Raptors are their own squad, Clippers East is a joke, and they did make the ECF before. Idk if any team in the East can take the Cavs, probably not, but even so, they got a better shot than anyone else in the East.

Lakers have youth but don’t even have anyone who has a ceiling as high a DeMar or Lowry, maybe Ingram but even then that’s only 1 guy. let alone the kind of player you’d need to lead you out of the West. A Lonzo/Ingram core has less upside than even the Raptors when they were still playing ISOball and playing mediocre bets instead of talented youth with upside.

Hell, the Raptors have even managed to draft and develop their own young core to complement the rest of the squad, the team isn’t even at their peak this year lol.

More importantly, the Raptors front office is actually great led by Masai, and not hilariously incompetent like Magic. They could choose to blow it up right now and would still have a better future than the Lakers because of that and until someone actually competent is running that team.