The NBA offseason has caused a reshuffle in the Eastern Conference, opening up the conference for several teams for the first time in years.

Following LeBron James' departure from the Cleveland Cavaliers to the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference, many teams could now take over the division.

One of the teams that are the favourites to do so are the Boston Celtics. Even with their own adversity with Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward injured for parts of the season, they still were able to compete with their young core.

Now with Irving and Hayward almost back, many people are getting excited about this Celtics team. Some even consider them the favourites to win the conference overall.

Cohesion

However, Kyrie is more down to earth with his expectations, as he's accepted that the team needs to find their cohesion since himself and Hayward basically haven't played together in a game yet.

He said, via ESPN: "Nothing but excited to lead that group. I mean, we haven't started [yet, so] everyone is zero-zero right now. ... The most important thing right now is finding our cohesion.

"So finding that [cohesion] is going to be a process, which I am looking forward to doing with Danny [Ainge], Brad [Stevens], everybody."

He's right, as Hayward has been out of action for the Celtics since injuring his leg during the opening game of last season against the Cavaliers. They've hardly played together on the court.

However, Boston fans shouldn't be too concerned about Irving and Hayward not gelling together straight away, as they already have a squad that is more than capable of competing in the Eastern Conference.

With Irving and Hayward out of the playoffs, the Celtics young core of Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, Marcus Smart and Terry Rozier helped the team come within a Game 7 win of reaching the NBA Finals.

The only thing that stopped that Celtics team was LeBron James, but now he's gone, the sky is the limit for the franchise in the Eastern Conference.

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