Kawhi missed half the regular season last year and the Raptors kept on winning. And they did it without Marc Gasol in the lineup. Now they've got Gasol for an entire season and Pascal Siakam will have another season under his belt. They still have Van Vleet and Lowry. And the highly-regarded GM will add and move players if needed be in order to keep the team at the top.
As for Golden State they'll be without their superstar player in Kevin Durant, who signed elsewhere. Sure they still have Stephen Curry but he seems to start getting injured more & more as his grows older. He's still a superstar player but without Durant in the lineup the Warriors will have a tough road ahead if they want to repeat as Conference champs.
p.s. I'm not afraid of the Clippers even with Kawai and George in their lineup. They're still the Clippers, after all.
I've already placed my bet that GS returns to the finals again, as well as Curry taking MVP this year. He has made concessions for KD for the last 3 yrs and meanwhile became even more accurate. While it is true that he is getting injured more, they are not serious injuries. On the flip side, his strength has vastly improved and he is right in his peak year.
The one catch here is D'Angelo - if he accepts his role, and fully buys in to GS's system, every team should be frightened as hell come playoffs. The speed that that team may end up playing at should be astounding. WC Stein is also very very quick and he showed some great potential last year - he also has a healthy amount of anger in him - I think he is going to make some serious noise this year. The two main if's for GS are if D'Angelo decides to listen (and can actually play that fast), and if the new kids can be good defensively.
Keep in mind that no one really caught up with, nor really figured them out in their two finals losses - they were both primarily due to serious injuries (and yes I know that they were also fortunate themselves in the same way). But just look at their winning percentage in the last 5 yrs - it is astounding, and no one else is even close.
Anyway, I'm hyped for the season - lots of drama and story lines - should be fun.