RealGM

This came up in the Paul George vs Paul Pierce thread.

Essentially Pierce in his prime played in a weaker Eastern conference with a worst supporting cast, while George played in a stronger eastern/western conference but had a stronger supporting cast.

Or another comparison would be Kidd playing through a weaker Eastern conference with a worse supporting cast versus Nash playing through a stronger conference with a better supporting cast.

Do you think having to go through a weaker conference is a bigger factor for a players success than having a better supporting cast?

I kept flip flopping back and forth, between what I considered more significant.

I take the stronger supporting cast and this is not close...You have more chance to win the title with that even if your conference is stronger

With interconference play, the statistical difference is probably significantly more dependent on the cast around you. With having to play the finals, being from the weaker conference will get you more opportunities but you still have to beat the other guys so I'd still lean toward players around you.

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Thoughts ...

Significant factor to what?

(Depending on the question [see above]) there probably isn't a generic absolute answer. Which will affect whatever more on average probably affects a player/team more.

So which has the greater range ... well are we talking conference overall or conference playoff route. And if the latter, how locked in are you getting a particular (good?) seed (so they start intermingling) ...

But typically for something like title odds ... generally cast. If you throw whatever player onto whatever team the strength of schedule difference might likely be within +1 to -1. But the strength of team might be +10 to -10. So there's a bigger range on the "teammates" side ... playoffs route could vary more but that's less fixed and more circumstantial. And if you are a good team you're likely to be able to keep that core together for most of NBA history. Whereas certainly playoff side, who you happen to come up against might change.

For dividing contenders from non-contenders supporting cast matters much more. For teams with championship level talent, playoff draw matters more.

The bulk of LeBron's career has proven that a weaker conference matters as much, if not more, than a supporting cast. Especially if his teammates are always the massive "bums" his fanboys are always claiming them to be.