NBA Offseason Wrap Up, Part 2: A Wild LeBron-less Eastern Conference

As the 2018 NBA offseason comes to a close, we breakdown a new-look Eastern Conference where a new contender will rise

Welcome to Part 2 of my NBA offseason wrap up. I picked apart the West in Part 1, and now it’s time to reassess the Eastern Conference as we approach the beginning of the preseason. Some feelings may be hurt in the process.

For the first time in 15 years, LeBron James will not reside in the East. And for the first time since ’10, a non-LeBron team will represent the Conference in the Finals.

Throughout LeBron’s eight-year NBA Finals run, there were times he was seriously challenged (the ’12 Celtics were probably the closest an East team got to dethroning LeBron; Indiana in ’12/’13/’18 also pushed him to the brink), but for the most part he has made a mockery of the NBA’s other conference.

LeBron-led teams posted a 96-28 record in that time (.774 winning %), equivalent to a 63-win regular season pace. He put up his standard 28-9-7 every night with good efficiency and elite defense, and after Dwyane Wade started to break down in the ’12 playoffs, there were very few playoff games where LeBron wasn’t the clear cut best player on the court. His once-in-a-generation levels of consistency and production resulted in him having a stranglehold over a Conference for nearly a decade.

James really should’ve made the Finals 10 straight years – Stan Van Gundy gave every player on his roster Steph Curry’s shooting ability in the ’09 East Finals and Dan Gilbert idiotically walked away from acquiring a then 27-year-old Amar’e Stoudemire at the ’10 deadline, ultimately settling for a washed up Antawn Jamison because he didn’t want to surrender J.J. Hickson. The 61-win Cavs were bounced in the second round a few months later as Hickson played 9.5 minutes per game. Cavs fans should have no confusion as to why James has left town twice.

With James now dawning the purple and gold, it’s time for a new East contender to break through. While most of the Conference is a mess – in large part due to completely inept management – there are a few contenders that have a real shot at threatening a Golden State three-peat.

Whatever happens, we have officially entered a new era of East basketball – one without the man who controlled it for a decade.

Here’s my take on the Eastern Conference now that the dust has settled on an eventful offseason, sorted by tiers.

(Note: all record projections and playoff odds are subjective to how I view each team’s relative strength. Some tools I use the most often, along with my own opinion based off film assessment and notes, to assist in properly evaluating the league: Basketball Reference‘s extended database, 538 projections, NBA.com/stats, predictive PIPM, and ESPN‘s real plus minus, among others. Like Part 1, I have stated in parentheses how each player was acquired or let go throughout the offseason. “FA” is short for free agency.)