It's not quite clear if the Golden State Warriors should be threatened by LeBron James‘ move to the Western Conference. While his presence certainly increases the Los Angeles Lakers' chances (despite handicapped by a largely green core) of making their first playoff trip since a first-round sweep against the San Antonio Spurs in 2013, it isn't a guarantee that they will.
For starters, the West is a different animal compared to the East that LeBron has lorded over for so many years. Some teams above .500 fail to even make the postseason (the Denver Nuggets, for example, would have been the sixth seed in the East) just because of how competitive the Western Conference is. It's even more lopsided now with several big name players routinely moving conferences.
Mike Brown, James' former coach and now an assistant with the Warriors, weighed in on The King's move to the state, via The Mercury News' Mark Medina, citing that it matters little to the defending champions.
“I don’t really think it does anything for us. No matter where he is or no matter what anybody else does, everybody gets up and plays us. Everybody is gunning for us. It doesn’t matter if it’s the Lakers and LeBron, the Clippers or whoever else. It’s going to be a dog fight. I don’t know if it does anything for us as a team.”
Of course, with All-Star center DeMarcus Cousins added to their already vaunted line-up, you might say that the only concern for the Bay Area club is how many games are they going to lose.
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