That team couldn’t get past a team that got jobbed out to the Warriors.
We over achieved in a weak conference that got substantially better.
Last year this a lot of people on this board were saying based off our performance we were golden because Kyrie and Hayward would put us over the top. To double down I got in arguments with people here who said we shouldn’t try to trade for Kawhi because we were all set and we were all but guaranteed a Finals appearance. I remember those discussions where everyone was so sure that last year meant something.
The team that got Kawhi got the superstar they needed that pushed them over the top. We underperformed. We are not better than Toronto with Kawhi. We probably aren’t as bad as this year showed, but we certainly weren’t as good as last year. We are somewhere in the middle which isn’t championship quality.
This is a Star driven league. You need to get stars or you don’t win. The last NBA champions in order featured Kawhi, Durant/Curry, Durant/Curry, Lebron, Curry, a Super Star stacked Spurs team, Lebron, Lebron, Dirk, Kobe, Kobe, Garnett/Pierce/Allen, stacked Spurs team with all time great players, Dwayne Wade, etc..