They said this a while back about the west. Sacramento won't be good forever, Phoenix won't be good forever, Portland won't be good etc. Aside from Duncan and Nowitzki, the entire rest of the conference has rebuilt themselves multiple times. Rockets had Yao/Mac then rebuilt to Harden/Dwight Portland had jail blazers, rebuilt to Roy era, and rebuilt again to Lillard/Arldridge Jazz had Stockton/Malone, rebuilt to Williams/Boozer, and appears to have a new solid core. Teams have risen and fallen, but the song remains the same. Bad organizations in the east, good ones in the west.
And that is in and of itself cyclical. The Knicks and 76ers are actively trying to become "good" organizations. The Celtics are seemingly re-tooling without bottoming out, and have assets. Atlanta and Cleveland were left for dead, and are now contenders. Indiana has always been a solid organization, striving to compete without bottoming out.... when George comes back, they'll be okay. Again, organizations won't be "stupid" forever. What people thought was going on was that the west was more "attractive" to potential free agents and players were forcing their way to more desirable locations via trade, and this was adding to the discrepancy. THAT is not happening as much as was feared (but yes, even then, the Clippers and Lakers may alway have a leg up due to the market). But there is really no logistical or financial reason why Portland and Utah should have consistently better teams than the Knicks, Celtics or 76ers.... for the east to bounce back, those core franchises need to get back to where they were from the 70's - 90's.
A lot of it is ownership. As long as some owners are there, their organizations will remain "stupid." The Knicks is a prime example. The Nets is another. The Nets got good for a short while after getting Kidd. And then they went south again. That's the symptom of bad ownership. The Kings was good for a while with a good core and a good matching coach. Afterward, they went south because the ownership has always been bad. The Clippers were lucky to have landed Griffin and Paul. They became relevant even before Sterling was ousted. If the ownership continued, you could bet that they would screw up soon. The cycles you talk about are very long because owners last a lot longer than players, and even GMs. Cleveland has bad ownership. They had LeBron and wasted his first stint. Now they have him again and see how it goes with the window of this current contract. The Lakers are in the down turn cycle after a long dominance. Jimmy Buss is screwing up what his old man has built. I don't see them rebuilding into a dynasty soon.
Well look at it this way, the East may actually have 3-4 teams crack 50 wins this year and teams with 40+ wins all the way down to maybe #6. So that's certainly an improvement of sorts.
Yes, ownership is certainly a common theme.... but you're sort of all over the place in your comparisons. For instance, Sacramento now has a new owner that played a role in keeping them there... does that make them more or less likely to stay mediocre? Additionally, the maloofs were thought to be awful owners, yet they had their best run of sustained success as a franchise under their watch. Yes, Cleveland also has a bad owner... but they have Lebron, and in the NBA one player can be more important than an owner... hence why they went to the finals before with him, and very well could go to the finals now with him.... regardless of the owner. The Lakers look to be in a down-cycle... but they're prime to possibly land Westbrook and/or Love, which could have them winning games again... all this despite the change in ownership. Thus, you've basically just illustrated that even with bad owners (or good owners) team's success is still going to eventually be cyclical. There is also luck involved. I don't expect the Knicks, Celtics and 76ers to all stay mediocre forever.
The last decade, the East had been mostly a 1-2 horse race in the playoffs. You've only had Miami and Indiana, or a bit earlier the Celtics as credible teams going into the playoffs. This year I see Atlanta, Cleveland, and Toronto as credible teams. Maybe even throw in the Wizards as an interesting team. That is more than it's been for the last decade. Now are the Hawks or the Cavs as scary as the Lebron-led Championship Heat teams? Well maybe not, but they are still credible 50+ win teams.
I don't really see any of the Eastern teams on level with the top Western teams this year. It depends on health, like I would pick Cleveland against injured Houston, but injured Houston wouldn't get out of West anyway. I doubt the East could win a title this year. Cavs are the most realistic team for that, they have the talent, but they are new and rough, and it shows in their record. Toronto isn't a great team, unless Lowry gets back into top shape quickly, but that seems unlikely at this point. Even with top Lowry, I doubt they are capable of seriously challenging any of the top 6 Western teams if they are healthy too. Lately we usually had 2-3 contenders in the East. Miami, Bulls, Indiana, Boston, Magic, Detroit, Cleveland, some years it was worse, some years it was better. East wasn't usually this weak at the top, it had some really good teams. East was weak at the bottom, with all the sub .500 teams getting into playoffs. This year's East looks worse both at the top and the bottom. It's rare for a conference to have 3 sub .500 playoff teams, which likely will happen this year. It will be somewhat interesting to take all regular season wins and losses from top 8 East teams at the end of this year and add them up and compare to other years. I think it could end up the worst East ever in those numbers.
The divisions are also an outdated concept. Portland will get the 4th seed even though they might have the 6th best record. Why have these concepts like conferences and divisions when they only lead to unfairness and worse teams getting an advantage.
Yes, the divisions are the most meaningless concept in the NBA given their scheduling. There is only a 2-game difference (in a 82-game season) between the division schedule and the non-division schedules of the same conference. So the divisions are just an arbitrary groupings in terms of records go.
The East has always had 1-3 teams that can compete in the West. That's it. And then they have 12 or so teams that suck. TBH, I'm not really sure how to fix it, the lottery has been giving the East more chances to become better, it's just that the East has more crappy GMs who make crap decisions. I guess we'll just have to wiat a couple more years while the new crop of talent grows up.
