If rigging is a problem who says that they won't rig whoever wins that series against us. On the bright side Cousins is out for quite some time so if we play great until he comes back that could just be enough to get the first seed. On the downside, we're still a worse team than we were last year and even if Ariza was still here we'd still be full earth rotations behind the Warriors.
It could be a competitive first round between warriors and lakers. But who knows it could easily be a sweep.
