Who will rule the East?

FORMER Cleveland Cavaliers uberstar LeBron James now resides in the Western Conference of the NBA after hooking with the Los Angeles Lakers in this year’s NBA free-agent race on a four-year, $153.3-million deal.

With this development, the fans in Boston, Toronto and Philadelphia must be rejoicing as one other perennial powerhouse in the Eastern Conference has been taken out of the conference title picture.
In each of the last eight seasons, James had powered either Miami (first four) and Cleveland (last four) to the NBA Finals as the championship-series representative from the East champion.

With his defection to the West, the path to the 2019 NBA Finals should be smoother for the Celtics, Raptors or 76ers.

The LeBron haters from the East also are jubilating knowing that the road to the Finals next year will also be more torturous for The King as the West is top-heavy with teams like the back-to-back NBA titlist Golden State Warriors, reigning regular-season champion Houston Rockets and Oklahoma City Thunder.

To the skeptics that believe the Lakers won’t make the playoffs in LeBron’s first year, that’s your opinion. And if so, it won’t be the first for James anyway.

He did not make the postseason with the Cavs in the first two years of his 15-year pro career.
James, who turns 34 in late December, has four years (the fourth year being a player option) to win a title or two with the Lakers. Take your time, LeBron.

All-time great Earvin (Magic) Johnson, the Lakers’ president of basketball operations, has called his strategy to woe top free agents to the club’s fold a “two-year project” even before James came aboard.

Last July 30, the 6-foot-8 Akron, Ohio-born James, for the first time, publicly discussed his decision to hook up with the Lakers.

Said James: “I definitely thought long and hard enough about the possibilities of lining up alongside Ben (Simmons) and (Joel) Embiid (of Philadelphia) or lining up alongside (James) Harden and Chris (Paul, of Houston). I just felt like at this point in my career, the ultimate for me – just like when I went to Miami (in 2010), everyone kind of looks at me joining a superteam, but if people look at it, I think Miami was (47-35) the year before I joined that team and you can look at the Lakers’ record (35-47 in 2017-18) – so I like the challenge of being able to help a team get to some place they haven’t been in quite a while.

“Obviously the Lakers haven’t made the playoffs in a few years (five years), but the Lakers organization and the historical franchise matches up there with all the greats – you can look at the (Dallas) Cowboys, and you can look at the (New England) Patriots, you can look at Manchester United, the Boston Celtics – these are historical franchises and for me to be a part of that, I think it’s a great moment for not only me but for my family and for the history of basketball in general.”

The Lakers have enough salary cap space to sign another top-tier player to a maximum contract in the summer of 2019. They lost out in the Kawhi Leonard sweepstakes after the San Antonio Spurs sought the Lakers’ young core of assets and eventually peddled the disgruntled 6-foot-7, 27-year-old forward to the North in Toronto.

It could well be a one-year rental with the Raps for the Los Angeles-born Leonard as he is eligible to hit the open market next July.

The Lakers then can again go after his services without having to surrender anything in compensation. Let’s see if Kawhi will live up to his words and head to his preferred destination of Los Angeles and not follow the path taken by Paul George, who became enamored with Oklahoma City despite his professed love for the Lakers a year ago and decided, in last month’s free agency, to re-up with the Thunder for another four seasons.

If Leonard opts to remain in Toronto, the Lakers may go after Minnesota’s Jimmy Butler or Golden State’s Klay Thompson – or even his Warriors teammate Kevin Durant – in the 2019 free-agent derby.