i know it sounds crazy, so i'll explain- like you all know, now that the Warriors are out of the race, there is a HUGE window of opportunity for a lot of teams.
but the thing most of the people don't talk about is that this window is also becasue the west is SUPER WEAK.
The Pels swept Blazers just before 2 years, and the same Blazers team was in the western confrence finals last year. Nuggets was 2nd seed last year and went to 7 games against the Spurs (7 seed) with guys like Poeltl and Bryn forbes in their starting lineup.

if Kawhi stays in the Toronto and not go to the Clippers, the Lakers don't get any other star and maybe even fight through injuries- it means the main competition is teams like Nuggets, Blazers, Rockets and Jazz. good teams,but not even close to unbeatable+ they don't have cap space to upgrade the roster.

Don't get me wrong- i'm not saying that we need to go "win now f**k the future" mode. not at all. what i think we can do is to keep the future bright AND win now at the same time. how?

first of all, we trade Moore with 2nd round picks for more 8 mil on cap space, and then sign George hill, Ariza and Dedmon (can be also Mirotic, D.green and Satoranski, you got the point-main thing is shooting & defense) for around 13 mil a year for 1-2 year deals. with MLE sign a guy like Jared dudley which bring even more Veteran leadership, or another shooter like Wayne Ellington.
than we move ingram to being the sixth man which give you two things- bring more spacing to Zion/Jrue/Lonzo to create (ingram shoot 33% with 0.7 threes made last year, it's even worse than Lonzo), and let ingram do his thing surrounded by shooters.

We have a staring lineup of Ball-Jrue-Ariza-Zion-Dedmon with bench of G.hill, Hart, Dudley/Ellington, ingram and Hayes. i think it's one of the best defensive starting five in the league, with an Ok shooting and a great bench. and it's not even the best case scenario- if suddenly you can get a guy like Beal via trade, it can make you to the BEST TEAM IN THE WEST.

Of course you need Zion to dance and give you 22 10 on great efficency, Jrue keep being him, and Lonzo maybe go to 36-37% from three- but it's actually pretty reasonable to think all of this will happen.

So what do you think- am i overlly optimistic and griff will just take some bad contracts to get more assets and give up on this season (which is also fine, trust the proccess...), or will he take advantage of the situation this season and try to take over the west?