League either needs to have teams switch conferences or...

[southampton]

So lets say the west has the power now, people are arguing that the power changes over and in ten years we could see the east with the power, sooo?? who cares? if the east has 10 teams better then the top four in the west, then they would get ten playoff spots, easy, it also makes more sense for the lottery, atm houston and portland are going to the lottery, and there gonna get a higher draft pick then atlanta, and several other easy teams? because that makes sense? the current system is silly and pointless, it rewards mediocrity, it should be the top 16 teams, no matter what confrence is stronger

[FARMERMAN10]

^What if a team's regular season record isn't indicative of how *good* it is?
How do we know that a 40-42 team in the West is worse than a 42-40 team in the East?
There'd have to be some sort of ranking system to determine which records were of better quality.

I absolutely agree. We can even base it off of that wildly popular system they have set up in college football.

[G35]

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and how many of those players could be traded out of conference or sign elsewhere as a free agent? Durant might not want to stay with the Sonics after they move to Oklahoma City. Rudy Gay could leave the mess that is Memphis for more cash. If Amare at PF doesn't work, they could consider trading him like they had been for the past two seasons. Andrew Bynum was on the block and if the Bryant/Odom/Gasol experiment doesn't work perhaps Bynum would be moved to improve the PG or SG position and move Odom to PF and Gasol to C.
and so on.
There's young talent in the East, too.

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Okay while I agree the west has better management skills, how is getting high lottery picks an indication of that? With a few exceptions on that list most were the obvious pick, that's great luck not skill.

I was responding to the post that the West is going down when Kobe/AI/Duncan retire. The West has a ton of talent and better managed teams to replace those guys.

Bottom line look at it this way. The East had their chance to turn things around in 2003 with 4 of the top 5 picks being EC teams.

Cleveland got Lebron
Detroit got Darko
Miami got Wade
Toronto got Bosh

The championships have been split 2-2 but the West is still much stronger. The East had some talent traded from the West; Garnett, Ray Allen, Zack Randloph, Rashard Lewis, Jason Richardson.


But it's still heavily lopsided to the West and the gap is getting bigger honestly.

Detroit and Boston look to be the leaders for the next 2-3 years but who is really coming up? Orlando? Cleveland? Nah, not really.


Look at the West

Lakers look strong for a long time

Portland is gonna be strong for a long time

Hornets, Jazz, Golden State, Denver, Phx all look like contenders for a while.

That's not even counting what moves that Dallas, San Antonio, Houston could make.

Sacramento even looks good. Then lets good to the scrub teams in the West. Seattle, Minnesota both have bright futures.


Look at the East who knows how Chicago, Miami, New Jersey, Washington, Philly, New York are going to turn out.

It's not cyclical, no matter how you want to spin it. The West is just doing better. I mean how do you lose KG and get stronger as a conference........

[ChosenOne8]

the conferences are fine the way they were, the east just sucks.

[FukaX]

First make the first round be best out of 5 with the winner takes 3

So there are time for non playoff teams in west with above .500 record to challenge the eastern conference team. To take over an eastern teams spot and use its arena as homecourt the western team must beat eastern team by at least 10 pts.

The western team that takes over the eastern conference teams spot can only return to their home city after reaching to conference finals

i can easily see the warriors, Jazz, or blazers blowing out the nets 80% of the time.

[Joseph17]

If every team in the west was healthy for the entire year, there would only be 3 bad teams in the west. The league needs to do something about this.

[richboy]

I wrote this in a thread I started before.

Here is a quote many tend to use all the time.

How can you possibly compare the Eastern Conference to the West?

You have to take into account the strength of each respective conference and which teams so and so had to play against in their respective playoff series

I really don't see the point when people use this argument.

I mean seriously lets take for example the Lakers and Celtics in the 80's. I don't ever hear anyone complaining about how much easier it was for the Lakers to get to the finals than the Celtics.

Who did the Lakers ever have to worry about out West? Only team they lost to were the Rockets and both times they shouldn't have lost to them. I mean come on, they lost to the Rockets in 1981 when the Rockets were under .500. They lost to them again in 1986 when they should have won the series as they were right in the middle of their titles and they had won 11 more games than the Rockets that season as well. Every other year the Lakers had a cakewalk to the finals.

The Celtics on the other hand had multiple teams they had to deal with. Not only the Sixers who were an elite team, but they also had to deal with the Bucks and Pistons later on.

Point being, why does everyone try to downplay certain players and teams making it to the finals by saying how weak the conference is at the time, when in fact, I never here anyone downplay what the Lakers had in their respective conference in the 80's?

It doesn't take anything away from what either team has done. The finals is the finals, no matter what conference you come out of. You can't have it both ways. If posters are going to downplay the East now then you have to downplay how the easy the west was in the 80's for the Lakers and how much easier it was to make the finals.

The Lakers were one of the great teams in history. They were dominate and even if you think there conference was weak you knew they were better than just about anyone in the East except some years the Celtics.

Flip that to now and its not compariable. The Cavs went to the NBA finals and there questions if there even a playoff team in the West. We have seen the same with the Nets and 76ers. The Pistons are a good team but many wouldn't put them in the top 4 of the league. Would the Pistons have been to any finals if they played in the West. The 80s Lakers would have been in the finals regardless of what conference they played if they were not beat by the Celtics most of those years.

Someone said the Pistons had tough runs to the finals. In theory they should have but just remember that in the Pistons first run to the finals they beat the Pacers who had a injured O'neal and Tinsley. They beat a New Jersey with Kidd limping around. Not to mention the injuries the Lakers had in the finals. The next year they beat the Heat with Shaq and Wade injured. The only good teams that could have beaten them in those finals birth had there best players injured.