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Not to jinx anything or count any chickens before they hatch but let's just say Crowder is traded, we sign a backup big and manage to get the 2018 Finals against the Golden State Warriors. What are our chances? This thread is meant for in depth responses. Posts that add nothing to the discussion like "no chance in hell" may be referred to a moderator to remove. Those don't help further the discussion.

Unless otherwise noted, NO ONE is claiming that GSW wouldn't be favorites in any matchup.

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For my purposes, I'm assuming Rozier and Crowder are traded to make the room for Hayward. The leftover cap space would be used to sign a big off the bench.

GSW has a great team that's not just top-heavy but deep. They have arguably four of the top 20 players in the NBA and indisputably 2 of the top 10. They're an embarrassment of riches. I've been thinking about this quite a bit. If the Cs get to the Finals I don't think we're as bad off as some may think. I think we have a reasonable chance to win a series against them.

I think beating GSW comes down to matching them strength for strength. You've got to be strong where they are strong - and that's in the wings and guards.

Starting off with the guards, I think we can match up with them as well as anyone in the league.  Throwing a combo of IT, Bradley, Smart and even Jaylen Brown can provide so many different looks and roles that Curry, Klay and Livingston won't get comfortable. There's size, quickness and length to combat anyone GSW can throw at us. They're going to score without a doubt. But so will we. And we can make them work hard at scoring and make them work equally as hard at preventing us from scoring. How would Curry and Klay hold up in a long series where their work rate is higher than normal? No one has been able to test this - but we could with some really great talent and depth. We're combating their superstars (Curry and Klay) with our star (IT) and significantly better depth and role playing (Bradley, Smart and Brown are no slouches).

On the wing, let's just start off by saying no one is matching up against Durant in this league. He's an absolute freak of nature. But again I think we have a shot here. We have to match up against KG and Iguodala and that's a lot of size. We didn't have the wings this year. But Brown should improve and at 6'7" now (or so he claims) and 230 pounds he's able to body up both of those guys. Add in 6'8" Hayward, 6'8" Tatum and we may have the size and shooters to not get blown out in this particular area. KG will still get his 25-30 a game and Iggy will get his 8-10 or so - but if Hayward is getting 20 and Brown improves to 15 or so we're not losing by much here. Again, we're combating their superstar in KG with our star (Hayward) and better all-around depth.

It's the big guys I'm most worried about. Not Draymond because Al can match up fine with him. But we don't have as much size/experience up front. At the same time, if they're putting a big lineup on the court then that means one of the more dangerous guys on their roster is sitting on the bench. Still, we simply need more horses up front here. A quick maturation of Zizic would go a long way to helping even this up.

It won't be an easy series but I think we could make it quite competitive. I worry less about GSW than I do about Cleveland (who I still think we don't match up well against).

Overly optimistic? I don't think so. Again, GSW would still be heavy favorites. But I think we'd give them something to worry about.