asked to pick out memories of the other, Beckerman and Rimando gravitate toward RSL's 2009 title, as well as the World Cup. Beckerman recalled how he missed his penalty in the shootout that decided the 2009 MLS Cup final.

"I was like, 'We're going to be all right. We've got Nick,'" he said.

But Beckerman tends not to get nostalgic about past accomplishments. He said he still hasn't watched any of the games he played in at the 2014 World Cup. Rather, his impulse is to look forward. When asked about his future plans, Beckerman quipped, "I think we have tomorrow off."

Beckerman also brought up a 2007 double-save Rimando made against the Rapids to secure that year's Rocky Mountain Cup and admitted that the thought of not having Rimando in goal next season will be "weird."

"It will take a while to get used to, I'm sure," Beckerman said, although he doesn't expect this season to be the final time he'll ever see the longtime RSL keeper. "We've had a lot of laughs. I'm sure it will continue."

With the end of his career in sight, Rimando is quicker to recall moments, both on and off the field. The tension in the U.S. camp ahead of the final World Cup roster announcement in 2014 sprang to mind, especially considering both he and Beckerman survived. The day-to-day sticks in the memory as well, and yet Rimando couldn't help but think back on what took place in his rookie season.

"I'm just happy for Kyle, because I saw him when he was on a futon with nothing, just hanging out, living out of a bag. 'Hey, whatever.' Just a chill kid. 'I'll do laundry later,'" Rimando said. "And this guy who has grown up to have this career that he has, beautiful wife, son, and that's what I'm most happy about for him. His career has spoken for itself."

So has Rimando's. In terms of what he'll remember the most, he said, "Longevity, playing 20 years, the friendships, they all stand out."

One more than most.

With the T20 World Cup less than a year away, Sri Lanka believe this month's tour of Australia - where the World Cup will be held - will prove the ideal testing ground for their crop of youngsters to prove themselves in conditions Down Under.

"I'm happy [that such a young team] managed to beat the number one team [Pakistan] in the world," T20I captain Lasith Malinga said at Friday's media briefing in Colombo. "It's important to show Sri Lanka's depth of talent. But the conditions and wickets [in Australia] will likely be different.

"If we perform well in those conditions, then it will bode well for our preparations for the World Cup. And if you perform well on this tour, there will be a good chance of those players making it to the World Cup as well."

That said, Sri Lanka will also be touring India for a T20I series before the World Cup, where conditions will be markedly different from those expected in Australia. For Malinga, while identifying form players is important, equally as important is identifying a set of players capable of making the right decisions under pressure.

"In T20 cricket it's important to understand that decisions need to be taken quickly on the field, more so than in 50-over cricket or Test cricket," Malinga said. "You can win a match solely on one decision that a player makes. Because of that, just as important as talent is a player's decision-making in matches, the way a player thinks in the middle of a game. So we're looking for intelligent players capable of winning a game.

"We need around 11-12 players of this calibre in our squad, and that way we can always have about six to seven at the very least in a game, players capable of winning matches in key moments."

From the new faces that were included in the squad that toured Pakistan, the selectors have retained the two standout performers in Bhanuka Rajapaksa and Oshada Fernando. Making their way back into the squad, meanwhile, have been Malinga, Kusal Mendis, Niroshan Dickwella and Kusal Janith Perera.

For interim head coach Rumesh Ratnayake, the hope is that the returning players will make a winning combination even stronger.

"Australia is a huge challenge, regardless of the level you play them at that," Ratnayake said. "In cricket, they have been among the best in all formats for the past 20 years. And the four players coming into the squad will certainly strengthen us. It's a stronger team. And we're very confident that we can challenge Australia."

In terms of selecting the final playing XI, Chief Selector Ashantha De Mel admitted that it would be a challenge considering that some of the returning players hadn't played cricket in quite some time. Eventually, he said, form would be the deciding factor.

"I think winning is important but what we're looking at more is form," de Mel said. "In Pakistan some of the players showed that they were in good form, so when we go to Australia it's a challenge for us [the selectors] also. We'll have to discuss with the captain and see.

"Then we'll also have to see what the form is of the new players that are coming in, because they haven't played cricket for a month, we'll also have to take that into account when we're selecting the final XI."

Sri Lanka play Australia in three T20Is with the first game taking place in Adelaide on October 27.

Netherlands 166 for 4 (O'Dowd 53, Cooper 36, Obuya 2-16) beat Kenya 136 for 8 (Obuya 63, van Meekeren 3-27, Klaassen 2-23) by 30 runs

Unlike the other reigning co-champs Scotland, the other joint-title holders from the 2015 T20 World Cup Qualifier managed to avoid the upset bug as Max O'Dowd's first innings half-century was more than enough behind a quality team bowling effort as Netherlands coasted past Kenya in a 30-run win.

Kenya paid for sloppy fielding in the Powerplay as O'Dowd was dropped on 2 at mid-on before later going on to make his fifty while his opening partner Tobias Visee survived two chances on 1 and 12. It allowed the pair to add a brisk 36 off 21 balls for the first wicket before Visee fell to a yorker from Nelson Odhiambo in the fourth.

O'Dowd and Ben Cooper then teamed for a 77-run second-wicket stand as Kenya's bowling unit struggled to apply any sort of pressure. Though boundaries were few, singles were plenty during the partnership. O'Dowd (bowled), Cooper (caught extra cover) and Ryan ten Doeschate (slog to deep midwicket) all fell in the space of 13 runs as Kenya fought back late through Collins Obuya's spin. But Pieter Seelaar's late cameo along with Roelof van der Merwe added 40 off the last 25 balls to take the Dutch out of any danger.

Paul van Meekeren sparked the Dutch in the field, first with a sharp catch on a skier to claim Dhiren Gondaria in the fifth for Timm van der Gugten's only wicket of the day. Van Meekeren then bowled Alex Obanda to start the sixth with a full and straight delivery, the first of his three wickets in the match. Jasraj Kundi was bowled flicking across the line to van der Merwe to make it 39 for 3 before a methodical 70-run stand between Rakep Patel and Obuya brought respectability back to Kenya's innings.

However, they were never seriously in striking distance, needing more than 10 an over for the last 12 overs. Rakep holed out to long-on for van Meekeren's second wicket before Fred Klaassen produced a double-strike in the 18th with some intelligent death bowling. He ran back 25 yards changing direction in his follow-through to claim a skier off Obuya before a cutter produced another thick edge to short third man two balls later to dismiss Shem Ngoche. Van Meekeren clean bowled Lucas Oluoch in the final over to finish off his haul for the day while Brandon Glover also contributed an economical spell of 1 for 19.

Left-arm spinner Shahbaz Nadeem has been added to India's squad on the eve of the third Test against South Africa in Ranchi, with Kuldeep Yadav having complained of shoulder pain on Friday.

Nadeem has been a consistent performer in domestic cricket for several years, and has the distinction of having taken more than 50 wickets in a Ranji season twice.

He had just returned home to Kolkata, where he resides, after having played for Jharkhand in the Vijay Hazare Trophy, when he received news of his call up. Jharkhand were part of Group A in the tournament, but didn't qualify for the knockouts.

Nadeem received his maiden India call-up for the T20I squad during West Indies' tour of the subcontinent last year but did not feature in any game. Incidentally, the JSCA Stadium in Ranchi is Nadeem's home ground.

Nadeem's call-up provides India with an option in case they need to use the new concussion substitute rule for a spinner. While R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja have been India's first-choice spinners in the first two Tests, the addition of Nadeem gives the team an option in case one of them needs a back-up midway through the Test, which India might not have had otherwise considering Kuldeep's injury.

New ECB findings suggest that almost a third of the 15.4 million viewers who watched the World Cup final on free-to-air TV this summer were tuning into cricket for the very first time, as the governing body seeks to build on the sport's success in a memorable summer.

With the ECB chairman and chief executive, Colin Graves and Tom Harrison, preparing to give evidence to the House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee (DCMS) on Wednesday, the board has released new data that shows the extent to which cricket captured the public imagination in 2019.

Following a late agreement between the ECB and Sky Sports, the World Cup's host broadcaster, the feed for the final was shared with the UK terrestrial channel, Channel Four, and those who tuned in were rewarded with an extraordinary finish, in which Ben Stokes battled back to tie the match after 50 overs, before England lifted the trophy after Jos Buttler's run-out tied the subsequent Super Over and won the match on boundary countback.

According to quantitative and qualitative research that is due to be published in full later this year, 24 million people in England and Wales are believed to have tuned into the World Cup at some stage, while of the 15.4 million who watched the final - the first international fixture to be shown on a terrestrial platform since 2006 - 31 percent were watching cricket on TV for the first time.

At the venues, 52,000 people purchased tickets for the first time, out of a total of 227,000 sales, while 40 percent of fans say that they intend to follow cricket more closely in the next 12 months - a figure that rises to 51 percent for South Asian supporters.

On the participation front, amateur clubs reported a 61 percent increase in membership compared to 2018, and a 62 percent year-on-year Sixty-one percent of amateur clubs saw an increase in membership compared to 2018. Similarly, clubs saw a 62 percent increase in the number of junior players.

That latter figure was aided by the work of the cricket charity, Chance to Shine, which worked in conjunction with the Cricket World Cup schools programme to more than 800,000 students in close to 8,000 schools.

ECB chief executive, Tom Harrison, said of the figures: "We knew hosting the 2019 ICC Men's Cricket World Cup would give us a great platform from which to diversify and grow the game and these findings demonstrate that we've been able to both reach new fans and to strengthen connections with existing supporters.

"Cricket can play a powerful role in bringing communities together - we witnessed that this summer - and we've seen that moments like the one we saw at Lord's can help to inspire a generation.

"This summer has helped to ignite heightened passion for the game across the country and I look forward to seeing how we utilise that through our 2020-2024 strategy, Inspiring Generations."

Former India women captains Diana Edulji and Shanta Rangaswamy have pulled up the BCCI management over the appointments of ad-hoc assistant coaches for the Indian women's team, which they pointed out were done without the consent of the women's selection committee.

On Friday, both women sent separate e-mails to BCCI chief executive officer Rahul Johri objecting to the process involved in appointing the support staff. While Edulji called the process a "sham", Rangaswamy questioned why there were no women being appointed.

Edulji is part of the committee of administrators (CoA), which is the supervisory authority of the board till a fresh elected administration takes charge. Rangaswamy will be part of that new administration after being elected as one of the two representatives from the Indian Cricketers' Association to sit on the Apex Council.

The development comes a day after the women's selection committee sent an email to Johri asking why the five-woman panel was not consulted before Narendra Hirwani was appointed the bowling coach and T Dilip was installed as the fielding coach for India's forthcoming tour of West Indies.

The Caribbean trip comprises three ODIs followed by five T20Is between November 1 and 20. The head coach of the team is former India opening batsman WV Raman, who was shortlisted by an ad-hoc cricket advisory committee that incidentally featured Rangaswamy.

According to the Indian Express, the email to Johri was sent by Hemalata Kala, the chairman of the senior women's selection committee, and was signed by the four other selectors comprising Sudha Shah, Anjali Pendharkar, Shashi Gupta and Lopamudra Banerjee. Kala and her colleagues wanted to know why they were not consulted before the BCCI management finalised the support staff including the appointment of a trainer, as well as renewing the contract of the physiotherapist.

Incidentally, the selectors were asked by the BCCI management to conduct interviews on Friday for the post of the video analyst that would travel for the West Indies series. However, in her email to Johri, Edulji pointed out that Pushkar Sawant, who works as an analyst at the National Cricket Academy (NCA), had already been booked on the flight to the Caribbean after he was chosen by Saba Karim, BCCI's general manager of cricket.

"I am shocked reading the article quoting the email from Women Selectors to you regarding the sham process being followed for selection of the video analyst," Edjulji said in her e-mail, seen by ESPNcricinfo. "It is even more worrisome that the person Mr Pushkar Sawant, wanted by Saba and NCA is already booked on the flight to West Indies. The whole process looks like an eyewash."

Although Johri is at the top of the BCCI management tree, women's cricket falls under the purview of Karim, the former India wicketkeeper and former national men's selector. It is understood that on October 1, the coaching and support staff appointment for the women's team was discussed at a meeting of the committee of administrators (CoA) along with Karim and Johri. Also present at the meeting was former India captain Rahul Dravid, who is director of cricket at the NCA.

According to one of the officials present at the meeting, Dravid agreed with the BCCI management viewpoint that ad-hoc assistant coaches for the women's team were fine as they could be picked based on the conditions. However, Edulji argued that the BCCI rules dictate that only the selection committee could appoint any support staff. It is believed that Dravid then said that the process should be followed.

Edulji noted that Karim had defied "repeated instructions" because he wanted to "place" people in positions without "due process." Edulji said Karim's actions amounted to "insubordination" and said that rules had to be followed. If not, Johri was equally "culpable" she pointed out. "This is the National Indian Team that is travelling and such shabby treatment is being doled out to them. I wonder if you would do this to the men's team."

Edulji also told Johri she had received the email Rangaswamy had sent him overnight saying "established practices" concerning coaching and support staff appointment were being bypassed "deliberately by the powers that be" to "accommodate" the people they had shortlisted.

Rangaswamy told ESPNcricnfo that she was forced to write that email after she had a word with Kala on Thursday. "The selectors were not even aware of the appointments," Rangaswamy said. "It seems they did it purposely to accommodate person(s) of someone's choice."

Rangaswamy said she also wanted to understand the policy of BCCI appointing men to take lead coaching roles of various women's teams. "Are they averse to women in coaching? As far as possible they must encourage the women (coaches) with the women's team. If you don't have sufficient women capable of handling, but when they are equipped and willing why are we not giving them the opportunities?"

"The selectors were not even aware of the appointments. It seems they did it purposely to accommodate person(s) of someone's choice." Shanta Rangaswamy

Rangaswamy presented two examples of women coaches leading India successfully. In 2005 Sudha Shah, who is on the senior women's selection panel currently, was the head coach when India finished runner-up at the ODI World Cup. Then former India batsman Purnima Rau was the head coach when the Indian women won the one-off Tests in England (in July) and then at home in November against South Africa. Rau was also in charge when India beat New Zealand to win the ODI series at home in 2015.

Rangaswamy said she had nothing personal against any individual in the BCCI. She reiterated that stance when Karim and Johri spoke to her on Friday, assuring her that the process set in the BCCI constitution would be followed.

Johri was not available for comment, but it is understood that the management wanted the best qualified hands to oversee the Indian women teams. One official said that as much he agrees with the point that women coaches need to be given exposure, one could just not blindly allow former women players to take key jobs without due consideration.

Rangaswamy said that players like Neetu David and Nooshin al Kadeer, who had enough experience and pedigree, could be part of the system and given some coaching roles including at the NCA. "Let them train under Raman or at the NCA zonal camps."

Four weeks into the first college football season they'll spend without their oldest son, Tony and Kelly Trent reel off all the cities they'll visit in the next few months in his name.

"Little Rock in October," Tony says. "In December we're going to Chicago. Traveling to Nashville in January."

There were more cities before those and there will be more after, where they'll accept an award on Tyler's behalf or raise money in his honor or offer some words in his memory. It's affirming even as it's draining, this constant clamoring for the son they lost. So they'll continue to go, to show up to these cities for tributes and benefits and speeches, even as new requests flood in every week.

"Tyler would want us to," Tony says.

The demand for Tyler is hardly new, but it's still startling. About this time last fall, for the whole country to see on ESPN's College GameDay, Tyler predicted that his favorite team, Purdue (Purdue! Historically hapless Purdue!), would upend Ohio State (Ohio State! Second-ranked, unbeaten Ohio State!) at home in West Lafayette, Indiana. He forecast this upset -- presciently, as it turned out -- a few days before the game from his home in Carmel, Indiana, sitting just outside his makeshift bedroom, the one Tony and Kelly set up in the dining room downstairs after Tyler entered hospice care. After four years of battling cancer off and on, the doctors had found his osteosarcoma had spread. Again. He issued his nervy prediction in a voice battered by sickness, and the combination -- his vigor, his vulnerability -- launched Tyler to a national prominence that outlived him. That lives today.

Just a few weeks earlier, he had been a sophomore at Purdue's Polytechnic Institute. He was 20 years old. He had once loved to backpack in the woods of Kentucky's Red River Gorge and play Ultimate Frisbee with his best friend, Josh Seals, but after doctors found a fourth tumor, the one on his clavicle, Tyler spent nearly the rest of his life in a wheelchair. He died on New Year's Day.

Now Tony and Kelly sit among the tokens of his life, these fragments of evidence of the family they used to be. On their weathered brown leather sofa: a throw pillow embroidered with the song Kelly sang to Tyler when he was little. You are my sunshine / my only sunshine. On the console table next to that sofa: a photo of the three Trent boys perched on a railing. Tyler, at 18, wedged between his younger brothers, Blake and Ethan, wearing a pink polo, his brown hair grown in and swept to the side in that brief two-year remission when he was cancer-free for the last time in his life.

Kelly sometimes daydreams now about what Tyler would have made of Adam Vinatieri missing five kicks in the Colts' first two games this season. About how Tyler would have really liked to see Ethan play on his high school football team. Yes, he would've loved that, she thinks. It's strange how almost anything at all, things Tyler will never know or see, can bring him to her -- wayward NFL kicks or high school freshman football -- just because he's the one she wants to share them with. He was a good cheerleader.

That's how this all really started, after all, how Tyler's story morphed from a Purdue football story to a Purdue University story to an Indiana story to a national story. Two years ago, in September 2017, Tyler and that childhood friend, Josh, decided to camp out overnight before the game against Michigan, to sleep in a tent in the concrete expanse of Ross-Ade Stadium's student gate. While Josh went to class that Friday, Tyler drove an hour southeast, to Indianapolis, for chemotherapy. He was a few weeks into his freshman year then; he was fighting osteosarcoma for the second time as a teenager. After leaving the hospital, Tyler picked up camping gear -- a tent, an air mattress -- toted it back to West Lafayette and set up shop to wait, as Tyler admitted, "for tickets that no one else wanted."

News cameras noticed the two freshmen, but in particular the one with crutches and no hair. (Ten days before arriving on campus, Tyler underwent hip replacement surgery as part of his treatment during this second fight with osteosarcoma, this time a tumor on his pelvis.) Purdue football coach Jeff Brohm did too, as he walked past the pair on his way out of the training complex to grab a bite to eat. Before Tyler became a de facto member of the team, this was Brohm's introduction to him: as a maniacal Purdue superfan.

Tony still remembers how much he didn't want his son out there that night. How hard he implored Tyler not to be a good cheerleader, just that once.

Tyler, you just had chemo.
Tyler, you don't need to be camping out overnight.
Tyler, what are you going to do -- sleep on the concrete?

"I think about if I were really to put my foot down," Tony says, still for a moment on his couch, surrounded by those fragments. "Where would this story be?"

THE DAY STARTED early, at 9 in the morning, and Tony and Kelly were grateful for the packed schedule, for the back-to-back media appearances, for the unebbing flow of fans and university officials who wanted to talk to them or show them a new piece of art dedicated to Tyler, for the distraction of it all. They both dreaded and welcomed Sept. 7, 2019. It was Tyler's birthday -- what would have been Tyler's 21st birthday -- and it was also the day, in the hours ahead of its home opener against Vanderbilt, Purdue would unveil its new student gate.

Tony wore a black T-shirt that morning, one that showed a picture of Tyler in his gold Purdue blazer, arms raised and victorious. At the podium, his back to the metal gates of the stadium, Tony thanked the crowd for coming to celebrate Tyler, while overhead, a black drape peeled away to reveal a steel arch that spanned the red brick of Ross-Ade Stadium. Written in gold: "Tyler Trent Student Gate," with his signature, "T2," in the center. And underneath, a plaque telling Tyler Trent's story.

He will be forever our captain, and we always will be #TylerStrong.

The president of Purdue, Mitch Daniels, sent that plaque back three times before issuing his final approval, wrestling with exactly how to capture this strange, beautiful bond between a school and a student. "It just wasn't right," he told Kelly.

The Trents -- Tony and Kelly and Blake and Ethan -- walked through the gate first. Josh Seals joined them, and about 20 feet from where he camped out with Tyler for that Michigan game two seasons ago, he walked under an archway that bore Tyler's name. Josh hasn't camped out again. He doesn't know if he will. "I'm not sure I really want to do it again without Tyler," he says.

There were more tributes. The Purdue Center for Cancer Research invited the family to watch the game from its suite, the same suite where they had watched Purdue down Ohio State a year earlier with Tyler.

"That was hard," Kelly says.

Other suites asked them to stop by. They wanted to say hello or show the new art they had on display, Tyler with a pair of wings, for example. At the end of the first quarter, the student section sang "Happy Birthday" to Tyler, raising their yellow TylerStrong towels upward, while Kelly was out in the hallway talking to another well-wisher. She didn't hear the song.

"I'm glad I didn't, honestly," she says.

Like so much else after Tyler's death, the gesture was equal parts beautiful and wrenching. She loved that they wanted to sing to him. She didn't know if she could bear to hear it when the person they were celebrating wasn't there to hear it himself.

Tyler is everywhere in West Lafayette. Above the pair of glass doors that lead to the football coaches' offices: TYLER STRONG in black block letters. Next to the elevators in the football complex: a pencil drawing of Jeff Brohm and Tyler, side by side, sketched and donated by a fan. Listed alongside the names of six seniors in the weekly game notes, an official title: Tyler Trent Team Captain.

There are already Purdue football players who don't know Tyler personally or the place he earned on their team. They won't get the chance to go to his house, as David Blough and Elijah Sindelar and Markus Bailey did last year after they beat Nebraska, to deliver a game ball and kneel in prayer together. They won't hear their phone chirp with a text message like Blough, then find a Bible verse Tyler had sent that had helped him through a particularly tough day and that he hoped would help Blough too. They won't get offers from Tyler like wide receiver Rondale Moore did, 10 days after they first really got to know each other. ("If you ever want to come to a Pacers game with us, just ask," Tyler wrote to Moore.)

Tyler could make an offer like that and mean it. Kevin Pritchard, the Pacers' president of basketball operations, had heard of Tyler's story and been moved by it. There were others. Chris Ballard, the general manager of the Colts, who would visit with Tyler on Fridays and ask Tyler to review scouting film. Trey Mock, the Colts' mascot, who visited Tyler at home in costume, then took off his head gear, stayed for a conversation and made a friend. Dabo Swinney called. Mike Pence called too. Tyler grew so close to the Purdue team that when rumors flew that Louisville had come calling for Coach Brohm after the Boilermakers' uncharacteristically strong showing last season, Tyler texted Brohm to apply some peer pressure to stay in West Lafayette. (Brohm wrote back, "You don't have anything to worry about. I'm going to do the right thing.") Local reporters even called the Trent household to see if the family, these unexpected insiders, knew anything about Brohm's fate.

People wanted to touch Tyler because he touched them -- with his dogged faith and his devotion to Purdue and his grace in the face of sickness. That sustained Tyler. Kelly remembers the last Purdue game Tyler went to, the bowl game against Auburn in Nashville just a few days before Tyler would succumb to his cancer. He was in so much pain. He'd fade in and out of consciousness from that pain, from the medication meant to dull that pain, but manage to scrape together the energy to fulfill interview requests or talk to fans when they came calling.

Tyler was humbled by all of it, but he was honest too. He welcomed this public embrace but had never wished for it. If it were up to him, he would've taken the clean scans and a life free of chemotherapy and a future that never included "two weeks to two months to live" before he reached 20.

"He told me at the end," Tony says, "he said, 'Dad, I would give all this up -- all of this up -- just to be healthy again.'"

Tony understood. He wished for that too. He wishes for that still.

"I want my old life back," Tony says. "I would love to have my old life back."

BEFORE TYLER ENROLLED at Purdue, before he correctly predicted Purdue would beat Ohio State on a night in October and launched himself to national fame, he wasn't even sure he wanted to attend Purdue. Tony was a Purdue alum himself and grew up in a small town called Flora, some 25 miles from campus. ("There's only, like, one flashing stoplight," Kelly explains. "No, there's two," Tony shoots back.)

Tyler was torn, though. Maybe Indiana. Maybe Purdue. Maybe, hopefully, NC State. Tyler was a teenager, in remission at the time, but his father asked him the question anyway. This was the reality of cancer, even cancer that was history. What if he was far from home? What would he do?

"Tyler, what if you get sick again?"

When he did get sick again, during his senior year of high school in 2017, he had already chosen Purdue. When he didn't just stay sick but grew sicker -- during the second semester of his freshman year, doctors confirmed that a tumor on Tyler's spine wasn't shrinking but was doubling in size despite chemotherapy and that a new tumor had appeared on his clavicle -- Tony and Kelly pulled him out of school.

The hiatus didn't take. By the summer of 2018, Tyler, even in hospice, told his parents he wanted to go back to West Lafayette for the fall semester. Maybe he couldn't cram six or seven of his friends into his Acura MDX to drive to their 8:30 a.m. econ class anymore (they played a lot of Minecraft in that lecture hall in CL50 those mornings). But he wanted to be on campus, to reclaim this one normal thing.

Tony and Kelly resisted. Tyler was in a wheelchair and rapidly losing mobility. Kelly was responsible for taking care of his bedsores. Could he even get himself from his bed to his chair? Could he get himself to the bathroom? Kelly let him talk through the idea, not convinced he should or even could go back. But Tyler was a planner. A skilled negotiator. In the fall of 2016 -- he was a senior in high school at the time and more than a year into remission -- when the Cubs won the World Series, he couldn't find any friends who wanted to join him for the three-hour drive to Chicago for the championship parade. Still, he offered Kelly a spreadsheet with a breakdown, plot point by plot point, of how he would make his way to Wrigley Field on his own. The route he would drive. The spot in which he'd park. The train he would catch into the city. The Airbnb he would rent. He made it to the parade, toting a sign that read, "I beat cancer to see the Cubs win a World Series."

He made it back to campus too. Tyler's palliative nurse came by for a house visit, intending to argue Kelly's side, to convince him that going back to school would be impossible. But Tyler had been reading a book called "When Breath Becomes Air," a memoir of a neurosurgeon fighting his own stage IV cancer diagnosis. He opened his copy to read them one passage.

Why? Because I could. Because that's who I was. Because I would have to learn to live in a different way, seeing death as an imposing itinerant visitor but knowing that even if I'm dying, until I actually die, I am still living.

"I knew that day," Kelly says. "I've got to let him live while he can, you know?"

The million indignities that come with cancer followed Tyler back to West Lafayette. Of course they did. Tyler found a new wheelchair that would help him get around campus, but that didn't stop the relentless creep of losing feeling in his legs. His roommate John Kruse eventually told Tyler he wasn't allowed to get out of bed unless one of his three roommates was there with him. A hospice team came to help care for Tyler four days a week, and his roommate Kyle Gujral would attend to Tyler's bedsores the other days. Kelly showed him how to change the bandages, to clean the wound, to check for infection.

"Everything that needed to be done for him to be there worked, until it just didn't," she says. Tyler stayed on campus until the end of September, when Kelly and her mother visited for lunch and he suffered a seizure in front of them. A few weeks before the Ohio State game, she took her son back home. "Because of his downward ..." she continues, then stops. "But anyway ..." Then she goes quiet.

JEFF BROHM VISITED Tyler at home in Carmel last fall, sometime after the Ohio State game. The coach doesn't remember exactly when, only that Tyler wasn't doing too well, paralyzed at that point, save for his right arm. Tyler had made liars out of his doctors before -- in May 2018, they had delivered their "two weeks to two months" prognosis, and it was already well into fall. The night before the Ohio State game, his family wasn't even sure he'd live through the evening. He'd undergone emergency surgery to repair his nephrostomy tubes -- the catheters that drained his chemotherapy-damaged kidneys -- but the next day, he woke up feeling well enough to be at Ross-Ade in person. They were the kind of rebounds that made Brohm think, "Shoot, maybe this guy can hang on longer."

But when Brohm saw him at home, he sat down by his bedside and remembered thinking longer might not be possible for Tyler anymore.

"You try to smile. You embrace him," he says. "And you hope to see him again."

The last time David Blough, Purdue's quarterback and Tyler's friend, saw Tyler was in the middle of a football field. Tyler was there for the coin toss between Purdue and Auburn in the Music City Bowl as an honorary captain and looked frail. Jim Irsay, the Colts' owner, had lent the Trents his private plane to fly down to Tennessee, but the trip was taxing. Even the act of moving was painful for Tyler then.

"He had a bedsore on his back all the way to his muscle," Tony says. "It was this big around." He fashions a circle with his hands the size of a tennis ball.

Tyler would caution friends and family in the room with him that when Tony picked him up to move him from his wheelchair there'd be cries.

"You could tell it was sucking the life out of him," Brohm remembers.

On the field, Blough told Tyler he had to go play a game, and Tyler said what he always did at the end of their conversations. Love you, bro.

By the time Tyler left the field and made it up to the suite in Nissan Stadium, he was in and out of consciousness. He slept through the game, then the flight home. He woke up briefly back in Carmel, asking who had won, but mostly, Tyler never returned after that.

"I really feel like Purdue football wrapped up," Kelly says. "And so did Tyler."

He died four days later at home.

Inevitability does not dull the razor edges of shock. Preparation does not portend readiness. Tyler's absence jarred everyone. Classes at Purdue started less than a week after Tyler died, and Kyle, back on campus a few days early, had the house they shared with John Kruse and another friend to himself. Most of Tyler's belongings had been moved out by then. Only his desk remained. Tyler was always at his desk, and now the room was empty, and Kyle walked by it and had to close the door.

"I just had to not go in that room for a little bit," he says.

They still slip into present tense when they talk about Tyler. His roommates. His friends. His parents.

Oh, yeah, Tyler loves his bucket hats.
He's a big Cubs fan.
He really likes seltzer water. And any soft drink? He drinks it warm.

Tyler is still present for them.

He's in the fight against cancer still, raising more than $2 million for cancer research, for the Purdue Center for Cancer Research and the V Foundation and now his own Tyler Trent Foundation. Before he died, he donated his tumor tissue to further medical research.

He reaches people still. Near West Lafayette: There's a scholarship in his name, awarded to Purdue students who have faced their own physical adversity. Far from West Lafayette too: Tony heard a story recently that someone was in China walking around in a Purdue shirt. A passerby saw it and offered up his scant knowledge of the university: Purdue engineering and Tyler Trent.

He's a part of campus still, and will be, his name and face and story on that steel gate, the last things students will see before they enter the stadium for all the games to come.

"I think about taking my grandkids there someday," Tony says. "I'll explain to them, 'This was your uncle. And this is what his life did.'"

Tyler never got to see that gate, nor the final copy of "The Upset: Life (Sports), Death ... and the Legacy We Leave In the Middle," the book he wrote chronicling his bouts with cancer, although The Indianapolis Star published a portion of his writing last December, just a few weeks before he died. His life was down to days, and still he dreamt.

I do have dreams of one day graduating college, getting married and having children.

His final written words on the matter:

-- Excerpt from a book I'll probably never finish.

Tyler was right. He didn't finish his book. But he was a dreamer to the end, and still a planner too, and he did get to see its cover: him, in his gold Purdue winter beanie, his big, round glasses, his black Purdue jacket. Before he died, he shared his plans for his memorial service with his youth pastor, Joe Wittmer. Tyler's hopes for his mourners were threefold: Don't dwell in sadness; honor his deep, abiding faith; get educated about cancer research.

Tyler imparted his wishes to Wittmer in his final weeks, sometimes in conversation, sometimes on video. In one, a clip that played at his funeral, he held up a sign.

"This is not the end."

You can visit v.org/TylerTrent to help researchers fight cancer in adolescents and young adults like Tyler.

It's time for our last preseason column: 35 random predictions for the season. Not all of these are bold. Any prediction roundup has to include major awards and a championship pick, and there is no way to go totally out of the box on those.

But others are designed to be a little out there. There is no fun, no risk, in picking the most likely outcome for everything. If, for whatever reason, something Vegas and various projection systems peg as a 25% likelihood seems like, say, a 35 or 40% proposition to me -- well, let's just go crazy and predict it. Let's (fake) wager on some long shots.

1. Stephen Curry wins the scoring title but not MVP

Curry last won the scoring title in 2015-16, when he averaged 30 points on 50-40-90 shooting (actually 50-45-90!) and became the first unanimous MVP in history.

James Harden averaged 36 last season, the seventh-highest single-season figure ever, trailing Michael Jordan's 1986-87 detonation and five (LOL) Wilt Chamberlain seasons. But Harden and Russell Westbrook will cannibalize their scoring averages enough for Curry -- going scorched earth in the preseason -- to reclaim the throne.

Curry averaged 41 points per 36 minutes last season with Draymond Green on the floor, and both Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson on the bench. The two prior seasons: 45.2 and 37.5 points per 36 minutes, respectively. Those are not typos.

For comparison, Harden averaged 38.6 points per 36 minutes with Chris Paul on the bench last season.

That scenario represents Curry's life now. He faces an enormous burden keeping Golden State in the playoff race until Thompson (maybe) returns late in the season -- at which point the Warriors become a real contender if Thompson looks like 80 percent of his peak self (a big ask).

Green is a star, but not in the traditional sense. He is not going to average 20 points just because Durant and Thompson are gone. D'Angelo Russell will eat into Curry's scoring. The players around Curry and Green in those non-Durant/Thompson stretches were mostly high-IQ playmaker types -- Andre Iguodala, Shaun Livingston -- and not ball-dominant scorers like Russell.

But a ton of possessions will start and end with Curry, even if he gives up the ball in between.

2. Giannis Antetokounmpo repeats as MVP

Only 11 players have won consecutive MVPs. Michael Jordan managed only one MVP repeat. This is a big deal.

Antetokounmpo is the alpha and omega of everything Milwaukee does -- the rare superstar with a chance (and boy did I want to predict this) to become only the third player to win MVP and Defensive Player of the Year in the same season. Milwaukee is the best bet to finish with the top seed in the East.

Nikola Jokic is the north star of a potential No. 1 seed in the varsity conference, but Antetokounmpo is just better. It's hard to see Damian Lillard's Blazers winning enough games for him to crack this conversation.

Big Twos in Los Angeles (times two) and Houston will siphon votes from each other, though Kawhi Leonard could build momentum if he carries the Clippers while Paul George recovers from shoulder surgery.

Philly's likeliest candidate -- Joel Embiid -- might be load-managed. It would take a monster season from Utah and a leap from one of Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert for either to emerge as a real candidate.

Other than Curry, the biggest threats to an Antetokounmpo repeat are LeBron James and Anthony Davis -- supernovas propping up role players. They are going to put up MVP-level numbers. It will come down to one of them exceeding expectations. That is almost impossible for LeBron now -- he's never going to defend at a high level in the regular season again -- so the edge goes to Davis.

He averaged 28 points in both 2016-17 and 2017-18 before falling back to 26 last season. Nudge that up to 30, approach five assists per game, play the best defense of his career, and Davis will have a résumé that stacks up with Antetokounmpo's.

All of that is in play. At 26, Davis is at the stage where his feel is catching up with his physical gifts; he averaged four assists last season, almost double his career average. He can roast guys off the bounce. The Lakers are going to put Davis in position to make plays.

But Antetokounmpo has already done it, and he's still improving, too.

3. Rudy Gobert repeats as Defensive Player of the Year

Embiid should be the most dominant per-minute defender on the stingiest team, but load management will complicate his candidacy. Antetokounmpo and Davis are more flexible, matchup-proof defenders than Gobert is, but Davis is going to carry a huge load on offense and Antetokounmpo spends a lot of time guarding ho-hum power forwards. That is by design -- Antetokounmpo can rove and wreck stuff at the rim -- but he isn't at the inflection point of as many defensive possessions.

Draymond Green is at the center of damn near everything even when he is off to the side. He is a master of almost being in two places at once. He's in shape, raring to go. It's just hard to see Golden State ranking high enough in team defense for Green to reclaim his mantle -- even if the Warriors are miles better with him on the floor.

4. Portland trades Hassan Whiteside or Kent Bazemore, plus at least one asset (and additional money if needed) for one of: Kevin Love, Danilo Gallinari, Blake Griffin, Marc Gasol or Serge Ibaka

This is league's clearest win-now move. Portland will haggle hard over sweeteners, and they will need more of them for the high-wattage names on this list. Anfernee Simons is almost certainly off-limits. Zach Collins probably is too. That leaves Nassir Little, Gary Trent Jr. and Portland's future first-round picks.

Love has been mentioned most (guilty!), but Gallinari might be a cleaner fit. He's on an expiring deal, and more of a clear-cut power forward. Love lives between power forward and center. That flexibility is useful, especially as Jusuf Nurkic recovers from injury, but it could become awkward as Nurkic regains full health.

Portland wields the leverage of choice. The market could be flooded with rotation power forwards from blah teams: the three guys listed above; Marcus Morris and Bobby Portis; Davis Bertans; Jae Crowder; Marvin Williams; Nemanja Bjelica; Robert Covington; others. Why pay whatever Cleveland asks if you can get a decent player for much less?

Portland also surely wonders how many teams will really bid for Love. Houston will poke around, because that's what it does, but I'm not sure the Cavs are much interested in Eric Gordon and Clint Capela. Would a third team jump in? A swap centered on Love and Gordon Hayward makes some sense, but trading Hayward raises uncomfortable issues for Boston. His college coach wooed him in free agency, and then his leg snapped in half.

Cleveland would argue Love is flat better than almost every other available big, and anyone Portland will ever get in free agency. If the Blazers start slowly, they may not have the luxury of waiting for every option to become available. On the flip side, a team that knows it's a seller on the power forward market may want to jump on a good deal early -- before the market gets crowded.

Keep half an eye on Griffin. Detroit does not want to trade him. The Pistons are hell-bent on making the playoffs. Griffin is their star attraction. But if things go badly, teams will call. Griffin would be one of the few really good available players with a max-ish contract that isn't too short or too long.

Gasol and Ibaka are here in case Portland decides to pursue a center on an expiring contract.

The Blazers have the goods to make a second win-now trade if they want. You can build some intriguing deals with Memphis involving Iguodala and/or Crowder.

5. Bradley Beal signs an extension in Washington

Yeah, I'm counting it since I had it written a few days ago. So many of these are going to turn out wrong. Let me have this!

6. Toronto stands pat this season, at least with Kyle Lowry

It might be the biggest variable on the trade landscape, and the hardest to peg: How will the Defending Champion Toronto Raptors navigate the next five months? With Beal off the board through the trade deadline, Lowry could become the league's most coveted chip.

The answer gets easy if the Raptors are 15-20. At that point, you explore the market for everyone.

The Raptors should be better than that. If they are on a 46-win pace, what does Masai Ujiri do with Lowry? Toronto has taken pride in remaining competitive despite an ever-present temptation to rebuild. The team's patience (or inertia, depending on your perspective) netted a title. Perhaps that title provides leeway for a deep rebuild.

But the Raptors seem to value staying relevant. The offers matter, too. Trading a franchise icon has to be worth it. Is Reggie Jackson, Langston Galloway and a lottery-protected Pistons pick worth it? What about Goran Dragic, some unwanted Miami contract, and the earliest available Heat first-rounder?

I'm betting no -- at least not this season. Toronto could revisit the Lowry landscape in the summer.

Lowry would be perfect on both Los Angeles teams, but I'm not sure either has enough -- even if the Lakers included Kyle Kuzma -- after dealing away a gazillion combined picks last summer. Don't sleep on Minnesota; the Wolves are searching for a point guard, and Gersson Rosas, their president of basketball operations, knows Lowry from their time in Houston.

Miami makes the most sense. The problem is finding the right deal. Tyler Herro is probably off the table. A distant Miami pick along with Dragic and filler isn't enough. A combination of Dragic, Justise Winslow, and that distant pick might pique Ujiri's interest, but are the Heat trading all of that for a 33-year-old who doesn't make them one of East's two best teams?

A package of Winslow and some filler -- no Dragic, no pick, no Herro -- might be the compromise, but I could see both teams blanching. Is Winslow enough for Toronto? Does he fit alongside Pascal Siakam? Does that deal move the needle enough for the Heat to trade a (good) 23-year-old for a 33-year-old?

I'd lean slightly against a Lowry in-season trade. (I don't feel great about this one. Ujiri is a shark. He could gin up a bidding war we don't see coming.) Gasol is a different matter. He has been a Raptor for only eight months, and Toronto has Ibaka behind him.

7. Miami hangs onto Justise Winslow until at least the draft, but flips Goran Dragic's expiring contract in a win-now move

Winslow should be one of the league's most movable players. He has the kind of positional versatility every team craves. He makes $13 million per year over the next three seasons -- with a freaking team option in the final year. He can grease any trade type. He may make for an clunky fit with Jimmy Butler, and the Heat want to win right now. Tyler Herro appears poised to play a ton of minutes on the wing. A Winslow trade makes almost too much sense on the surface.

And yet: With Beal off the market, I'm not sure I see the player Miami might target in any theoretical Winslow trade. If it's not Lowry, who is it? Most of the power forwards named above bring age or injury concerns, and Miami has a lot of power forward types already. I want to call a Winslow in-season trade. I just can't. Maybe things change at the draft.

Winslow is also a point forward, making Dragic expendable in more minor win-now gambit.

8. Utah and Dallas get All-Stars again

Given good health, eight of the 12 spots in the West are locked down: Curry, Westbrook, Harden, Leonard, Davis, LeBron, Jokic, and Lillard. Minnesota should win enough for Karl-Anthony Towns to make it nine.

Paul George would normally make 10 -- leaving two measly spots -- but the Clippers say he's going to miss at least 10 games, leaving the door slightly ajar. Even if George makes it, I'm reserving one spot each for members of the Luka Doncic/Kristaps Porzingis and Mitchell/Gobert duos. Apologies to Draymond Green, Devin Booker, Mike Conley, Sacramento's starting guards, San Antonio's veterans, Jrue Holiday, Zion Williamson, and CJ McCollum.

9. Connected: San Antonio's All-Star streak ends

The Spurs have had at least one player selected to the All-Star Game every season since drafting Tim Duncan in 1997 (not including 1999, when the lockout forced the cancellation of the game), per ESPN Stats & Information research. Not this season.

10. Siakam, Aaron Gordon, and Zach LaVine make All-Star debuts

The East has nine lock-ish All-Stars: Kyrie Irving, Kemba Walker, Lowry, Ben Simmons, Embiid, Butler, Antetokounmpo, Beal and Blake Griffin.

That leaves three spots. Love could snag one, but the Cavs are going to be bad. Al Horford is always in the conversation. Milwaukee could get the "No. 1 seed deserves a second All-Star" treatment. Meh. Andre Drummond is a two-time All-Star, but are we really bringing two Pistons? On the flip side, one of those nine locks could fall away due to injury or underperformance.

We could have at least three first-time All-Stars in the East. The five best such candidates: Siakam, Gordon, LaVine, Trae Young, Tobias Harris, and Jayson Tatum. (Next in line: Eric Bledsoe, Myles Turner, Domantas Sabonis, Julius Randle, Caris LeVert, John Collins, Jaylen Brown.)

Siakam is a no-brainer. He has another level to hit. So does Gordon. If the Magic sustain as an elite defensive team, Gordon will get more national attention as perhaps their best all-around defender -- and probably their second-leading scorer behind Nikola Vucevic, who made his All-Star debut last season.

Chicago is good enough to hang around the race for one of the last two playoff spots in the East. I'm not sure the Hawks are there yet; they're so young. Tatum is a sexier pick -- and a more polished player than LaVine -- but LaVine is going to put up huge counting stats.

11. Nikola Jokic busts the Wilt Assist Club

Only two players listed 6-11 or taller have ever averaged seven-plus assists per game over a season: Jokic a year ago, and Wilt Chamberlain twice during the go-go 1960s. Chamberlain owns the two highest per-game assist figures on that list: 7.8 and 8.6. Jokic can make a run at that 7.8 number -- and in the process sniff the top five in assists this season. Let's make it so.

12. Denver gets the No. 1 seed in the West

The Nuggets could have snagged it last season but instead shamed themselves before the basketball gods in a naked seeding-manipulation scheme. Denver has the best home-court advantage, and it should pile up wins while its competition (Houston, Utah, and the Los Angeles teams) sorts out injuries and chemistry. The Nuggets have no obvious candidate for regression. Their first taste of the postseason should have steeled them.

13. Miami finishes third in the East

Boston is the favorite for this spot. It has more talent than any East team below Milwaukee and Philadelphia. But Boston's five best players are wings or point guards; some diminishing returns are almost inevitable. Toronto is a trade risk. If both fall short of expectations, the race for No. 3 is wide open.

Right now, Butler is better than anyone on the Celtics. He can power Miami to a lot of regular-season wins. Miami has an interesting mix around him, including two youngish guys -- Winslow and Bam Adebayo -- on the come up.

If Pat Riley senses an opening, he will seize on a win-now trade. I was going to predict Miami hosts a first-round series -- putting its floor at No. 4 -- but that's not bold enough in the East.

14. Steven Adams sets the record for biggest year-to-year leap in defensive rebounding rate

Adams is the only player in history (minimum 5,000 minutes) to have rebounded at least 13% of his own team's misses and fewer than 16% of opponent misses. He is one of only 12 seven-footers with a career defensive-rebounding rate below 16.5%.

The largest single-season jump in defensive rebounding rate in modern league history belongs to Ian Mahinmi, who upped his total by almost 11 percentage points between the 2013-14 and 2014-15 seasons, per the gurus at ESPN Stats & Info. Adams could shatter that. He has to snare about 26% of enemy misses -- a mark that would have barely squeaked into the top 20 last season. Done.

Trivia: Nos. 2 and 3 on the "rebounding jump" list behind Mahinmi are Westbrook in 2016-17 (his first triple-double season), and Enes Kanter the next season -- when Kanter moved from Westbrook's Thunder to the Knicks in the Carmelo Anthony trade.

15. Also, the Thunder trade Adams and Dennis Schroder

By the time free agency quiets in July, the bet here is both are elsewhere. It might take that long for the center market to broaden, but Adams will draw interest.

16. Indiana misses the playoffs

If (at least) Miami is going in, someone has to go out. The safe choice -- the "right" one, according to most projection systems -- is Detroit, and the Pistons are indeed at grave risk if Griffin misses 15 or 20 games.

But this column isn't about safe choices, so let's get nutty and peg the Pacers -- the third-best team in the East for much of last season -- as vulnerable. Indiana doesn't have a reliable shot-creation engine without Victor Oladipo, and it's unclear when Oladipo might return -- or if he can rediscover his peak form this season. If the answers trend in bad directions, the Pacers could be in trouble.

Malcolm Brogdon is a perfect complement to Oladipo. Without Oladipo, he is overtaxed. The Pacers aren't counting on Brogdon becoming Kemba Walker. They will ask everyone to do a little more: Jeremy Lamb and T.J. Warren off the bounce; Sabonis hitting cutters and beasting in the post; Turner getting more forceful against mismatches; Aaron Holiday rampaging to the basket.

They might have enough, but I'm nervous. They lost a lot when Thaddeus Young and Bojan Bogdanovic walked. They have raw talent to replace those guys, but it's unclear how it fits together.

Warren has played zero meaningful NBA games, and very little defense. The Sabonis/Turner partnership will have awkward moments on both ends, and could diminish each of them by maybe 10 percent. Can Sabonis really defend power forwards? If he can't on some nights -- leaving the job to Turner -- how much rim protection does Indiana lose?

Indiana has the talent and coaching to paper over all of this. That's why almost every projection system has them in the postseason. I'm just a little more worried about Oladipo's absence.

Maybe this isn't as off-the-wall as it sounds. The new system at 538 has Indiana finishing 42-40, with a 78% chance of reaching the playoffs.

17. The eight East playoff teams: Sixers, Bucks, Celtics, Raptors, Heat, Nets, Magic, Bulls

That's right, the Bulls. Do I have any faith in them? No. No, I do not. Their best backup wings are all point guards. Lauri Markkanen and Wendell Carter Jr. have appeared in 164 combined games. I regret this already. I am also very nervous that Blake Griffin finished last season with knee pain, and started this one with hamstring issues.

18. Robin Lopez attempts at least 75 3s

He has 51 attempts in 11 seasons. Bud Ball!

19. Indiana trades Turner or Sabonis

They can coexist, but not well enough to merit around $40 million combined per season. The question is who goes, and where. The answer might depend on whether Sabonis and the Pacers agree on an extension by the Oct. 21 deadline.

If they do, my money is on Turner. He would appear more valuable -- a center who can block shots and hit 3s. He's only 23. His feel on offense lags behind the rest of his game, but feel improves with experience.

Turner's shooting makes him a bit more malleable than Sabonis -- perhaps with a wider trade market. He could fit alongside other athletic bigs even if those bigs profile (like Turner) as center-ish: John Collins, Bam Adebayo, Zion Williamson, Jaren Jackson Jr. Some of those guys have enough potential as shooters that their teams might look at Sabonis, too. Charlotte needs big men. Washington needs everything. What do the frontcourts of the future look like in San Antonio and Oklahoma City?

Other suitors will emerge for both. Boston wing for Indiana big is the most obvious trade structure on the board, but finding the right match is harder than you'd think.

If Indiana and Sabonis reach an impasse in extension talks, I'd favor Sabonis moving at some point -- maybe as late as next season.

20. Dallas makes the playoffs, along with the Clippers, Lakers, Jazz, Nuggets, Rockets, Blazers, and Spurs. Golden State finishes 9th

Gulp.

The easiest prediction -- the most likely outcome -- is to take last season's field and replace Oklahoma City with the Lakers. This column is for the wild ideas -- the gut feelings that scare you, but don't go away.

Doncic and Porzingis complement each other on both ends. The supporting cast complements them. Rick Carlisle will get the most out of this team. Some interloper is going to surprise. It might be the Pelicans; if Zion Williamson is a star from day one, he is going to dunk on every postseason projection that excludes New Orleans. It might be the Kings. I'm taking Dallas.

That puts three teams on a knife's edge: Golden State, Portland and San Antonio. The Warriors are the hardest team to project. Some systems have them winning 50-plus. Some spit out 43-45 wins. They have historically blitzed teams with Curry and Green as the only stars on the floor -- i.e., no Durant or Thompson -- but a lot of those minutes came against backups. How will that translate? Multiple team executives have told me these Warriors are one of the most volatile teams they can recall. They could miss the playoffs or win the championship.

We don't know when Klay Thompson is coming back, or in what condition -- only that he's out through at least the All-Star break, meaning he will play a maximum of 27 games. If he approaches that number, the Warriors are going to make this prediction look silly. (To repeat: This team with a healthy Thompson can win the title. They went undefeated against Houston and Portland in the Western Conference playoffs after Durant's injury. They might have pulled off their own 3-1 rally in last year's Finals had Thompson not gone down in Game 6.)

In the meantime, they have Curry, Green and Russell. They just have nothing else. Green is coming off a horrendous shooting season. No one is going to guard him. That didn't matter when he had Curry, Thompson and Durant orbiting for handoffs. How do things look when it's just Curry and Russell -- with the latter getting accustomed to a new system?

Is Curry ready to carry this kind of load after five straight Finals? Depth is of outsize importance over the 82-game slog. Golden State has little. Three grunts -- Kevon Looney, Willie Cauley-Stein, Alec Burks -- are already banged up.

Any injury to Curry or Green is a catastrophe. DeMar DeRozan could miss 50 games, and I'm not sure it would impact San Antonio's win total. The Spurs just win.

If you froze today's rosters for the season, Portland would be my pick to miss the playoffs. But they seem to feel more urgency after a conference finals run. The Blazers can pull a win-now trade (or two) almost whenever they want. Meanwhile, the Warriors keep the top-20-protected first-rounder they owe Brooklyn if they miss the playoffs.

Someone is going to win 45-ish games and miss the playoffs in the West. Full disclosure: I wavered between San Antonio and Golden State as the odd team out until hitting "send" on this column. The Spurs have depth; the Warriors have a top-five player -- the sort whose teams rarely miss the playoffs without at least a minor injury issue.

It became a coin flip. San Antonio is a safer choice for the lottery -- a vanilla team that probably can't duplicate last season's red-hot shooting (but should compensate with stouter defense). The Warriors are the 25% long shot (the 538 system now has them with a 28% chance of missing the playoffs). But sometimes it's fun to go out on limbs, and I've had a nagging feeling in my stomach about the Warriors for weeks now. Minor injuries strike every team. I'm also scarred after picking the Spurs to miss last season.

21. Giannis signs the supermax if the Bucks make the Finals, and doesn't if they don't

There's probably a middle ground: losing a toss-up, seven-game bloodbath in the conference finals might be enough. But you can't do a big predictions column without making some call on the league's next premier free agent -- I had Durant to the Knicks a year ago, so, yeah -- and this is it. Also: Not signing the supermax this summer does not preclude Antetokounmpo from re-signing in Milwaukee the following summer.

22. Chris Paul finishes the season in Oklahoma City

Toronto keeping Lowry through the trade deadline would be a huge boost to Oklahoma City's chances of moving Paul. But what's the deal? I don't see Miami -- Paul's rumored summer suitor -- surrendering anything Sam Presti might care about to light its 2021 cap space on fire. The one wild card: the possibility, slim as it might be, that Paul agrees to decline his $44 million player option for 2021-22 as a condition of any trade. (Stop laughing.)

Is Paul Milwaukee's panic move? Would Antetokounmpo be on board? Milwaukee would have to send out almost exact matching salary -- about $38 million -- to avoid the luxury tax, and that requires trading lots of players. One of them would have to be Eric Bledsoe, and teams are wary of taking on that contract until Bledsoe finds his groove in the postseason.

Detroit? A Paul-Blake Griffin reunion seems ... fraught.

Minnesota seems hungry to win now, and taking on Paul could be their get-out-of-Andrew-Wiggins-jail-for-not-quite-free card. But Wiggins' deal runs only one season longer than Paul's, and I'd be surprised if the Wolves see that swap as being worth their while -- especially if the Thunder demand a draft pick as sweetener.

23. Milwaukee makes a splashy-ish win-now move

Even if it's not Paul, Milwaukee could risk something splashy -- on the level of last season's Nikola Mirotic deal, or splashier -- at the slightest sign of trouble.

24. Utah extends one or both of Royce O'Neale and Joe Ingles

O'Neale might start as Utah's nominal power forward, and is sneakily eligible for an extension starting at up to 120% of the league's average salary -- about $11.4 million. Utah probably does not want to go that high. The Jazz are under no time pressure; the Oct. 21 deadline does not apply to O'Neale.

The Jazz can see how the season goes. They face some long-term payroll concerns depending on Conley's plans; he holds an early termination option for 2020-21. But given O'Neale's potentially central role on a good team, there could be some mutual interest in an extension.

The Oct. 21 deadline applies to Ingles due to a quirk in the rules, and so an extension to his deal -- which runs through 2020-21 -- seems unlikely. Don't rule out some last-minute wrangling.

Bonus prediction: Cedi Osman is in the same situation as O'Neale. The Cavs are probably hesitant to approach that $11.4 million figure, but I could see the two sides settling in the $8 million range. They can negotiate into the season, but some teams and players don't like talks hovering once the games start. If Oct. 21 is a de facto deadline here, I'd lean slightly toward no deal.

25. Utah trades Dante Exum and Tony Bradley for (maybe) Marcus Morris

I like this trade for both teams, even if both would likely say "no" now. It's an all-in move for Utah -- their means of nabbing another backup power forward and someone with a track record of jostling with the big wings in Los Angeles. New York gets a high-lottery talent who just turned 24.

Yeah, the Knicks have three point guards. So what? Exum has been at least as much wing as point guard for a while now.

Barring a surprise twist -- i.e., a trade involving Ingles or Bojan Bogdanovic -- this Exum/small salary package is Utah's only realistic means of upgrading the frontcourt. Unless Exum finally pops, I'd expect it to be in play.

26. Minnesota makes at least two trades, including one involving Robert Covington -- if he's healthy

I don't think Minnesota wants to trade Covington. Rosas was part of the Houston front office that first signed him. But if Covington plays well, Minnesota could net a decent haul for him -- in a solo deal, or as part of something bigger. There aren't many big wings who: are good; make in the $10 million-$14 million range (i.e. super-tradeable, not overpaid); and are at least semi-expendable because their team isn't a contender.

How handy would Covington be in Utah (that same Exum-centric package?), Portland, Houston or Denver against the L.A. teams? Will Covington and other stuff for D'Angelo Russell ever become a thing?

Beyond Covington, the Wolves have a tasty mix of expirings (Jeff Teague) and rotation guys earning between $1.6 million and $3.5 million -- Jake Layman, Noah Vonleh, Jordan Bell, Treveon Graham and Shabazz Napier.

Minnesota can nose its way into almost any trade discussion, even as a third wheel. It will hunt for point guards.

27. Within the next 16 months, there will be trade buzz about Russell Westbrook and/or (gulp) James Harden

There is no reporting behind this. It is purely speculative. The Rockets are going to be really good. I put them in my inner circle of title contenders. Their closing lineup is a beast: Harden, Westbrook, Eric Gordon, PJ Tucker, Clint Capela. Daryl Morey will find ways to upgrade this thin roster.

I'm betting on Westbrook bumping up his accuracy on catch-and-shot 3s, reintroducing the concept of "transition offense" in Houston, and slicing up defenses in the spread pick-and-roll. There will be hiccups -- Mike D'Antoni admits Westbrook will stand around a lot when Harden has the ball -- but there are hiccups with almost every star pairing.

But I'm picking the Rockets to fall short of the Finals, and this does not seem like an organization -- and this applies to Tilman Fertitta most of all -- set to react calmly in the face of anything that might be perceived as disappointment.

The Rockets let go much of D'Antoni's staff after another postseason loss to the Warriors; D'Antoni is in the final year of his deal. Some strain damaged the Paul-Harden relationship. What might have happened had the Rockets not found a way to deal Paul for a player Harden likes and respects?

There is just too much noise here -- too much potential for haywire trauma. If the mere prospect of Harden trade buzz strikes you as irrational, please consider, like, everything that has transpired in the NBA in the past five years.

The odds are against any Harden buzz morphing into an actual trade. By all accounts, Harden loves Houston. He wants to win there. It's also really hard to find a team that: is flush with trade assets; in a market Harden might enjoy; boasting a co-star already in the door.

But if Houston falls short of internal hopes, almost anything is possible.

28. Marvin Bagley III is Sacramento's leading scorer

Bagley will have to jump both De'Aaron Fox (17.3 points per game last season) and Buddy Hield (20.7), and both those guys have leaps left in them. Fox's could be big; his trainer and agent, Chris Gaston, has told me Fox has ambitions of averaging 23 or 24 points per game.

But the Kings are counting on Fox to distribute, too. Meanwhile, Bagley averaged 17.8 points over the final 25 games of his rookie season in just 27.7 minutes. That translates to about 20.5 points over 32 minutes. Bagley is a full-time starter now, and the Kings are going to let him eat.

I could see Luke Walton, under win-now pressure, feeling queasy playing Bagley heavy crunch-time minutes due to his defensive limitations, but the Kings are hugely invested in Bagley. He can score from all over the floor.

29. Sacramento trades Nemanja Bjelica and at least other core rotation player

Bjelica could fall victim to a minutes squeeze, and he would draw interest in a league starving for stretch power forwards. The other player(s) could be anyone outside Fox and Bagley. Tension simmering around Buddy Hield and Bogdan Bogdanovic potentially playing on expiring deals has exploded into the open. Without extensions, both become trade candidates. That's just NBA reality.

Sacramento could ease future payroll concerns by moving Harrison Barnes, and they should at least investigate his market. Other teams should kick the tires on Harry Giles III. Sacramento has talked up Giles as a core player, but he has to fight a ton of big men -- vets and kiddos -- for scraps of playing time.

30. Otto Porter Jr. signs a long-term deal in Chicago without ever becoming a real free agent

Porter can either exercise his $28.5 million player option for 2020-21 and extend off of that number; decline that option during the season and extend off of his current salary; or decline it after the season and immediately ink a new contract. This seems like a good marriage between player and team.

31. The coach's challenge lasts only one season (at least in this form)

Coaches don't seem to like it. Fans don't want more reviews. Things could change. Coaches could warm to the rule as they figure out how to use it. It could correct a pivotal call in a way that ensures the "right" outcome in a playoff game -- earning support from fans and coaches alike.

But right now, this specific rule feels temporary.

32. The discussion about starting free agency before the draft gets new life.

It hasn't gone away.

33. Washington trades CJ Miles for two second-round picks but re-signs Davis Bertans

Some team will rescue Miles if he proves healthy and productive. Washington will get calls on Bertans too, and the Wizards might well move him if they get a good offer. But he's only 26, and everyone needs bigs who can shoot. He won't command a ton in free agency. Why not keep him?

34. Chicago trades Kris Dunn

Someone will take a cheapo flier: Orlando, Minnesota (reunion time!), New York (Frank Ntilikina challenge trade?), Detroit, maybe Washington?

35. And the Larry O'B goes to: Clippers over Sixers in seven.