If all 29 teams played an equal schedule, how many of the West teams would make the playoffs? Or to rephrase -- would Indiana and/or NJ make the playoffs, and, if so, would there be a 3rd team from the Least? One last point -- the very best teams are in the West -- Sac, Mavs, Lakers (yeah, the Lakers). The best up-and-coming teams are in the west -- Rox, Suns, GS and Griz even.
I think he meant if there is no East or West conf, the best 16 teams of the whole NBA make the playoffs, then which the current East teams can make it, right? I can Pacers and Nets definitely making it. Pistons can do it. And Sixers, Celtics and Wizards maybe.
They don't play an equal schedule? I thought each team (east and west) have to play againt every other teams 3 times a season. So 28 X 3 = 84 games per season. So, what is the actual schedule?
The other conference is home-and-home and four (?) games with each of your conference. So, West plays West twice as much as East plays West. I believe only Indiana and Jersey make the playoffs in that format. And other than Denver, all the bottommost feeders are from the East. Michael would not have come out of retirement to play 'this' schedule!
The West has won 53% of its games and the East 47%. The West's playoff crop has won 64.3% while the East's playoff teams have won 58.9%. In interconference play, the East has beat the West 41.2%, with the West winning, of course, 58.8% of the time. Playoff-bound East teams beat the West 51.4% of the time. Playoff-bound West teams have a winning percentage against the East of 67.2%. However, if you were to rank all the teams by their winning percentage against the Western Conference only, this would be your 16 playoff teams: 1 Dallas W 2 Sacramento W 3 Utah W 4 Detroit E 5 Minnesota W 6 New Jersey E 7 San Antonio W 8 Indiana E 9 Portland W 10 Houston W 11 Phoenix W 12 New York E 13 New Orleans E 14 Orlando E 15 Philadelphia E 16 Boston E Eight WC teams and 8 EC teams, though most of the EC teams fall in the bottom 8. Of the real playoff teams, only Orlando falls out, replaced by the 15-23 Knicks. Of course, an analysis like this has its drawbacks, but I think is still interesting to see.
