As of now,
lebron signed to lakers
pg13 to okc
KD to gsw
ariza to suns
deandre jordan to mavericks
first of all, the lakers won't make finals before someone says it. that team is actual garbage. it's a lottery team with no star added in lebron, which means they're actually worse than the cavaliers which had kevin love + other decent people. the ONLY way this trash ass team will contend will be if they get boogie/kawhi/some other scrappy underdogs who can play defense and hit shots when needed. Otherwise this team is destined to draft top14 next year. Cavaliers problems were that the young/new guys were choking with their playoff inexperience so there's no doubt a ineffecient chuck like lonzo ball or brandon ingram will put up abysmal stats in the playoffs. Put any western conference playoff team from last season into the east and they become the #1 seed playing against the weak east teams. This ******ed ass nlgga lebron gonna have 3 torn ACLs carrying those bums every night because now in the regular season he'll be facing better people.
No doubt east will be pacers/celtics finals, and west will be rockets/warriors. Maybe lakers can have a shot at contending 19-20 if they also get some nice moves there. No idea why these delusional lakers fans think the "lakers are back" now, they literally got one dude who got 0-4'd to the first good team he faced.
Forgot to mention this, but the nuggets are going to contend soon. Steal of the draft getting a predicted #1 pick at #14. Again, this is only because of injuries though. If porter jr. is healthy he'll be a star and this team will go far. Murray-harris-porter jr-millsap-jokic. The offensive skill is actually insane. Not sure if they'll have will barton though, if they havent already lost him he'll probs pursue a starting role on a different team.
Furthermore, dennis schroder is GONE from the hawks. That idiotic perpetual lottery team drafted a player which played the position they needed least, and dennis schroder must be pretty pissed he's worked his ass off trying to carry that team only to have his starting spot put into liability by a rookie.