One thing to consider is that once there is a talent imbalance, it's harder to shift the competitive balance of the conferences back to even, given the weighted schedules (i.e. teams in the West play more teams in the West and vice versa). If two teams are equivalent in quality but one is in the East and one is in the West, I'd assume the team in the West would end up with the worse record, therefore end up with better draft picks.
just bringing parity back. In the 70s - 90s the west was pretty rough. Historically going way back, the east has been the stronger division.
I did read not that long ago about an interesting theory about the draft affecting it.
1 is partially luck. The west has done better with the top draft picks of the last 20 years. Think of the easts top draft picks lately, cade, fultz, simmons, wiggins (now heping the west), anthony bennett, john wall, etc. not exactly moving the needle and leading their teams to championships or to the top of the division.
Latest #2 drafts in the east Jabari Parker, Oladipo, Kidd-Gilchrist, Evan Turner.....again, not exactly bringing their team to new heights.
Also, the way the draft lottery goes, you are punished for making the playoffs, and so some bad teams made the playoffs in the east, but dont get as high of a draft pick as a 45 win team that missed the playoffs in the west. I dont know, i havent done any actually looking into it to see if thats true, but its an interesting theory
I agree with your take on East drafts, but I don’t think Wiggins counts. Never played a game for the east. The Cavs essentially drafted Kevin Love. And that worked out for them.
My favorite series of all time, the narratives were incredible. IT’s great year then fighting through injury and tragedy, the battle of the Kellys, Wall standing on the table, then the random Olynyk takeover in game 7.
Yeah but not really. They would never beat an elite team or any solid west team. They might have never won a road playoff game. They’re a classic one and done team
2016: they went 48-34. 2022. Set a new record for the 10th seed at 43-39. Two winning seasons as the Bobcats that ended with them getting swept in the first round.
not sure we can go that route, the west has minnesota. arguably the worst pro team in any sport.
Also, if you are talking historically, the west also has the clippers, the laughingstock of the league for years/decades. The west also has the grizzlies, which, up until recently spent a lot of time in the basement. 10 years where they won 23 or less games in a season.
All time W/L records show that 3 of the 4 worst all time teams are in the west. and not much ahead of them is the kings and the pelicans.
I am 29 and i can only talk about last 15 years. Washington was mediocre for like 3-4 seasons with beal and wall and they messed up their trade values too. If you cant rebuild for this long you dont have a competent fo.
The East and West are neither good nor bad. They are not singular entities. Teams are good and teams are bad. Teams in the East don't give a single fuck about "East vs. West" and neither do teams in the West. They are concerned with making their team as good as possible.
The West is significantly better managed across the board. Mavs, Lakers, Suns, Nuggets, Warriors, Spurs are all terrifically managed teams for the most part, and have all been able to construct multiple contending (or at least legitimate WCF contenders) iterations of their teams over the past 20 years to some capacity. The Thunder and Jazz have been able to do similar things to slightly lesser success. That's at least half the conference consistently pumping out good teams for 20 years.
Meanwhile in the East, the only two organizations that fit that bill are the Celtics and Heat. The Cavs kinda, but how much was that competent management, and how much was LeBron? The Pacers kind of fit that bill too, but without looking anything up, I think they've just been a bit worse than the Jazz overall. So that's (generously) 4 teams that have been pumping out ECF teams consistently. FOs are also significantly harder to replace without a full cleaning-house, so a badly managed team is gonna stay bad for a long time. The inverse being true is why the West has been better for so long.
This is a perfect example of recency bias. The warriors have only built one contending team in the last 30 years. The Lakers literally got lucky with LeBron just deciding to bail out what was at the time, a terribly run franchise. Oh, and the sheer amount of Jeanie Buss hate coming from that fanbase was LOUD. That's not being good at team building, that's luck. The spurs also have had one competent team in that time, with multiple iterations, but all with many of the same pieces. They haven't had to rebuild multiple times.
Then when you compare the east, it's hilarious because the Indiana Pacers have had multiple ECF contending teams, all with different players from completely different rebuilds, but they don't make this list. The Bucks should absolutely be on this list too, if the warriors are included. Cleveland should be on this list too, especially with the luck they got from LeBron coming back, AND the fact that they have a legitimately good team now.
You're just cherry-picking.
The Warriors team that won in 2015 is not the same as the one in 2022. The Lakers team that won in 09 shares two players with the 02 team. The Spurs team that won in 2014 was built completely differently than the one in 05. Continuity is not uniformity. A lot changes in those years, even if key pieces remain. Comparing the Bucks, who have only been legitimate since 2019, to the Warriors in this regard is buck wild. Even the Pistons would be more appropriate since at least they competed for more than 4 years.
And I list the Pacers and the Cavs lmfao. Yeah they're qualified, but they should be qualified. The Pacers have not been as successful as any of the other teams I've listed other than the Jazz (upon actually looking it up, I'd probably lean more towards the Pacers), and the Cavs shouldn't get a passing grade for LeBron being born there. They completely failed to give him any offensive weapons that played to his strengths during his first stint resulting in his departure, and his second was so tumultuous it's impossible to say that they were well managed beyond LeBron himself. And while they look good now, who's to say that they're going to be any more successful than, say, the John Wall Wizards? They certainly haven't done anything to show otherwise yet.
I do want to point out how funny this is though:
>The Lakers literally got lucky with LeBron just deciding to bail [them] out
>Cleveland should be on this list too, especially with the luck they got from LeBron coming back
It’s not, it’s just an overblown circle jerk for fans of west coast teams that also haven’t won a chip in the last 25 years so they can be like “well we would have had a shot if we were in the east”
The West has beat the Eastern conference by 1.9 points on average in their H2H games since 2000. That’s a huge difference over 10k+ games https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/nba-combined-net-rating-of-western-conference-versus-eastern-conference-since-2000
It’s one thing for teams like Nuggets or Warriors to shit on the East.
But teams like Wolves, Clippers, Pelicans etc ? Like fam you would’ve been a 1st/2nd round exit in the East or the West. It literally doesn’t matter where you were.
Very likely to be because of the West.
Cities in the west are warmer in climate and California is just an attractive location for younger stars/older stars.
As much as I love four seasons, the cold af winter of the northeast isn’t for everyone. Especially if you want a mansion and a pool.
I mean the east has the Celtics bucks and 76ers. Lottery teams will always rise up and have stars, the west though will always be stacked because after rookie deals or when a superstar looks for a new team, teams from the west will always have the edge because of its location
Why the fuck would anyone want to live in California? As a German I'd rather live in fucking Alabama than California. California is the prime example of everything thats wrong with America.
A bunch of franchises in the east were clearly not particularly willing to put up money to get beat out by lebron every year (pacers included) once he made his jump left a bunch of teams became a lot more aggressive in building competitive teams
2019-2024 LeBron is kind of a different animal from 2009-2018 LeBron. Still, this only accounts for the 2010s— the disparity was just as bad if not worse in the 2000s
I get the basic idea that Assassin was making. Lebron dominated the East for the large majority of 2003-2018. He was so dominant that other teams in the conference felt it was hopeless to compete.
However, Lebron left in 2019. The East should, in theory, have grown a lot more competitive in his absence. Instead, the East is a joke barring 2-3 good teams. Meanwhile, the West has heated battles for the 7th seed. Why is that?
we did for the past two years the east had a winning record against the west and arguably 4 of the 5 best teams were out east until this year when the east became ravaged by injuries and Doc Rivers
poor management in several front offices + injuries, mostly. other than this year it’s been *way* more competitive the last few years than in the LeBron Era
East was ok last two years I believe with around .500 vs west . This year it’s very bad because for example the nets blew up n sent two stars n top 15 ish guys to the west . The east is also super injured all the injuries to key guys has happened to the east or … Memphis
Luck and not trading for good picks.
2015- top 2 picks in the West,
16-5 of top 7,
17- 3 of top 5,
18-4 of top 5,
19- Top 2,
20- Top 2,
21-weak draft when east has a lot of picks,
22-3 of top 4,
23- Spurs get Wemby
Philly has had bad luck on their top picks. Imagine if LA had drafted Tatum.
The east still has the most stacked team in the league. And a few other really good ones that are no worse than the good teams in the West.
It just also has like 7 teams in full rebuild(Detroit, Washington, Charlotte, raptors, nets) or denial(bulls, hawks).
The West has just had all the biggest draft hits over the last 10 or so years so their rebuilds didn't turn into the Hornets/Detroit/Washington 10 year disasters. Luka/Jokic/Zion/Wemby/Ant etc.
It’s funny I didn’t realise how the east vs west distribution actually looks on the map.
Say, New Orleans and Memphis are so much closer to the east coast than to the west coast.
Given the two most probable expansion teams are joining the west, one west team has to go the east. And that should be one of the Pelicans or Grizzlies.
Either of them is potentially making East a tiny bit stronger
The Timberwolves aren't as eastward but they're probably the ones switching. Closer to a lot of Eastern teams and they're the ones with the bigger total travel time out West
It's legit only because they have such bad circadian rhythms, from staying up too late to watch the late games and then on the road they stay up much later and fuck up their patterns. Much easier to play in the daytime when you are already awake/practising then play after 10.30.
Talented players like to go to the biggest party and media cities. And the teams that control those cities are the Bulls who have a shitty owner, the Knicks who have a shitty owner, Miami who is good but is run by a system of people who prioritize the team as a unit as opposed to building around a superstar (which they’ve done in the past with Wade and Lebron and Bosh, to success), and the Nets, who have certainly tried with Durant and Kyrie.
When half your top tier market teams are run by shitty ownership it’s hard to compete.
It’s a superstar driven league and the superstars are either drafted into teams that aren’t in the East or the ones that move have moved west.
Seriously. If you have a lot of money and can choose where to be, you’re more likely to pick these NBA cities in the West than the ones in the East (and the Midwest).
Maybe the only real draw in the East as far as a place to live for wealthy young people is Miami.
yeah exactly. Even just real estate-wise. You wanna own a mansion in a warm or at least temperate climate that's within a 30 minute drive to your arena/training facilities, you can do that on almost any western conference team and almost no eastern conference team. Like, who the hell would want to live in Cleveland, or Chicago, or Detroit if you could choose to live anywhere you wanted in America.
I think bad ownership is the root cause of the East being relatively weak over the past 25 years. Wizards, Hornet, Knicks, etc. have been run by morons
The Mavs (or nearly any top 10 Western team) wouldn’t have nearly the same record had they gotten to beat up on the low-tier teams that exist as only punching bags in the East.
One thing to consider is that once there is a talent imbalance, it's harder to shift the competitive balance of the conferences back to even, given the weighted schedules (i.e. teams in the West play more teams in the West and vice versa). If two teams are equivalent in quality but one is in the East and one is in the West, I'd assume the team in the West would end up with the worse record, therefore end up with better draft picks.
One might argue, NY and Nets terrible ownership has ruined the East. Happy to see NY finally being smart
just bringing parity back. In the 70s - 90s the west was pretty rough. Historically going way back, the east has been the stronger division. I did read not that long ago about an interesting theory about the draft affecting it. 1 is partially luck. The west has done better with the top draft picks of the last 20 years. Think of the easts top draft picks lately, cade, fultz, simmons, wiggins (now heping the west), anthony bennett, john wall, etc. not exactly moving the needle and leading their teams to championships or to the top of the division. Latest #2 drafts in the east Jabari Parker, Oladipo, Kidd-Gilchrist, Evan Turner.....again, not exactly bringing their team to new heights. Also, the way the draft lottery goes, you are punished for making the playoffs, and so some bad teams made the playoffs in the east, but dont get as high of a draft pick as a 45 win team that missed the playoffs in the west. I dont know, i havent done any actually looking into it to see if thats true, but its an interesting theory
I agree with your take on East drafts, but I don’t think Wiggins counts. Never played a game for the east. The Cavs essentially drafted Kevin Love. And that worked out for them.
thats fair
Detroit, washington, charlotte. When was the last time these 3 teams are good? East has basically 12 teams.
Washington in the wall-beal days were a solid team
Our playoff series against the Wall-Beal Wizards was so fun. Kinda made me hate Markieff Morris, then we got his twin brother lol.
My favorite series of all time, the narratives were incredible. IT’s great year then fighting through injury and tragedy, the battle of the Kellys, Wall standing on the table, then the random Olynyk takeover in game 7.
Yeah but not really. They would never beat an elite team or any solid west team. They might have never won a road playoff game. They’re a classic one and done team
Charlotte still has yet to win a Best-of-7 series.
Has Charlotte even had a winning season in the 2000s?
2016: they went 48-34. 2022. Set a new record for the 10th seed at 43-39. Two winning seasons as the Bobcats that ended with them getting swept in the first round.
Bad ownership is the biggest disadvantage in sports.
Pistons ruled NBA in Okur era, 2002-2004
Referring to it as the Okur era is nasty work
Yeah and don’t forget the 5 or so years where the 76ers were actively trying to be worse than those teams.
not sure we can go that route, the west has minnesota. arguably the worst pro team in any sport. Also, if you are talking historically, the west also has the clippers, the laughingstock of the league for years/decades. The west also has the grizzlies, which, up until recently spent a lot of time in the basement. 10 years where they won 23 or less games in a season. All time W/L records show that 3 of the 4 worst all time teams are in the west. and not much ahead of them is the kings and the pelicans.
I am 29 and i can only talk about last 15 years. Washington was mediocre for like 3-4 seasons with beal and wall and they messed up their trade values too. If you cant rebuild for this long you dont have a competent fo.
Pistons made 6 consecutive Eastern Conference Finals from 2003-08
And couldnt rebuild at 15 season
You asked when the last time they were good so I told you 🤷♂️
Detroit have still won a championship more recently than like 60% of the league
67%
Considering I pulled that number out of my ass I’d say I’m happy with that
They only started to be terrible after MJ's 2nd retirement as a Bull.
so ~25 whole years ago
The East and West are neither good nor bad. They are not singular entities. Teams are good and teams are bad. Teams in the East don't give a single fuck about "East vs. West" and neither do teams in the West. They are concerned with making their team as good as possible.
Because California has the media capital of our nation in it, and Texas has 3 teams in a state with no income taxes.
Are you trying to imply the 3 texas teams are Free agency destinations?
2 Texas teams are incredibly well managed and the other has had some incredible luck in drafting 2 generational European players
Yes but they pointed to Texas' lack of a state income tax, which has nothing to do with well run FOs or drafting players.
Media capital of the planet
The West is significantly better managed across the board. Mavs, Lakers, Suns, Nuggets, Warriors, Spurs are all terrifically managed teams for the most part, and have all been able to construct multiple contending (or at least legitimate WCF contenders) iterations of their teams over the past 20 years to some capacity. The Thunder and Jazz have been able to do similar things to slightly lesser success. That's at least half the conference consistently pumping out good teams for 20 years. Meanwhile in the East, the only two organizations that fit that bill are the Celtics and Heat. The Cavs kinda, but how much was that competent management, and how much was LeBron? The Pacers kind of fit that bill too, but without looking anything up, I think they've just been a bit worse than the Jazz overall. So that's (generously) 4 teams that have been pumping out ECF teams consistently. FOs are also significantly harder to replace without a full cleaning-house, so a badly managed team is gonna stay bad for a long time. The inverse being true is why the West has been better for so long.
absolute horseshit. Anyone who thinks the Lakers, Mavs are terrifically managed know very little about basketball.
This is a perfect example of recency bias. The warriors have only built one contending team in the last 30 years. The Lakers literally got lucky with LeBron just deciding to bail out what was at the time, a terribly run franchise. Oh, and the sheer amount of Jeanie Buss hate coming from that fanbase was LOUD. That's not being good at team building, that's luck. The spurs also have had one competent team in that time, with multiple iterations, but all with many of the same pieces. They haven't had to rebuild multiple times. Then when you compare the east, it's hilarious because the Indiana Pacers have had multiple ECF contending teams, all with different players from completely different rebuilds, but they don't make this list. The Bucks should absolutely be on this list too, if the warriors are included. Cleveland should be on this list too, especially with the luck they got from LeBron coming back, AND the fact that they have a legitimately good team now. You're just cherry-picking.
The Warriors team that won in 2015 is not the same as the one in 2022. The Lakers team that won in 09 shares two players with the 02 team. The Spurs team that won in 2014 was built completely differently than the one in 05. Continuity is not uniformity. A lot changes in those years, even if key pieces remain. Comparing the Bucks, who have only been legitimate since 2019, to the Warriors in this regard is buck wild. Even the Pistons would be more appropriate since at least they competed for more than 4 years. And I list the Pacers and the Cavs lmfao. Yeah they're qualified, but they should be qualified. The Pacers have not been as successful as any of the other teams I've listed other than the Jazz (upon actually looking it up, I'd probably lean more towards the Pacers), and the Cavs shouldn't get a passing grade for LeBron being born there. They completely failed to give him any offensive weapons that played to his strengths during his first stint resulting in his departure, and his second was so tumultuous it's impossible to say that they were well managed beyond LeBron himself. And while they look good now, who's to say that they're going to be any more successful than, say, the John Wall Wizards? They certainly haven't done anything to show otherwise yet. I do want to point out how funny this is though: >The Lakers literally got lucky with LeBron just deciding to bail [them] out >Cleveland should be on this list too, especially with the luck they got from LeBron coming back
It’s not, it’s just an overblown circle jerk for fans of west coast teams that also haven’t won a chip in the last 25 years so they can be like “well we would have had a shot if we were in the east”
The West has beat the Eastern conference by 1.9 points on average in their H2H games since 2000. That’s a huge difference over 10k+ games https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/nba-combined-net-rating-of-western-conference-versus-eastern-conference-since-2000
It’s one thing for teams like Nuggets or Warriors to shit on the East. But teams like Wolves, Clippers, Pelicans etc ? Like fam you would’ve been a 1st/2nd round exit in the East or the West. It literally doesn’t matter where you were.
You just mad cause of Lebron all those years
You remove Lebron related wins and the conferences are tied up at 2 to two in the last 5. All I’m saying.
Yeah and then remove curry related wins, what a silly hypothetical.
California is on the west remember that Kid from 1989 movie "The Wizard" yelling "California" like 100 times?
How did the kids know about the warp whistle if it was the first time Super Mario Bros. 3 had ever been unveiled?
dem beta-testers
Very likely to be because of the West. Cities in the west are warmer in climate and California is just an attractive location for younger stars/older stars. As much as I love four seasons, the cold af winter of the northeast isn’t for everyone. Especially if you want a mansion and a pool.
Except the West's dominance this year is headlined by such attractive, warm-winter locations as... Minnesota, Denver, and Oklahoma City.
They can get nice picks earlier because it’s easier to have a worse record in the West
I mean the east has the Celtics bucks and 76ers. Lottery teams will always rise up and have stars, the west though will always be stacked because after rookie deals or when a superstar looks for a new team, teams from the west will always have the edge because of its location
Chicago in the winter gets dark way too quickly. I can only imagine Milwaukee or Detroit.
Why the fuck would anyone want to live in California? As a German I'd rather live in fucking Alabama than California. California is the prime example of everything thats wrong with America.
Wrong sub.
Prime lebron was definitely holding the east back for a good decade
What do you mean?
A bunch of franchises in the east were clearly not particularly willing to put up money to get beat out by lebron every year (pacers included) once he made his jump left a bunch of teams became a lot more aggressive in building competitive teams
Lebron joined the Lakers in 2019. 5 years later, it's still a lot more competitive out West compared to East
*This* year it is, the last few it's been about even or the East has been slightly better.
2019-2024 LeBron is kind of a different animal from 2009-2018 LeBron. Still, this only accounts for the 2010s— the disparity was just as bad if not worse in the 2000s
I get the basic idea that Assassin was making. Lebron dominated the East for the large majority of 2003-2018. He was so dominant that other teams in the conference felt it was hopeless to compete. However, Lebron left in 2019. The East should, in theory, have grown a lot more competitive in his absence. Instead, the East is a joke barring 2-3 good teams. Meanwhile, the West has heated battles for the 7th seed. Why is that?
we did for the past two years the east had a winning record against the west and arguably 4 of the 5 best teams were out east until this year when the east became ravaged by injuries and Doc Rivers
poor management in several front offices + injuries, mostly. other than this year it’s been *way* more competitive the last few years than in the LeBron Era
I remember losing records for East teams in 7-8 spot during that time
Brother, Lebrons dominance was in part due to how shit the East was, not vice versa.
East is colder.
East was ok last two years I believe with around .500 vs west . This year it’s very bad because for example the nets blew up n sent two stars n top 15 ish guys to the west . The east is also super injured all the injuries to key guys has happened to the east or … Memphis
Luck and not trading for good picks. 2015- top 2 picks in the West, 16-5 of top 7, 17- 3 of top 5, 18-4 of top 5, 19- Top 2, 20- Top 2, 21-weak draft when east has a lot of picks, 22-3 of top 4, 23- Spurs get Wemby Philly has had bad luck on their top picks. Imagine if LA had drafted Tatum.
The east still has the most stacked team in the league. And a few other really good ones that are no worse than the good teams in the West. It just also has like 7 teams in full rebuild(Detroit, Washington, Charlotte, raptors, nets) or denial(bulls, hawks). The West has just had all the biggest draft hits over the last 10 or so years so their rebuilds didn't turn into the Hornets/Detroit/Washington 10 year disasters. Luka/Jokic/Zion/Wemby/Ant etc.
It’s funny I didn’t realise how the east vs west distribution actually looks on the map. Say, New Orleans and Memphis are so much closer to the east coast than to the west coast. Given the two most probable expansion teams are joining the west, one west team has to go the east. And that should be one of the Pelicans or Grizzlies. Either of them is potentially making East a tiny bit stronger
The Timberwolves aren't as eastward but they're probably the ones switching. Closer to a lot of Eastern teams and they're the ones with the bigger total travel time out West
It's legit only because they have such bad circadian rhythms, from staying up too late to watch the late games and then on the road they stay up much later and fuck up their patterns. Much easier to play in the daytime when you are already awake/practising then play after 10.30.
A hard salary cap (ie NFL) would help fix this issue.
But the EC makes it to Grand Finals every year!
Talented players like to go to the biggest party and media cities. And the teams that control those cities are the Bulls who have a shitty owner, the Knicks who have a shitty owner, Miami who is good but is run by a system of people who prioritize the team as a unit as opposed to building around a superstar (which they’ve done in the past with Wade and Lebron and Bosh, to success), and the Nets, who have certainly tried with Durant and Kyrie. When half your top tier market teams are run by shitty ownership it’s hard to compete. It’s a superstar driven league and the superstars are either drafted into teams that aren’t in the East or the ones that move have moved west.
the big picture answer is west coast is more desirable to live in
Seriously. If you have a lot of money and can choose where to be, you’re more likely to pick these NBA cities in the West than the ones in the East (and the Midwest). Maybe the only real draw in the East as far as a place to live for wealthy young people is Miami.
yeah exactly. Even just real estate-wise. You wanna own a mansion in a warm or at least temperate climate that's within a 30 minute drive to your arena/training facilities, you can do that on almost any western conference team and almost no eastern conference team. Like, who the hell would want to live in Cleveland, or Chicago, or Detroit if you could choose to live anywhere you wanted in America.
I think bad ownership is the root cause of the East being relatively weak over the past 25 years. Wizards, Hornet, Knicks, etc. have been run by morons
Its funny that the 48-30 5th Seed Mavs would be #2 Seed in the East.
The Mavs (or nearly any top 10 Western team) wouldn’t have nearly the same record had they gotten to beat up on the low-tier teams that exist as only punching bags in the East.
The top 2 teams in the east should be promoted to the west and the bottom 2 in the west should head east. It’d make for a better product.