Who will dominate the league in 5 years? Top 5 future contenders.

The NBA saw one of sports greatest turnarounds this year. The Boston Celtics pulled some strings and managed to formulate a team around Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen and Paul Pierce. After finishing last in the league the previous season the once glorious Celtics found themselves contending for a title against old rivals The LA Lakers. Within one year the Celtics have gone from zeros to hero's but what happens in 5 years time? KG, Pierce and Allen will be on the brink of retirement, Kobe wont be nearly as dominant and the Spurs will most likely all be enjoying life away from the league. So whose next in line to take the throne? Here are my top 5 future contenders.



5.
Cleveland Cavaliers (Lebron James)

Any team with a player like Lebron James on the team has to make the top 5. This is a guy who got his team to the NBA finals pretty much single handedly (maybe with a little help from Big Z and Booby Gibson). Not a single Cav has averaged more than 17 ppg since Lebron joined the Cavs and now finally he has some help with point guard Mo Williams. The Cavs are the biggest one man show in the league and if that one man can get to the NBA finals at only 23 years old with pretty much no help  then the team he's on is going places. The Cavs are known to make bad off season moves though, sending Drew Gooden and Larry Hughes away for a useless Ben Wallace wasn't the brightest move. Then there's the fact that Lebron is a free agent in 2010 and if Cleveland let Lebron go its back to the bottom of the league for the Cavs.


4.
Atlanta Hawks

The Hawks have had a bad summer. Letting Josh Smith almost slip away and then letting Josh Childress escape to Greece the Hawks took a blow but that doesn't change the fact that they still have a bunch of talent to develop. Mike Bibby and Joe Johnson are in or have already passed they're prime so the chances of them developing considerably further are slim, but they're presence isn't something to be ignored they are still two of the best guards in the league and with the amount of talent they have around them they should help the rest of the team grow. Marvin Williams was an awful pick for the hawks in 2005 at number 2, regardless he is still a good talented player whose stats continue to improve and he could develop into a fantastic contributor for the Hawks. Josh Smith is back (only just after nearly signing with the grizzlies) and he could one day become the face of the franchise. He is freakishly athletic with a huge defensive presence establishing himself as one of the leagues top shot blockers and rebounders. If he can tighten up his offensive game with more scoring awareness he could become a similar player to Dominique Wilkins. Finally Al Horford, another great inside presence for the Hawks, a phenomenal rebounder in his rookie season with 10 rpg per game which may not sound spectacular but for a rookie its quite something. Similar to Josh Smith if only he could develop his offensive game he averaged 10ppg in his rookie year which is fairly average considering he was the third overall pick. If all of the hawks can develop into scorers then the future looks bright in Atlanta.

3.
Orlando Magic

Unlike the Cavs this is not a 1 man team with Dwight Howard. Superman has 3 decent players supporting him but 2 of these

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