Every game today that was West V East the West won... including the terrible choke job by Toronto... it's like the East teams all got together except for Miami and Indiana and decided to really suck!
it will be fine in a couple years, all the top rookies will be playing in the East. the top rookie the west has is ben mclemore while east has MCW, Oladipo, KCP, etc
I'm skeptical if any of those will be a "real" franchise player or another Steve Francis or Michael Redd. Also, some of the bad teams in East are going to the playoffs while some good/very good teams in the west will get lottery picks. Imagine Memphis, Denver (Knicks) or Minnesota hitting gold in the lottery. New Orleans might "choose" to get a top-5 pick if Anthony Davis is sidelined longer than expected. Just look at their schedule in the next two months: http://espn.go.com/nba/team/schedule/_/name/no/new-orleans-pelicans Absolutely ridiculous.
I'm a Wizards fan, and I knew they've been playing pretty well lately, but hadn't bother checking the East standings until this morning. They currently have the 3rd best record in the East.
I made a bet with a friend of mine about the Bobcats. I gave him 10-1 odds for $20 that the Bobcats would not be a 7 seed or higher... If they make the playoffs this year, I am going to be pissed.
That left an astounding 12 teams flailing below .500—a revolting assortment of busted lineups, broken All-Stars and bewildered upstarts. They are the clueless, the overhyped, the underachievers and the tankers, collectively bobbing in the muck, a blazing inferno of ineptitude, a tire fire of futility, a miserable mosaic of, um, well… That's a funny line.
"I'm embarrassed at the level of basketball that's going on in the NBA today. We got to find a way to make sure these kids stay in school more than one year because we're bringing a lot of players who are coming to the NBA who are not physically or mentally ready to play. I wish we could keep these kids in school for two years. There's nobody else in the NBA that will come up in the Eastern Conference and I feel bad for the fans to watch this trash. The good thing about it is I get paid to watch this trash but I feel bad for the fans watching these bad NBA teams each night." - Chuck
Yup. That's definitely part of the problem. They should bring back prep to pro, and then make those who decide to go to school to stay for 2 years. It let's the Lebrons and Wiggins of the world to enter when they're ready, and forces all the "raw" players to be more nba-ready.
The culture in general has moved to one that goes for instant gratification rather than slow methodical building of success. It may not change a thing if you moved the minimum NBA age to 21. Its more the mentality.
Because now the non-playoff teams get the highest picks. So you have good non-playoff teams from the West getting better picks than the last couple of playoff teams from the East, every year. It would help parity, possibly, if the lottery teams were just the teams with the 10 worst records, ignoring who makes the playoffs or not.
LOLOLOL... Trailblazers trollolololololing.... <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Is it too late to join the Eastern Conference? Asking for a friend.</p>— Trail Blazers (@trailblazers) <a href="https://twitter.com/trailblazers/statuses/408327384241156096">December 4, 2013</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
That would also be the basis of an argument for a 1-16 playoff. Under your scenario, Eastern teams could both make the playoffs and the lottery in the same year? Whatever the case, I don't think it will change bc it's been this way for 15 years, and possible partially bc of the lotto reward system. That said, something happened post Jordan era where Eastern teams were just overall managed poorly and stricken with bad luck relative to the Western conference (which has had bad luck themselves, but have overcome them - Rockets, Blazers).
This is way worse than it has been but it really is ridiculous that a team like the Timberwolves or the Nuggets, will probably win 45+ games and will still be in danger of missing the playoffs. While a team like Atlanta or Cleveland will get extra cash revenue for at least 4 more playoff games will putting a terrible product out on the floor.
Last season, Milwaukee was 38-44 and made the playoffs. Utah was 43-39 and missed. In 2012 (the lockout year), there was parity. In 2011, Indiana was 37-45 and made the playoffs. Houston was 43-39 and missed. In 2010, Chicago was the 8th seed in the East at 41-41. Houston missed at 42-40 bc OKC was 50-32 AS THE 8th SEED. In 2009, Detroit was 39-43 and made the playoffs. Phoenix was 46-36 and missed. In 2008, Atlanta was 37-45 and in. Golden State was 48-34 and out. In 2007, there was parity. In 2006, there was close enough to parity. In 2005, close enough to parity. In 2004, Boston 36-46 in; Utah 42-40 out. In 2003, Orlando 42-40 in; Houston 43-39 out. Hey, that was Rudy T's last year, Yao to Moochie no-look-over-the-back, Cat & Franchise forever, Cato's fat contract, T-Mo and Mo-T, and Eddie G (RIP, p*rn addicted troubled soul). In 2002, arguable parity. In 2001, Indiana was 41-41 in; Houston was 45-37 out...Dream's last run here. In 2000, parity. In 1999, strike year....or lockout, I forget. JVG was still w/ the Knicks and the Time Duncan era was born. In 1998, parity. So in sum, I think things were always imbalanced overall if you look inside the numbers (like East vs West, scoring differential) and looked at the quality of play; however, things at least looked okay East-West wise pre 2007. From 2001 to 2007, only 2 years was it apparent that the West non-playoff teams got screwed, particularly Houston, so the NBA didn't care. But since 2008, it's been noticeably bad...real bad...5 out of 6 years bad culminating in this year 7 as an Eastern historic low.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p><a href="https://twitter.com/trailblazers">@trailblazers</a> We asked you to keep that on the down low. That eager to get rid of us already?</p>— Phoenix Suns (@Suns) <a href="https://twitter.com/Suns/statuses/408331262563057664">December 4, 2013</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
