With the offseason just weeks away from training camp, most of the teams around the NBA have pretty close to the version of their roster that will be taking the floor on opening night under contract, even if they may need to make a few more moves around the margin to get to that point.

That makes league analysts and fans of the Boston Celtics and the rest of the league able to get a pretty good idea about just how likely each team in the Association is to winning it all, tearing it down, or living in the spaces between those two poles. So with that in mind, the hosts of the CLNS Media "Celtics Lab" podcast linked up with Spurs Wire editor Jack Simone to project the order of the NBA's Western Conference for the looming 2023-24 season.

With sportsbooks like Fan Duel predicting Boston as among the most likely ball clubs to come out of the East, there's a good chance the teams we picked as contenders could face the Celtics in their first return to the NBA Finals since 2022 -- and even if they don't, it's good to know a bit about the teams Boston will face in their push to get back there.

The Celtics Lab podcast is brought to you by FanDuel and AG1.

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