Waah, waah, waah. Cry me a river. Betrayward was very, very good, but not great. Let's look at this position by position:
PG: Better.
Rubio > Hill. For what a point guard is supposed to contribute, ie, floor generalship, he's better.. by quite a bit! Well, what about what Hill did better than Rubio? Score. It won't matter. Hill shot more than Rubio will, and those shots will go to someone who can shoot in better position. And Rubio's shot is getting better.
SG: Better.
I don't care that it was just summer league, Donovan is an upgrade to that position. We didn't loose, er, lose any talent there.
SF: Worse.
But by how much? I'm not talking about the entire value of Betrayward. Yes, he's better than Joe, Joe and Thabo, that's the only amount to consider: the delta between how good JJ and Jingles are and how good Bordo was. The Joes are awesome players (not sure about Thabo). JJ, it could be argued, played better than BooBoo in the playoffs.
PF: Better
Getting Favors back healthy alone is HUUUUUGGGEEE. He had some great games in the playoffs, and has been getting stronger and healthier ever since. Plus it's a contract year. Jerebko's an upgrade to Boris.
Center: Better
Rudy will be better. Count on it. And with all due respect to Withey, whom I liked, Udoh is better.
The only argument that holds water that we'll be worse is that other teams in the Western Conference got better. Agreed. If we stay reasonably healthy however, that more than offsets the gains anyone behind us made, which really only amounts to OKC, Denver and Minnesota (with the Clips -- ahead of us -- getting worse).
No question we make the playoffs. Bet on it.