Magic got better with simmons signing. Magic were one of only 3-4 teams that I thought would be worse than the Lakers (even with KCP). Nets and Bulls are the only teams that are clearly worse than the Lakers now imo.
Hawks? Bulls? Suns? Kings?
.. And Pacers and Mavericks.
The Lakers will be bad, but I would bet they are 6-10 bad not 1-5 bad.
Again it's still a lottery though
Mavericks are significantly better than the Lakers. It's not even close.
I'm not seeing the Mavericks being a lot better than anyone. They have a rookie PG with Barnes as their #1 option, and a 39 year-old Dirk in the starting lineup. Noel clogging up the lane on offense. No bench (Seth Curry?).
Lonzo Ball ~ Dennis Smith
KCP ~ Barnes
Ingram ~ Matthews
Randle ~ 39 year-old Dirk
Lopez ~ Noel
Both teams should lose a lot of games, but I'm not seeing the big discrepancy between the two.
Lakers won 26 games last year and swapped Russell, Young, L Williams, Mozgov for Ball, KCP and Lopez. Randle, Ingram, Zubac should all be expected to only improve.
Mavericks won 33 games last year and swapped Deron Williams for Dennis Smith and more games with Noel (who I like, but really hurts to play as a starter with a weak offense).