Who do you think would beat them? Portland and Denver are the 2 and 3 seeds right now and LA has beat both of them. Houston is currently a mess. The Lakers' biggest problem has been their defense and adding Tyson Chandler has improved their D a bunch. If you think that LeBron has declined considerably then that position makes sense, but if one thinks he can still kick it into playoff LeBron mode I don't see the argument for 5 or 6 teams being able to handily beat them.
As for his team this year being better, I think there's a strong argument for that. In the playoffs last year the Cavs had ten players average 15 or more minutes per game: LeBron, JR, Kevin Love, George Hill, Jeff Green, Tristan Thompson, Larry Nance, Kyle Korver, Rodney Hood, and Jordan Clarkson.
The Lakers this year also have ten players averaging 15 or more minutes per game: LeBron, Kyle Kuzma, Brandon Ingram, Josh Hart, Lonzo Ball, JaVele McGee, Rajon Rondo, Lance Stephenson, Tyson Chandler, and Caldwell-Pope.
The second group is better than the first, imo. With all the spacing concerns the Lakers have 5 guys shooting at least 35% from 3 while in the playoffs last year the Cavs only had 2 guys do that.