@Ganymede said:
The Warriors are coming back with Curry, Thompson (Klay), Green, Bogut, and Barnes. They still have Iguodala and McAdoo. They won last year; the Cavs did not.
The GSW will not repeat. If nothing else, I don't see them coming out the West if they're matched against the Spurs or Thunder. I never had that much faith in teams so heavily reliant on 3-pointers to begin with - it was a perfect storm for them which kept them hot pretty much through the second part of the playoffs and healthy at the same time. If they had to deal with a spread defense due to KLove and chase Kyrie around instead of staying fresh and exhausting Dellie instead? Oh, that would have been a whole different story.
They never beat the Cavs, they beat LeBron who took two games from them on his own. With the rest of them behind him? Squash.
As for Varejao, the guy is over. If he can give 12-15 quality minutes a game without getting hospitalized it'll be a medical miracle.
As for the East, if the Heat stays remotely healthy this year they will be a force to be reckoned with. Their starting 5 alone are enough to decimate defenses - Bosh is a top-3 big man defender in the league and spreads the floor like hell, and his PnR with Dragic will be elite. With what's left of Stoudemire and assuming (okay, it's a bold assumption) DWade's knees don't come undone they're very good.
Also, the Bulls... maybe, if DRose finally comes back. It's his last chance to show he can still be elite, which would be a damn shame. The guy has an IQ of about 80 but damn he was good before the injuries.