The NBA Power Structure: Is The East Finally Better Than The West

Hell No.

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Oh, you east coast Chicago Bull loving, Boston Celtic cheering, Indian Pacer people need to relax a bit and look at the bigger picture.  Yes, you gain extra points for the fact that the back to back champion has come from the east.  I even give you the fact that the team they beat to play for a title (the Pacers) is seen as the best team in the league right now.

If few argue that you have the undisputed #1 and #2 teams in the league it is hard to argue with the east coast bias in this matter.  What I know is that I have seen teams with top two sprinters at a track event lose the team scoring because the effect of the masses.

The west has the masses.  My Denver Nuggets are on the outside looking in at #9 because of a 4 game slide.  Absent that slide and they are a top 5 team in the west.  Move them to the east with their 14-13 record and the Nuggets become a #3 team.  In fact, only two teams in the West do not have a record to be in the playoff picture in the eastern conference.  The gap between the have's and the have not's in the western conference has closed rapidly so that Utah, the so called worst team in the West, is still capable of beating any team in the league on any given night.

Now the same could be said of  Milwaukee in the east, but not with the same conviction.  If you are looking for a couple of gimme games in today's NBA, you had better work on the dregs of the east.  Disregarding the bottom dwellers, there is an even bigger point to be made about the contenders.  In the east we know for certain that one of two teams will represent the east for the chance to win it all.  In the west, it is a 6 team tango in which any one of the top 6 (or more) could represent the west in the end.

Right now western conference teams are just beating up on each other along the way to bringing a title back out west, because without the title, this debate rages on.