The East is WIDE OPEN next season

[JB7]

This might be the deepest I’ve seen the east in all my years watching. 11 teams all look pretty good.

The word you're looking for is parity, not deepness. They all lack the top end talent needed to be serious title contenders. All the real superstars are out West now. It may be worse than it was in the 2000s. Nobody out West is scared of the Knicks, Cavs or Pistons. There's a world of difference between the East's top stars in Mitchell, Brunson and Cunningham and the West's top stars in Shai, Jokic, Doncic, Wemby, not to mention veterans like LeBron, Curry and KD as well.

The only real superstar in the East is Giannis, and his supporting cast is barely playoff worthy.

lol yeah it's not deep, the West is deep. Very likely whoever makes it out of the East gets curb stomped in the finals.

I’m more shocked at how shallow the West has gotten, than how bad the East is this season.

The west was like 11 deep last year, and this season it is only 7 deep.

With all the injuries in the East before the season even started, it looked wide open in the East.

Who knows, maybe the Raps could capture 1st in the East

[PushDaRock]

The word you're looking for is parity, not deepness. They all lack the top end talent needed to be serious title contenders. All the real superstars are out West now. It may be worse than it was in the 2000s. Nobody out West is scared of the Knicks, Cavs or Pistons. There's a world of difference between the East's top stars in Mitchell, Brunson and Cunningham and the West's top stars in Shai, Jokic, Doncic, Wemby, not to mention veterans like LeBron, Curry and KD as well.

The only real superstar in the East is Giannis, and his supporting cast is barely playoff worthy.

lol yeah it's not deep, the West is deep. Very likely whoever makes it out of the East gets curb stomped in the finals.

I’m more shocked at how shallow the West has gotten, than how bad the East is this season.

The west was like 11 deep last year, and this season it is only 7 deep.

With all the injuries in the East before the season even started, it looked wide open in the East.

Who knows, maybe the Raps could capture 1st in the East

It's just been a weird season so far. You don't ever see 9 teams on pace to win under 24 games.

[JB7]

lol yeah it's not deep, the West is deep. Very likely whoever makes it out of the East gets curb stomped in the finals.

I’m more shocked at how shallow the West has gotten, than how bad the East is this season.

The west was like 11 deep last year, and this season it is only 7 deep.

With all the injuries in the East before the season even started, it looked wide open in the East.

Who knows, maybe the Raps could capture 1st in the East

It's just been a weird season so far. You don't ever see 9 teams on pace to win under 24 games.

True, which shows that it is not just tanking teams, when it is that many.

[Tripod]

This might be the deepest I’ve seen the east in all my years watching. 11 teams all look pretty good.

The word you're looking for is parity, not deepness. They all lack the top end talent needed to be serious title contenders. All the real superstars are out West now. It may be worse than it was in the 2000s. Nobody out West is scared of the Knicks, Cavs or Pistons. There's a world of difference between the East's top stars in Mitchell, Brunson and Cunningham and the West's top stars in Shai, Jokic, Doncic, Wemby, not to mention veterans like LeBron, Curry and KD as well.

The only real superstar in the East is Giannis, and his supporting cast is barely playoff worthy.

lol yeah it's not deep, the West is deep. Very likely whoever makes it out of the East gets curb stomped in the finals.

Just like Indy last year?

[PushDaRock]

The word you're looking for is parity, not deepness. They all lack the top end talent needed to be serious title contenders. All the real superstars are out West now. It may be worse than it was in the 2000s. Nobody out West is scared of the Knicks, Cavs or Pistons. There's a world of difference between the East's top stars in Mitchell, Brunson and Cunningham and the West's top stars in Shai, Jokic, Doncic, Wemby, not to mention veterans like LeBron, Curry and KD as well.

The only real superstar in the East is Giannis, and his supporting cast is barely playoff worthy.

lol yeah it's not deep, the West is deep. Very likely whoever makes it out of the East gets curb stomped in the finals.

Just like Indy last year?

yes

[Clutch0z24]

The Eastern Conference is the worst i have ever seen it....I don't remember a time where there are no teams that even have a chance to compete against the Western Conference team that makes it out to finals. Like it really won't even be fun to watch because of how much of a mismatch it will be....Thunder/Nuggets/Rockets/Lakers/Spurs would all dog walk any team that makes it out of the East....

Giannis needs to be traded to the Knicks or something to make it at least a fair matchup.

[tsherkin]

Just wanna say... 35% so far this year

I still think ORL is so freaking overrated.

I mean, we know who they are. They're strong defensively and they don't score well. Banchero has looked marginally better on lower volume. Bane needs to hit his 3s. Wagner's 3 is finally falling, although he's shot 50%+ from 3 in 3 of the last 4 games, so we'll see what happens over the next 10 games, you know? I'll be watching and waiting with him all year, because he's been competent and ass in equal measure to this point in his career from 3. But when he has the 3 falling, he's pretty compelling.

But yeah, until and unless Banchero figures out how to be better, they're pretty much locked in where they are now.

[tsherkin]

The Eastern Conference is the worst i have ever seen it....I don't remember a time where there are no teams that even have a chance to compete against the Western Conference team that makes it out to finals.

The early 2000s comes to mind. No one had a chance for the first three years of the decade. The Nets didn't really have a chance against the Spurs, but even if you wipe that, yeah, the first three years of the decade come to mind. The East sucked a GREAT deal of ass at the time.

[ATLTimekeeper]

The Eastern Conference is the worst i have ever seen it....I don't remember a time where there are no teams that even have a chance to compete against the Western Conference team that makes it out to finals.

The early 2000s comes to mind. No one had a chance for the first three years of the decade. The Nets didn't really have a chance against the Spurs, but even if you wipe that, yeah, the first three years of the decade come to mind. The East sucked a GREAT deal of ass at the time.

You don't have to go back that far. Miami made the Finals twice in the last 6 seasons. And then when KD joined the Warriors the Cavs were no match.

But, I mean OKC was a much stronger regular season team than Indiana and came within a hair of losing to them.

[canz55]

I don't know why the Pistons get all this disrespect. They're the best defensive team in the NBA and would finish top 4 in the west easily.

Easily?

Let's see, we have OKC, Denver, Houston, Lakers, San Antonio, Minnesota, Golden State. You think they easily finish in front of half those teams?

In a 7 game series I'm only confident OKC wins a series against the Pistons personally.

[canz55]

The Eastern Conference is the worst i have ever seen it....I don't remember a time where there are no teams that even have a chance to compete against the Western Conference team that makes it out to finals. Like it really won't even be fun to watch because of how much of a mismatch it will be....Thunder/Nuggets/Rockets/Lakers/Spurs would all dog walk any team that makes it out of the East....

Giannis needs to be traded to the Knicks or something to make it at least a fair matchup.

Did the Indy/OKC series go to seven games or not?

[PushDaRock]

I don't know why the Pistons get all this disrespect. They're the best defensive team in the NBA and would finish top 4 in the west easily.

Easily?

Let's see, we have OKC, Denver, Houston, Lakers, San Antonio, Minnesota, Golden State. You think they easily finish in front of half those teams?

In a 7 game series I'm only confident OKC wins a series against the Pistons personally.

That's pretty crazy you have that much confidence in Cade Cunningham as a #1 option, Jalen Duren as a #2 and Harris/Robinson/Ivey/Thompson as their secondary scorers.

[tsherkin]

You don't have to go back that far. Miami made the Finals twice in the last 6 seasons. And then when KD joined the Warriors the Cavs were no match.

That's fair. I thought about them, but that wasn't a perennial thing and I thought Miami had a shot in 2023, they just stuttered badly (Butler in particular), while Denver had Good Murray. So that's why I avoided them, though obviously they looked pretty outmatched in the bubble series against Lebron's Lakers as well. That was at least a 6-game series, though it was never really in doubt and LA was up 3-1 before dropping the ball in game 5.

But yes, the East has often struggled to field legit contenders without Lebron this past quarter century, heh.

[ATLTimekeeper]

You don't have to go back that far. Miami made the Finals twice in the last 6 seasons. And then when KD joined the Warriors the Cavs were no match.

That's fair. I thought about them, but that wasn't a perennial thing and I thought Miami had a shot in 2023, they just stuttered badly (Butler in particular), while Denver had Good Murray. So that's why I avoided them, though obviously they looked pretty outmatched in the bubble series against Lebron's Lakers as well. That was at least a 6-game series, though it was never really in doubt and LA was up 3-1 before dropping the ball in game 5.

But yes, the East has often struggled to field legit contenders without Lebron this past quarter century, heh.

In 2023 they won 44 games and had a negative net rating. I actually don't know if that's been done in history. It was really a miracle run that had good optics because they won the conference the year before.

[WaltFrazier]

The word you're looking for is parity, not deepness. They all lack the top end talent needed to be serious title contenders. All the real superstars are out West now. It may be worse than it was in the 2000s. Nobody out West is scared of the Knicks, Cavs or Pistons. There's a world of difference between the East's top stars in Mitchell, Brunson and Cunningham and the West's top stars in Shai, Jokic, Doncic, Wemby, not to mention veterans like LeBron, Curry and KD as well.

The only real superstar in the East is Giannis, and his supporting cast is barely playoff worthy.

lol yeah it's not deep, the West is deep. Very likely whoever makes it out of the East gets curb stomped in the finals.

I’m more shocked at how shallow the West has gotten, than how bad the East is this season.

The west was like 11 deep last year, and this season it is only 7 deep.

With all the injuries in the East before the season even started, it looked wide open in the East.

Who knows, maybe the Raps could capture 1st in the East

Last year it was thought the 4th seed Pacers would get smashed by OKC and it went 7 with Hali going down early in the game.

[WaltFrazier]

This might be the deepest I’ve seen the east in all my years watching. 11 teams all look pretty good.

The word you're looking for is parity, not deepness. They all lack the top end talent needed to be serious title contenders. All the real superstars are out West now. It may be worse than it was in the 2000s. Nobody out West is scared of the Knicks, Cavs or Pistons. There's a world of difference between the East's top stars in Mitchell, Brunson and Cunningham and the West's top stars in Shai, Jokic, Doncic, Wemby, not to mention veterans like LeBron, Curry and KD as well.

The only real superstar in the East is Giannis, and his supporting cast is barely playoff worthy.

And the word you want is depth, not deepness.

[tsherkin]

In 2023 they won 44 games and had a negative net rating. I actually don't know if that's been done in history. It was really a miracle run that had good optics because they won the conference the year before.

I hear you, but Butler also missed like 18 games in the RS, Lowry missed like 27 games, etc, etc. Very unhealthy in the RS, much healthier in the playoffs, so it's a little tougher to evaluate them, you know? They also had Love for nearly the same number of games in the RS as in the PS (20). So they weren't exactly the same team, if we're to judge them off their RS record.

[CPT]

It really wasn’t that long ago that Boston was expected to go on a multi-title run.

Now it looks like OKC might do that, but they didn’t exactly cruise through the playoffs last year.

Things change quickly in this era.

[Tripod]

In the end, the East has won 3 of the last 6 Championships and 6 of last 14. So almost an even split.

Injuries happen every year. Get in the convo and who knows what can happen.

[ishoy123]

The discourse on the West has reached a hysterical level. Outside of OKC and Denver, other good western teams (Houston, Spurs, Lakers, Minnesota) are not noticeably better than top East teams (Cavs, Pistons, Knicks)