Last 26 years West nearly doubles East in championships

[ImmortalD24]

Since MJ's Bulls.. 1999 to 2025

West (18): 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2020, 2022, 2023, 2025

East (9) : 2004, 2006, 2008, 2012, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, 2024


West has more ambitious newer owners, better GMs/ Front Offices, scouting and some luck in drafts I expect this trend to continue for some time especially if Giannis heads West. When will the league address this disparity in conferences?

Edit:
It gets even worse head to head during the regular season:

West has won 55.1% of its games against the East this year https://www.basketball-reference.com/friv/east_vs_west.html

Since 1999-00 to now West has won 6,298 games in 10,844 head to head matches in the regular season.. that's over 58% of games.



At one point.. 21 out of 22 seasons West has won h2h in that span. Could've been 24 out of 26 if the West didn't fumble in the 2021-22 season by a mere 3 games. Whole careers came and left only seeing Eastern Conference winning once head to head. Talk about dominance. Yikes.

[muzzhawk]

Most of the West’s championships have basically been won by 3 teams though


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[Raps in 4]

6 of those titles were the result of guys signing with the Lakers or Warriors to make movies or ring chase.

Shaq signed with the Lakers.
Kobe demanded that the Lakers draft him.
KD signed with the Warriors.
LeBron signed with the Lakers.
AD demanded a trade to the Lakers.

That isn't shrewd management. It's having a market advantage over other cities.

[Wingy]

Now the top 2 picks also head west.
Embiid and PG burnt toast. Tatum with the Achilles.

The LEast gonna continue its long tradition. Should bump one of the threads touting the LEast from earlier in the year.

[jkvonny]

However, the East was the stronger conference back in the '80s and '90s.

Its Cyclical.

OP makes a great point tho.

Minus the ring chasers coalition (Lakers/GSW) you still had a bunch of good ones come through in the West in the past 2 decades (Mavs, Spurs, Nuggets, soon to be Thunder etc).

[Lenneth]

Since 1999 to 2025

West vs East: 55.8% vs 44.2%
West won against East 23 out of 26 seasons.

[Ssj16]

Since MJ's Bulls.. 1999 to 2024

West (17): 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2020, 2022, 2023

East (9) : 2004, 2006, 2008, 2012, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, 2024


West has more ambitious newer owners, better GMs/ Front Offices, scouting and some luck in drafts I expect this trend to continue for some time especially if Giannis heads West. When will the league address this disparity in conferences?

Not to mention the West once again won the H2H matchup and the western playoffs was stacked with quality teams practically 1 through 8 when you account for the playin whereas the east had around 6 quality teams altogether (which is an improvement).

The east definitely improved this year but there is just more talent in the west if you look at up and comers like Wemby and potentially Flagg.

[jkvonny]

6 of those titles were the result of guys signing with the Lakers or Warriors to make movies or ring chase.

Shaq signed with the Lakers.
Kobe demanded that the Lakers draft him.
KD signed with the Warriors.
LeBron signed with the Lakers.
AD demanded a trade to the Lakers.

That isn't shrewd management. It's having a market advantage over other cities.

Interesting post and true.

But TBF, prior to KD. GSW was terrible for decades. The Splash Bros and Kerr helped transform that. Mark Jackson too fwiw

[FrobeBryant]

6 of those titles were the result of guys signing with the Lakers or Warriors to make movies or ring chase.

Shaq signed with the Lakers.
Kobe demanded that the Lakers draft him.
KD signed with the Warriors.
LeBron signed with the Lakers.
AD demanded a trade to the Lakers.

That isn't shrewd management. It's having a market advantage over other cities.

What about New York, don’t they have a market advantage?

[Raps in 4]

6 of those titles were the result of guys signing with the Lakers or Warriors to make movies or ring chase.

Shaq signed with the Lakers.
Kobe demanded that the Lakers draft him.
KD signed with the Warriors.
LeBron signed with the Lakers.
AD demanded a trade to the Lakers.

That isn't shrewd management. It's having a market advantage over other cities.

What about New York, don’t they have a market advantage?

New York is cold. There is a reason why every player would sacrifice their own mother to live in LA, especially when the team is trash/mediocre, as was the case when Shaq and LeBron signed with them. There was no basketball reason for them to go there. It was purely for the weather and endorsements, and the knowledge that others would follow for the same reasons.

[jkvonny]

6 of those titles were the result of guys signing with the Lakers or Warriors to make movies or ring chase.

Shaq signed with the Lakers.
Kobe demanded that the Lakers draft him.
KD signed with the Warriors.
LeBron signed with the Lakers.
AD demanded a trade to the Lakers.

That isn't shrewd management. It's having a market advantage over other cities.

What about New York, don’t they have a market advantage?

Yes.
But the FO, management went through a terrible streak for many years.
Similar to the LA Clippers before Ballmer took over.

[JDR720]

6 of those titles were the result of guys signing with the Lakers or Warriors to make movies or ring chase.

Shaq signed with the Lakers.
Kobe demanded that the Lakers draft him.
KD signed with the Warriors.
LeBron signed with the Lakers.
AD demanded a trade to the Lakers.

That isn't shrewd management. It's having a market advantage over other cities.

What about New York, don’t they have a market advantage?

Warm weather. Same reason why players don't sign/demand trades to Chicago.

It's always Lakers, Warriors, more recently Clippers.

The only warm weather destination city in the East is Miami, who happen to have most of those Eastern titles.

[NyKnicks1714]

6 of those titles were the result of guys signing with the Lakers or Warriors to make movies or ring chase.

Shaq signed with the Lakers.
Kobe demanded that the Lakers draft him.
KD signed with the Warriors.
LeBron signed with the Lakers.
AD demanded a trade to the Lakers.

That isn't shrewd management. It's having a market advantage over other cities.

What about New York, don’t they have a market advantage?

They do. Melo effectively forced his way to the Knicks. Kyrie and KD signed with Brooklyn. What New York doesn't have though is the warm weather advantage. It's why LA and Miami will always be the most desirable FA destinations, at least until the NBA expands to Vegas.

[NZB2323]

6 of those titles were the result of guys signing with the Lakers or Warriors to make movies or ring chase.

Shaq signed with the Lakers.
Kobe demanded that the Lakers draft him.
KD signed with the Warriors.
LeBron signed with the Lakers.
AD demanded a trade to the Lakers.

That isn't shrewd management. It's having a market advantage over other cities.

Okay but…

-The East won 2 championships off of the Heatles

-The Lakers brand is that they take care of players. They gave Kobe the max after he was past his prime and are building him 5 statues. They signed LeBron’s son and gave him a guaranteed deal as a 2nd round pick. The Bulls didn’t want to run it back with the 98 Squad. Orlando said Shaq wasn’t worth what Los Angeles paid him. Philly told Harden to take a discount to get a big contract and then rebuffed their deal. Oakley was thrown out of a Knicks game. Miami wasn’t able to give Butler the deal he wanted.

-Melo, Amare, Kevin Durant, James Harden, and Kyrie all went to NYC.

[Statlanta]

I'm a time traveler, there's no nearly. OKC has won the 2025 NBA championship

[floppymoose]

Minus the ring chasers coalition (Lakers/GSW) you still had a bunch of good ones come through in the West in the past 2 decades (Mavs, Spurs, Nuggets, soon to be Thunder etc).

Two of GSWs championships were with all home grown stars. I can understand separating out the 2 KD ships, but not the others.

[therealbig3]

Meh, kind of an arbitrary cutoff though. Before that, the Celtics and Bulls were winning most of the titles, and the East had the advantage. You had the Lakers winning as well, but so were the Knicks and Sixers.

In the last 10 years, it’s 6-4 West, which isn’t much of a difference at all, and 4 of those were with one team (Warriors). The other 2 were the Lakers and the Nuggets. For the East, the Cavs, Raptors, Bucks, and Celtics all won 1.

OKC likely winning it this year, but the narrative about the West is just so tired. Yeah the West is the stronger conference, been that way for a little while. I think there have been a couple years here and there when the East was actually stronger, maybe a couple other years when they were about the same, and honestly, the best in the East have been just as good as the best in the West, so outside of a tougher 1st round matchup in the West, the playoff competition has been about the same.

[ORLMagicGirl15]

Yes, when you make the cutoff at 26 years it seems the West has really dominated in recent years. Although in NBA history it is 41 East to 36 West, but that was a long time ago and it doesn’t fit the narratives.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NBA_champions

[ImmortalD24]

Yes, when you make the cutoff at 26 years it seems the West has really dominated in recent years. Although in NBA history it is 41 East to 36 West, but that was a long time ago and it doesn’t fit the narratives.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NBA_champions

Eh..

As of 2024, the Eastern champions have a 41–36 advantage in NBA titles over the Western champions, with their most recent being the Boston Celtics who have won 18 titles, the most of any team in the league.[15] The 1949–50 Minneapolis Lakers, who won the NBA Finals, are not counted in the Eastern versus Western champions record above as they played in the Central Division

If you count those 1949-50 Minneapolis Lakers it's 41-37.. we really don't need to go way back during the infancy of the league.. it serves no purpose. By 1965 Celtics already had 8 titles yet the entire league (east and west combined) had 9 teams.

[ball_takes23]

Meh, kind of an arbitrary cutoff though. Before that, the Celtics and Bulls were winning most of the titles, and the East had the advantage. You had the Lakers winning as well, but so were the Knicks and Sixers.

In the last 10 years, it’s 6-4 West, which isn’t much of a difference at all, and 4 of those were with one team (Warriors). The other 2 were the Lakers and the Nuggets. For the East, the Cavs, Raptors, Bucks, and Celtics all won 1.

OKC likely winning it this year, but the narrative about the West is just so tired. Yeah the West is the stronger conference, been that way for a little while. I think there have been a couple years here and there when the East was actually stronger, maybe a couple other years when they were about the same, and honestly, the best in the East have been just as good as the best in the West, so outside of a tougher 1st round matchup in the West, the playoff competition has been about the same.

The east had 3/5 first team all NBA and 8/15 of the all nba players this season. The narrative was much more true in the 2010s when the east often only had 1/5 first team and 3-5/15 all nba than it is now. There’s even an argument to be made the east was the stronger conference this year, 2/3 top regular season teams and neither one even made it out of the second round in their conference.