First of all you have to look at the other teams in the East... Its quite obvious that we wont be anywhere near the Bulls or Heat in the near future.
Behind that you have the Magic who are going to be in rebuilding mode next season (or even this season after Dwight has gone), I can see us beeing ahead of the Magic in 2013-2014 simply because they have no young talent whatsoever and the team is about to be completly destroyed and at the time this happens we already have a bit of chemistry. If this happens also depends on what the Magic get for Dwight, but Im pretty optimistic we are better then them in the mid-term.
Celtics are declining and going to get worse, I dont see them landing Dwight and they failed to get CP3. Green is out for the season with heart problems, leaving Rondo to be pretty much the only long-term player that they have right now. Big questionmark is how well they can rebuild around Rondo once the big 3 of Allen,Pierce,Garnett are finally over. Pretty much unpredictable to say if we can be ahead of them anytime soon because they remain a attractive FA destination.
Then you have the Knicks who are having no cap-space and no backcourt either... Melo, Stoudemire and Chandler are on long-term contracts but they are in their prime now and I cant see them as serious contenders. We should be ahead of them in the long term once Stoudemire and Chandler are declining or having injury problems.
Hawks are going nowhere, going to be slipping into NBA mediocrity in a few seasons when their long term players have declined.
So to speak, the Eastern Conference is not going to be too strong in a few years time. Magic, Celtics, Hawks are all going to decline or go into rebuilding mode. And looking at the rest of the teams I dont see any team clearly ahead of us, Pacers and 76ers are in a decent position now but they dont have a true #1 option and they wont get one in the coming years because they are too good to get great Picks.
If we hit on our Draft-Picks, especially in the 2012 Draft which has two potential franchise-players, I can see us beeing a contender at some point but it will take a lot of patience and luck in the draft lottery.