Only 3 teams in the Eastern Conference have winning records...

its usually like that i thought

 

I was keeping track in the "West is stacked" thread, but I might as well put it here for it fits better.

Tracking the suckitude of the LEast

• This Year, going into the Thanksgiving break, the West currently holds a 43 wins to 17 losses vs the East.
  That's a .717 winning percentage!!
• 05/06: West 252 - East 198 for a .560 winning % for the West
• 04/05: West 256 - East 194 for a .569 winning % for the West
• League Expansion and Re-Alignment (Charlotte and New Orleans)
• 03/04: West 266 - East 154 for a .633 winning % for the West
• 02/03: West 250 - East 170 for a .595 winning % for the West

The East has sucked for a very, very, very long time. It's totally unfair. Western Conference GM's have been outmaneuvering their Eastern counterparts for a decade. It makes for a totally uneven playing field. When Detroit and Miami won the finals, I gave them their due, but I still see it as messed up because good teams in the East don't have to really battle until the Conference Finals. Every game in the West is a battle, and it's been this way for the better part of a decade. Thank God LeBron James and Dwayne Wade were drafted to Eastern Conference Teams. Thank God Orlando is looking good now with Jameer and Dwight. Seriously, if it wasn't for the recent great youth infusion, the East might as well have packed it up and folded like the CBA or something, or it should have become the NBDL.

I just hate it. It's just so terrible that 6 crap teams from the East make the playoffs every year, and 2 quality teams get a free ride for 2 playoff rounds. Remember that weak ass back to back New Jersey Nets team in the finals? Remember that terrible Philly team?

It all freakin started with the Chris Webber trade in my opinion. I consider myself sort of an NBA modern historian. Everyone at the time thought the Wizards were geniuses for getting Mitch Richmond for CWebb. So it was a series of East West trades (CWebb, Pippen, Rasheed Wallace, Elton Brand, Kobe, TMac), bad east drafting/good west drafting (Dirk, Tim Duncan, KG, Gasol, Amare, Parker, Yao, Marion vs Tractor, JayWilliams, Bender, Weiss, Keith Van Horn, Kwame, Curry), free agency (Shaq, mainly Shaq).

It was all timing. Good players drafted in the West played their and then went East past their primes (Shaq, Payton, Webber, Pippen, Derek Anderson etc), and good players drafted East didn't bloom until they came West (BDavis, JTerry).

Now there are exceptions who have gone from the West to the East like Jermaine O'neal and Gilbert Arenas. And some Eastern draftees are hitting the big time now like Rip Hamilton.

So it wasn't just drafting, for many West teams found bombs too (Kandiman), and East teams found diamonds (Mike Redd), but overall, Western GMs were just kicking ass over the last decade. The Colangelo's took Phoenix from the cellar to perennial winners. While teams like the Knicks have all the money in the world, but had idiots like Layden, Dolan, and Isaih ruining their franchise. Add to that putting and expansion team East (Charlotte), and taking a playoff team from the East and placing it West (New Orleans). The Maloofs rebuilt Sactown, and Cuban turned around Dallas. All the meantime mediocrity was the rule of thumb in the East.

And so we're here as it is today. Hopefully, guys like Chris Bosh, Dwayne, LeBron, Dwight, and so can stay East and lay a foundation for a better conference....because it's just really unfair. It's so freakin unfair that most Eastern Conference teams can be soooo freakin incompetent and still have playoff hopes year in and year out. Not taking away from Detroit or Miami, but the League, in the name of justice and competitive balance, should have made a balanced schedule for teams starting back in 1999 after the strike and have a 1-16 seed playoffs.

They should do that for baseball too and change the damn DH rules. If the NL starts a streak of World Series wins, then the AL owners might push for a new system, considering they do profit sharing and all.

But back to basketball, it's just personal pet peeve, and a freakin travesty as to how terrible the East has been run. It's just a joke of a conference nowadays.

 

the balance of power shifted from east to west ever the dynasty of the bulls was over. the draft of kg, drik, duncan, kobe etc...

 

And just looking back through the years the wins/losses are just so messed up. The teams that have had "winning" records in the East mainly did so because they had winning records when they played their easter rivals and .500 or worse records when they played the west. The Rockets should have made the playoffs in Dream's last year here. I'm bitter at the system for that.

The system is just so messed up. If this was one main 1-16 playoff seeding every year, and teams played the same number of games against each other without regards to conference, Western teams would have about 13 playoff teams every year and Easter teams would have 3. Miami would have been like a 6th seed (only 56% winning vs the West last year) and wouldn't have home court in the 2nd round against someone like Phoenix, and then take on Dallas in the Semis, and then San Antonio's bracket winner in the finals. Every year would have been different in my opinion, if there was a 1-16 system. So again, not saying Miami and Detroit aren't worthy champs, but the system was so much to their advantage because the Eastern Conference has just been crap.

 

It's like what Jim Morrison once said, "The west is the best, the west is the best. Get here and we'll do the rest."

 

Only two teams from the west have losing records with the east. Only 2?

I think it's time that the NBA finals just have to two best teams, not the best team from each conference.....

 

I was even shocked when I post the records of the team Rox have beaten so far:

New York 4 - 9 (Rox played twice)
Milwaukee 4 - 8
Chicago 3 - 8
Miami 4 - 7
Washington 4 - 7
Memphis 2 - 9

Only Memphis belongs to western conference.

I mean 8-4 record is great. Unfortunately Rox is playing in the western conference and the Southwest division.

 

Dallas 7-4

I suppose that the history of dominance in the East and the lack of a dominant West teams in history would be the answer to why?

The Bulls, the Pistons, the Celtics. Those teams won a lot when they were great. They dominated the rest of the East. The West has a history of one team or another coming up, then vanishing. The East is not about the competition, they're about having that dynasty. The West is about who will do it this year. Owners, GMs, players and coaches all become complacent when they go East because it's more acceptable to be mediocre there.

I think JVG coaching in the West makes more sense because of this. He's a scrapper and he was coaching for the complacent side. Also, you can tell that Tmac came up in the East. He's not exactly a scrapper. He wants dominance to come easily.

 

its crazy that it has almost been a decade since the east has been weak. i really thought they were back with about 5 or 6 legit teams. not quite on par w/ the west, but i expected better than this.

i think the current state of the east can be traced to michael jordan and his leaving the bulls. the east had some damn good teams when jordan was around - after his retirement maybe alot of east organizations let off the gas a little? they spent so much time, energy and money trying to keep up w/ the bulls for all those years that they are still recovering. conversely, you look at l.a. w/ shaq and kobe. the western teams had to step up a little to keep up with them, starting at the beginning of this decade. the balance of power shifted from east to west (bulls to lakers) so the western teams had to get more competitive (invest more time, energy and money).

as far as the lakers, i dont really remember any of the finals series - its the ones against portland, sacramaneto and san antonio that are memorable. the nets, pacers and sixers were just afterthoughts after watching those [romey voice] EPIC [/romey voice) western conference battles.

that being said, i am against having straight seeding w/out regard for conference. i cant really articulate why i am against it, i just am - im just old school yo.