I'm honestly out as a Kings fan if we don't get a top 5 pick. There's no reason why this team should be winning games late in the season on the backs of vets who have no future as a King.
The Lakers have been the hottest team in the league and acquired IT. Either this could propel them to .500 basketball or completely blow up in their faces. The Lakers' big goal has always been to make noise this offseason anyways so I don't see them lapping us in the loss column.
The Mavs acquired McBuckets and unloaded Devin Harris (their big goal has always been the offseason too). McBuckets isn't amazing by any means but he's better than most of the Mavericks roster by virtue of not being old or a D-Leaguer. This move could actually help put a little separation between the Mavs and us in the race to the bottom of the western conference. (Thanks Mr. Cuban!)
The Bulls are young and competitive and have been playing fairly good basketball of late (bad/good loss to us aside). There's not much they could do to really up the tankage seeing as most of their roster is young and inexperienced as is.
Brooklyn is a team with nothing to lose by winning and playing hard so I could see them climbing the standings as the teams around them start letting loose the hounds of tank post-ASG.
The Knicks are pretty bad now that Zinger is down but we've got a bit of a headstart on them in the race.
Memphis inexplicably held on to Reke and Gasol and all of their good vets and, bad stretch of basketball that got their coach fired aside, aren't as bad at basketball as some of the other teams out there.
Phoenix is close to us in the standings but seem to have gotten closer to plugging the hole in their roster at point guard with Elfrid Payton, who isn't very good but still young and has fully functioning legs (my thoughts to Isaiah Canaan). Of course, when it comes to tanking, the Suns are seasoned pros, so who knows?
Our big competition in the 2018 Winter Tanklympics is honestly going to remain the Orlando Magic, who dumped Elfrid Payton for as close to nothing as you could get for an NBA player, and the Atlanta Hawks, who are very bad but decided to trade for Sheldon Mac, which could make them a little better, and they seem to be eager to get rid of Marco Belinelli, which, as we know, is not very conducive to losing games.