Yea, like everyone pointed out, definitely a little clickbaity, but then we could use more activity here, so... ok?
Tom White wrote:This is the same mistake I see a lot of people making. Yes, those teams lost players. But, they also added players. By the way, the Pacers did the same thing. Lost some players/added some players.
Well, its about the nett gain or loss
76ers
Gained: Al Horford, Josh Richardson
Lost: Jimmy Butler, JJ Reddick
Talent wise, Butler+Reddick definitely trumps Horford+Richardson
Celitcs
Gained: Kemba Walker
Lost: Kyrie Irving, Al Horford
Same, Kyrie+Horford > Kemba alone
Pacers
Gained: Malcolm Brogdon, TJ Warren, Jeremy Lamb, TJ McConnell
Lost: Thad Young, Bojan Bogdanovich, Darren Collison, Corey Joseph
I've left out Bucks and Raptors as I think the consensus is they've downgraded, but of the other tops teams in the East that gained and lost players, you can tell that although 76ers and Celtics tempered their lost a bit with new additions, but overall they're still worse off in terms of talent
Pacers otoh, got younger, more talented, and better at offense. We're definitely better off with the four players we gained than the four we lost, at worst you can call it a wash. The only thing that is a legitimate concern is losing Thad's defense and veteran presence, but I think the gains will more than make up for it
However, this is of course looking purely at roster changes on paper, in practice things can be quite different, when you take into consideration coaching, team fit, locker room chemisty, etc, so we'll really only know once the season starts
In my personal view though, 76ers is definitely a paper tiger. They'll still be one of the top teams in the East for sure, but I'm not counting on them winning it. Their starting 5 still has spacing issues, and their bench got worse. Celtics, otoh, may actually have improved, since it was obvious that they didn't mesh with Kyrie, and they've lost Rozier now so that's one less mouth to feed; if there's one team that could have benefited from addition by subtraction, it's them
So where does this all bring us?
We have a situation where the top teams in the East are basically at parity. Everyone has a legitimate chance to win the East (76ers, Bucks, Celtics, Raptors, Pacers, yes even Nets)
But if things go right for us, meaning if the new comers mesh well (probable), our defense maintains its potency (highly probable), Myles and Domas pairs well (slightly probable), and crucially Vic returns close to 100% (unknown), then I like our chances quite a bit over the other teams
And I forgot to mention, Goga too is another wildcard - at worse he needs a season or two to be ready, at best he steps in and becomes a contributor immediately, so that's another thing that can potentially give us a boost