NBA Who wins the East?

Pretty simple, who comes out of the East this year?

If I had to put money on a team, it'd be Boston.

 

With the amount of playoff success without Kyrie and Hayward, its hard for me to pick a different team. Boston looks stacked

 

Celtics

 

Celtics are going to curb stomp all of the bad teams in the East, I'm thinking 60+ wins for them easily. Raptors will be good, but I'm expecting a adjustment period for new coach + two new starters.

 

The Raptors have far and away the best player in the Eastern Conference, while also having arguably the best bench. I can see Kawhi getting the Raptors over the hump and into the Finals.

 

I think the Raptors win the regular season because they always seem to place more importance on it than other teams although maybe that changes now with a new coach and Kawhi replacing Demar.

Boston easily takes the East in the play-offs, by far the best team and the only team close to the top teams in the Western Conference.

 

Even when healthy and motivated Kawhi is not far and away better than Kyrie and maybe not guys like Tatum, Simmons and Embid depending their development.

 

Boston without a doubt

 

Celtics are the favorite for sure, but I do wonder how everyone will fit and if it won't be a bit rockier than people think. Of course Stevens is a great coach so he should be handle it.

But I'll say Raptors.

 

Disagree with all of this.

 

The key word is far and away.

Kyrie is at worst the 10th best player in the league a guy who is 4-6th best isn’t far away better than that.

And as mentioned that is when he is healthy and motivated which there are reasons to believe he isn’t.

 

It's semantics, so fair enough.

Kawhi is clearly the better player. I'm not worried about the motivation this season. He has to play well to get paid and get to wherever he wants to go.

 

Lakers will give him the max unless he is seriously injured.

He doesn’t need to go all out to get paid and if that was his concern he should have signed with the Spurs to get way more money than he will going this route.

 

He basically sat all last year. The lakers would be dumb to pay him full max if he did that again or came back and didn't look good.

 

I think if it was clear he was holding back to save his health they woukd be fine.

And NBA teams make dumb decisviond all the time. The Lakers want guys to play with LeBron and it seems they have decided Kawai is their top target.

It doesn’t really matter though because even with a healthy/motivated Kawhi the Celtics are much better.

 

I hate to say Boston, so I'll say the Sixers. But really... Boston.

 

There's never been motivation issues with Kawhi Leonard - that was just something drummed up by San Antonio media/fans once the whole injury issues began.

Now, his health is definitely a question - however, IF he's fully healthy there is no doubt in my mind he is the 2nd best player in the world behind LeBron James. I think the gap between Leonard and Irving, with both healthy, is extremely significant and even more so compared to players like Tatum and Simmons.

 

No doubt he is better than Durant? That is a stretch.

I think the gap between Durant and 3rd (who is not clear cut Leonard) is bigger than the Lebron-Durant gap.

The motivation comes in terms of is he willing to push it physically this year and risk injury or re-injury for a Raptors team he seems to have little interest in playing for. I think if healthy he will try hard but any feeling of an injury I think he shuts it down and I don't think he goes all out risking injury either.

 

A healthy Kawhi is the second best player in the world?

 

Are people seriously forgetting just how good Kawhi Leonard is because they haven't seen him play in a season?

This is the dude that was averaging 26/6/4 with 2 steals shooting 49% from the field while being the best defensive player in the league.

I'm as leery of his injury issues as anyone else, but to me he is the clear-cut second best player in the world.

 

It doesn't matter. Toronto still isn't anywhere close to Boston's level. Boston is unfairly stacked.

 

I just haven't seen a single thing from him that would have me rate him over Durant, in fact as I said I don;t think it is very close at all and that Kawai would be behind probably Harden and Curry for me as well but at least with them there is an argument.

It has nothing to do with not remembering his play and everything to do with Durant being a better player.

I could be wrong but I think you would be in the vast minority who had Leonard over KD. I can't think of a single reputable person that has made that argument. Even amongst the TO super homer media guys.

 

The gap isn't big between the two teams.

Agree to disagree. I've heard plenty of reputable people on NBA Radio rank Kawhi Leonard above Kevin Durant.

 

Boston for me.

 

Kawhi is the 3rd best player in the league, and the only one who can effectively guard both KD & LeBron.

Kyrie is good but not near Kawhis level.