Why is the West consistently stronger than the East?

West has a few more .500 teams, but "Hornets = playoffs" and "Houston = 2nd or 3rd seed"?

 

Take a look at Houstons record against the Eastern conference, we typically dominate teams like the Bulls, Knicks, Hawks and other Eastern conference teams outside of our recent slump where we have been slammed by a brutal schedule of back to backs and road games. I dont think its a stretch at all to say the Rockets could be a top 4 or 5 seed in the East.

 

and when i say i dont think it would be a stretch, i mean we would be ATLEAST the 5 seed in the East

 

You've beaten New York, New York has beaten the Spurs, the Spurs have beaten you.

Yes, your record is good vs. the East, but that looks pretty random. If the Rockets are better than New York, why can't they beat some of the teams that new York has beaten?

The 5th seed in the East is Indiana btw. I don't see a reason to think that the Rockets are a better team.

 

cuz the houston rockets are in the west, duh.

 

GMs and ownership

 

I say top pick should always go to the weaker conference.

 

You're only now noticing this because Scalabrine retired recently, thus drastically reducing the quality of the players in the east.....

 

Lemme ejewmakate y'all for a sec,

In da East they iz killin brothas left n right, so ain't no young blood gonna wan go dere cuz they iz scared of gettin smoked, see? Even them hard *****z from da hood don't mess wit dat shet, n they take they rich asses Wes cuz **** jus smells betta, da air be cleaner, n da hoes be finer, nah-mean?

Buh donn hang wit Kobe, aight? Cuz dat rapist mofo ain't gon pass you da ball. Ain't no place for a black man in Kobe's army, ya dig?

-Wakey Flloyd , Sleepy's Bro

 

It's because you are a Pacers fan

 

hehe. true. but i think most people would see it that way too.

 

You can't really use winning percentage as an accurate measuring stick since teams play more games within their own conference.

Just doing some rudimentary calculations looking at the standings, it is clear that the west is stronger top to bottom. Western teams are 50 games over .500 in games against eastern teams (somewhere around 131-81, though I admit I could not find the exact number). Only 3 teams in the west have losing records against the east.

It's pretty incredible that this disparity has gone on as long as it has, especially since western lottery teams have on average had better records than their eastern counterparts, which leads to worse drafting position.

 

i think there was an article posted a while back that said that good teams (SA, DAL, UT) run their organizations well while bad teams (CHA, TOR) tank but cannot build off of good draft picks.

it was an article that supports the non-tanking stance. too lazy to find.

 

Because it's easier to make money in cities like Orlando, NY, Miami, Boston, New Jersey, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Toronto, Chicago, Cleveland, and Atlanta than it is to make money in a lot of west cities that have more spread out cities and multiple sports teams.

Cities like Sacramento, Phoenix, Utah, Portland, Minnesota, San Antonio, Houston, Memphis and NO need to make the playoffs or they won't sell tickets. The Lakers always need to make it far in the playoffs to keep the movie stars and artists showing up to the games. The Clippers were manufactured and forced onto the stage to get more actresses like Jessica Alba to show up to Clippers games. Her followers in LA might think to go to a Clippers game and a Lakers fan that sees this might do the same as well.

Point is, in some cities the tickets sell themselves no matter how mismanaged the team is. In the East, most of the population are within 10-20 minutes of the arena. In the west, teams work harder by drafting and signing good contracts to help make sure they make the playoffs and compete.

 

Lets face it the Western Conference is SEC. Rockets will take the challenge

 

Why is NFC stronger than Afc an yet texans can't take advantage

 

(the number is 152-108)

I'm not denying that West overall is stronger than the East btw, West has 3 of the 4 best teams and it's a little bit deeper. An Eastern team will have to play OKC,San Antonio, Clippers and Miami 9-10 times, a Western team 12-14 times, so there's a disadvantage.
And that said, there have still been some extreme claims in this thread.

"New Orleans = playoff team in the East." They are way under .500 vs. both the East and West teams, so... hardly.

"Houston= 2-3 seed in the East". I understand why a Rockets fan would say that. Houston has a great .750 record vs. the East. But if they are as good as their record vs. the East would suggest... why do they suck so much vs. the West? I mean, the Rockets are .320 vs. West, only the Hornets, Kings, Bobcats, Pistons and Cavs are doing worse.
Vs. the East, the Rockets have been better than OKC; vs. West, they've been worse than the Wizards, Raptors or Suns. That's not normal at all.
It's one thing to say that the Western Conference is a bit deeper and stronger. It's another thing to think that the difference is as big as the Rockets record would suggest (.750 vs. East, .320 vs. West) and that the Rockets would be one of the top 3 teams in the East. That's wishful thinking.