Time to Stop Bashing the Eastern Conference

[Manocad]

The East is a joke beyond Boston. Detroit is massively overrated. The Spurs, Hornets, and Lakers are all better than the Pistons. Hell, you could even debate that the Jazz or Rockets would be up there too.

You could put together a team of Western Conference D-Leaguers and they'd make the playoffs in the East.

This comes from a Dallas fan? Oh, the ironing...

The only competition the West looks good against is each other. The top teams in the East manhandled the top teams in the West this year. Ain't no championship coming out of the West anytime soon.

[CBS7]

Definitely don't agree with the East = JV comments. The best JV > the best varsity?

[magicfan4life05]

my man stein tell it like it is

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=3454734

Q: Wait a minute, Stein. Doesn't a third champion from the East in the past five seasons mean you have to quit it with your incessant East bashing?

A: Nope.

I said it all season, and I'm sticking by it: Boston's regular-season dominance and wire-to-wire run to the championship don't change the fact that two-thirds of its conference is mediocre. Or worse.

The fact remains that only three teams in the East this season (Boston, Detroit and Orlando) had a higher win total than ninth-place Golden State in the West. The Warriors missed the playoffs despite going 48-34, as each of the West's top eight teams won at least 50 games, exceeding the previous league record of seven 50-win teams from one conference in 2000-01. The East's four lowest seeds, meanwhile, won no more than 43 games, with Atlanta needing only a 37-45 record to halt the league's longest playoff drought at eight seasons.

Do the research and you'll find that the West's status as a stronger top-to-bottom conference has been an NBA reality for much of the past two decades. Yes: Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls won six championships in an eight-season span. Yes: Detroit and Miami won championships in 2004 and 2006, respectively. But the West has been deeper -- and thus more challenging to win -- for years. And it shall remain so unless a clutch of East teams makes progress.

What I will concede, after a lecture from Cassell, is that Cleveland was a tougher out than expected -- in spite of the lack of consistent support that continues to plague LeBron James -- because the Cavs play better defense than just about anyone in the West aside from San Antonio.

"You have been killin' us," Cassell said of the East as a whole. "But we're the No. 1 defensive team, Detroit is No. 2 and Cleveland is No. 3. So when people said we struggled against them teams, we're all great defensive ballclubs. You're not going to score a lot of points against the good Eastern Conference teams. You're not."

Adds Celtics guard Eddie House: "The media always beats us up, but if an East team wins two out of the last three years, it can't be that bad."

To repeat: My quarrel remains the ongoing top-to-bottom suckitude in the East that allows a 45-win team (Cleveland) to be seeded fourth and a 37-win team (Atlanta) to win a "race" for the eighth spot that kept four more bad teams (Indiana, New Jersey, Chicago and Charlotte) afloat into April.

The Celtics might actually benefit from a slightly harder regular-season push, since you could argue that Boston's lack of sharpness early in the playoffs was a product of not playing a meaningful game for weeks before the Atlanta series.

There's just no way, in short, that I'm going to say one, two or even three teams can make up for the shortcomings of an entire conference at a time when 48 wins can't snag even a No. 8 seed out West.

[RoyceDa59]

Im an eastern conference fan but how can anyone deny that the West is an overall better conference? I'm not sold on the Pistons or the Cavs and besides Boston - which was clearly the best team in the league this season - the next 4 or 5 best teams in the league are in the West (LAL, SAS, NOH, PHX, UTH). Then you have teams like Detroit, Cleveland, Orlando, but Denver, Golden State and Houston are equally as good. However, for the first time in a long time, with the rising talent in the East and the consensus 1 and 2 going to Chicago and Miami, the East is actually on the brink of turning the tides. Atlanta, Philly, Orlando, Toronto, Miami, Chicago and Charlotte are all going to be much improved next season. The East has always been top heavy, but the West has always been deeper. The depth out East is becoming much stronger.

But for now, lets not get ahead of ourselves, the West is still better than the East.

[GameTime_3]

Yes the West has better teams but the east is still strong. When it comes down to the playoffs your going to face the top teams and if your a champion, you will beat who ever they put in front of you. The whole west vs East thing is stupid. You can only send 1 from each conference and in the end, There will be 2 great teams. Heat vs Dallas, Bos vs LA, Det vs LA, Clev vs San. Almost every year there is a differnt East team and west team. When talking about east vs west, It comes down to who is the best.

[RapsBulls4evr]

this is like saying that india is wealthier than france because there are 4 indians richer than the wealthiest Frenchman.

Lol... true.

[Farm Raid]

Can someone please tell me why it matters?

Also, Stein's not "telling it like it is". Just look to the 97 season to find that out.

[_BBIB_]

Boston got KG and Ray Allen from the West. The best team in the league is from the East. I agree but the rest of the conference.. West blows East away. Atlanta made it to the playoffs with a losing record...

I guarantee you the Hawks would not have gotten swept by the Lakers.

Regular season win total doesn't tell the whole story

[_BBIB_]

Im an eastern conference fan but how can anyone deny that the West is an overall better conference? I'm not sold on the Pistons or the Cavs and besides Boston - which was clearly the best team in the league this season - the next 4 or 5 best teams in the league are in the West (LAL, SAS, NOH, PHX, UTH). Then you have teams like Detroit, Cleveland, Orlando, but Denver, Golden State and Houston are equally as good. However, for the first time in a long time, with the rising talent in the East and the consensus 1 and 2 going to Chicago and Miami, the East is actually on the brink of turning the tides. Atlanta, Philly, Orlando, Toronto, Miami, Chicago and Charlotte are all going to be much improved next season. The East has always been top heavy, but the West has always been deeper. The depth out East is becoming much stronger.

But for now, lets not get ahead of ourselves, the West is still better than the East.

Of course it's a better overall conference. I made this thread with regards to the ridiculous comments like the East is a JV league.

If the East sucked as much as people said it did, Boston would have been swept by LA. How could a team like the Hawks who didn't have a record above .500, take Boston to 7 games if the East was as bad as people are suggesting.

The truth is that overall record is not indicative of talent. The east have a very promising future especially with the young teams that you mentioned that should be blossoming when the dominance of Detroit/Boston is over.

[GuyverX]

People need to stop making generalizations. Boston is not the entire eastern conference. Now you have people saying the Lakers would or wouldn't sweep a series against the Hawks. The truth is, no nobody will ever find out unless we see Lakers/Hawks NBA finals. We can all agree that statistically, (except those who are totally out of touch) that the west is stronger than the east. Boston is the best team in the NBA but they don't represent every team in the east. It's really that simple.

[Gordon Bombay]

the overall strength of the east is nowhere near the overall strength of the west. with that said, however, the top teams in the east (bos, det, cle) are more geared to win in the playoffs with their defensive mindsets than compared to the teams on the western side, where only san antonio has a concentrated defensive philosophy

[Manocad]

There is nothing about the West that indicates it is better than the East as a conference other than regular season win totals.

I love the logic stated zbove that while the EC is geared more toward playoff wins, they are a weaker conference. Did I miss the part where the NBA awarded a championship trophy for highest regular season win total?

Strength = win in the playoffs. You can't do it, you ain't ****.

[Rooster]

I love the logic stated zbove that while the EC is geared more toward playoff wins, they are a weaker conference. Did I miss the part where the NBA awarded a championship trophy for highest regular season win total?

An Eastern team would still win that.

The West has more sad-sack teams, which I think is an important factor. Memphis, Seattle, Minnesota and the Clippers were all putrid this season, whereas the East only had Miami and New York. (Milwaukee's kinda borderline, but at least Redd's capable of burning teams.) If a Western team takes care of business (16-0 against the really bad teams in its conference, or 14-0, 14-2, or whatever), a 50-win season is barely above .500 against the rest of the league.

[NoahISmyNinja]

This is a stupid thread. Its really stupid because everyone knew the Celtics could play with anyone in the West. They did it all season long. Its not like a year ago where the Cavs would have struggled to beat anyone that made the playoffs in the West.

What really makes this thread stupid is 2 of the 3 best Celtic players were playing in the West last year. Matter of fact look at the last 3 teams to win a title from the East.

Detroit wins title after bringing in Portland Rasheed Wallace
Miami wins title after bringing in Lakers Shaquille O'neal
Boston wins title after bringing in Ray Allen/Kevin Garnett

What do we learn? No other teams have a shot to win a title unless they bring in a good player from the West.

The reality is and remains that the only teams in the West that get respect are the Pistons and Celtics. The Cavs get a little respect because they definitely can play playoff basketball. Orlando has gotten zero respect and probably don't deserve. The Magic were 1-8 AT HOME against the top 9 team in the West. The reality is everyone knew and still knows that only 2 teams in the East are capable of winning a championship.

The West right now has 7 or more teams that have a honest and realistic shot at challenging the Lakers for the WCF next year. Unless a major trade happens Boston walks back to the finals. Thats the difference between the West and East.

So what they were traded from Western Conference teams the year before.
all of those players you named (except Ray Allen) were BORN on the East Coast if we're being real techincal about it.

Kobe (east coast)
Lebron (cleveland)
Wade(chicago)
Duncan(virgin islands which is more east than the east coast)
Melo(east coast)
Iverson(east coast)
Paul(east coast)
Deron Willams(WV)

[NoahISmyNinja]

Of course the Final MVP and arguably the runner up were both Born in CA. so there you have it.