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With the free agent class slated to hit the market next summer, the entire makeup of the NBA landscape could potentially shift dramatically. At this point next year, we could very well see this season’s mediocre markets morph into perennial powerhouses. While the majority anticipates a positive turn of events, it’s still far too early to predict what the inevitable changes will do for the league. Will the NBA benefit from different markets rising to the top of the standings? How will YOUR team fair in the aftermath?

Well, luckily, before that whole mess takes place, 82 more regular season games will be played, a near equal number of playoff games will take place and another NBA championship banner will be raised in (insert city name here).

And what a season it will be. If this offseason has shown us anything so far, it’s that the top tier teams of the NBA won’t be messing around come the start of next season. Be prepared for a war, not a season. These games will be brutal, which - for us as fans - is fantastic, but the grind the teams and players will be subjected to will far outlast anything we have seen as this decade comes to a close.

If you invest yourself in your team, and your team poses a legitimate threat to knock off the Lakers as NBA title holders, I can already promise you it will be a very exciting, yet grueling year. The competition will be fierce, particularly in the Eastern Conference. Both division and conference supremacy won’t be decided until the final week of the season, meaning your squad will have to decide whether they cherish rest and health more than home court advantage. Particularly if your team aims to try and take the Eastern Conference.

Oh yes, for the better part of this decade the West scoffed at the East, but the tables have turned dramatically, as a revamped Eastern Conference holds several candidates who will compete for the crown.

As a Celtics fan, am I frightened at the competition glaring me in the face? No. But am I slightly nervous? How can I not be?

It’s like whenever you take a really important test and you know going in there will of course be those five to seven questions that will threaten to stump you unless you endure through them and fight to come up with the correct answer.

Health withstanding, the East is locked for two sixty win teams (Boston and Cleveland), two that will entertain the idea of 50-55 wins (Orlando and Washington), six that would drastically underachieve without forty victories (Detroit, Chicago, Atlanta, Toronto, Miami (especially if Allen Iverson joins the South Beach party) and Philadelphia) and the remaining five, which will all gladly act as the obnoxious flies the superior squads won’t quite swat hard enough in the first meeting, and will subsequently feel their sting for the remainder of the season (New York, New Jersey, Milwaukee, Charlotte and Indiana).

I don’t care how many All-Stars or future Hall of Famers your contingent sports, there will be no such thing as an “easy win” in the Eastern Conference this season. What’s even more terrifying is the fact that free agency has only been going on for three and a half days. A steady crop of relevant names still grace the open market, merely waiting to be scooped up by a hopeful contender.

If ESPN Classic’s ratings have taken any significant hit over the past year or however long the gap might be, consider it restored, as even a Miami-Toronto matchup on a Monday night in January has the potential for an instant replay less than 24 hours later.

Furthermore, the NBA is typically a league where only about four teams (give or take a team) can legitimately contend for the NBA title at season’s end. Well, with the steady stream of talent switching zip codes, that trend could shatter as well.

As it stands, if the Celtics sign Rasheed Wallace and one other key free agent, there will be the four favorites in Vegas (Lakers, Spurs, Cavaliers, Celtics), the three teams that, without one more key piece each, will contend but never really challenge the top four (Orlando, Washington and Denver) (but if they each were to add one extra piece, Vegas wouldn’t know what to do), the steady of number of teams whose diehard fans will blindly believe can win all season before reality slaps them across the face in the opening two rounds of the playoffs, despite a possible upset in the works (Hornets, Blazers, Pistons, Bulls, Raptors, Jazz) and then the rest who will either rebuild, never quite meet next season’s potential or flounder somewhere in between in the sea of mediocrity.

But even those with no true hope of a title next season will fight the good fight for as long as their season lasts. And there in lies the beauty of it all. Every night will be a grind. Every night will be a cause for celebration. For 82+ nights next year you might fight hanging out with your buddies or your boyfriend/girlfriend because the game that night will mean SO much to your team. Ratings will shoot through the roof. As fans, we cannot ask for much more. The league actually cannot ask for much more, either. The truly competitive players (the Garnett’s, Pierce’s, LeBron’s and Kobe’s) will have the chance to strut their stuff for arguably the most competitive stretches of their respective careers.

When you can predict this stuff before summer league even gets under way, you know it’s going to be good.

Stay Tuned.

-Greg Payne - NES 24/7 Blog, Sports Jabber Contributing Authors. Read more of their work at NES 24/7.