With a contract officially inked Monday, LeBron James is now a Laker and out of the Eastern Conference. Since the move, Las Vegas has set the odds at 5/8 that the Celtics will win the East.

Head coach Brad Stevens was in attendance Monday in Las Vegas as the summer league C’s took on the Hornets. Stevens took some time to speak with ESPN’s broadcast team about what’s next for his squad and if the East is "easier" without James.

“There’s nothing easy in coaching, you’re trying to win the next game. Winning a game is hard, and certainly winning a series is hard,” Stevens said. “There are so many things that go into getting an opportunity to compete in the playoffs, let alone advance in the playoffs.”

With all-stars Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward returning from injury and young stars Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum getting another year to develop, there have been some lofty expectations placed on the C’s.

“You have to start on day one, you can’t skip steps, and if you do skip steps the game will tell you. You’ll be humbled very quickly,” Stevens said. “So at the end of the day, there’s a lot of good teams and a lot of good players and its all about who plays the best."

“We did a lot of good things last year but that doesn’t mean it’ll happen again, we have to make it happen again. That starts when we get back to training camp."

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