Wat. We're not talking about the bottom of the league, we're talking about the teams that matter. You're talking about teams that aren't even in the playoffs. Looking at playoff teams, the East barely even has a winning record against the West, 124-115, 52%. The West absolutely smashes the East, 155-85, 65%. That's 30.5 games better! And even including bottom West playoff teams, it's a better winning record overall and on average than every single individual team in the East, besides matching the East 1 seed.

The top East team went 17-12, 59% vs the West, while the top West teams went 25-5, 83% vs the East! Even taking the top 2 teams out of it, the East went 91-89, 51%, while the West went 105-75, 58%!

Basically the West just absolutely destroys the East in every single way where it matters, it's likely to get even worse, and it's completely ridiculous to say "meh" and talk about non-playoff teams.

Work shown below:

East record vs West

Rank	Team	Wins	Losses	Win%
1	BOS	17	12	58.6%
2	CLE	16	14	53.3%
3	TOR	17	13	56.7%
4	WAS	17	13	56.7%
5	ATL	13	17	43.3%
6	MIL	15	15	50.0%
7	IND	16	14	53.3%
8	CHI	13	17	43.3%
	TOT	124	115	51.9%

West record vs East

Rank	Team	Wins	Losses	Win%
1	GSW	25	5	83.3%
2	SAS	25	5	83.3%
3	HOU	19	11	63.3%
4	LAC	20	10	66.7%
5	UTA	20	10	66.7%
6	OKC	18	12	60.0%
7	MEM	15	15	50.0%
8	POR	13	17	43.3%
	TOT	155	85	64.6%

The top of the west is better, did I say something to the contrary, the spurs and warriors skew the results a ton and are really good especially during the regular season vs the west. I think the title tiers last year were gsw >>>> cavs >>> spurs/houston >>> Boston. Cavs only way ahead of spurs/Houston due to the conferences. If there weren't, I think the cavs and spurs were on similar footing especially with playoff Lebron but maybe kawhi led spurs are much better...I'm not sure.

I think the gap widened. I like that the west teams are trying but likely will fail to the warriors. The top of the west >> top of the east. The rest of the leagues are pretty comparable especially last year, that was my only point.

I've done this work before and it got shrugged off as not mattering before because reasons.

Where it matters the most is in the 1st round, where the top of the East will play a worse team but even that when you consider equity it really doesn't end up mattering that much (bc the top seeds in the West are still huge favs vs bottom of the West). There isn't some enormous gap between Toronto & Utah of last year though. I'm obviously not arguing the East is as good as the West, I just think it gets overblown. This year though, with Butler/George going West is going to be the biggest the gap will be. Although I would argue (obviously depending on where Kyrie ends up) that Cleveland and Boston are as good as any non-GS team in the West.

That's because the main point above is wrong. I even addressed it already before your post:

That's an enormous disparity, even when you take GS/SA/Cle/Bos out of it. Again, and with added rebuttal:

That's because the reasons are good. You're cherry picking small sample sizes where the West still > the East, and if you consider all of the West playoff teams vs East playoff teams, there are large disparities.

And you're doing it again. For some reason you compare the East 3 seed vs the West 5 seed and say, oh the West 5 seed isn't way way better than the East 3 seed, your narrative is overblown. Okay, let's compare the 3-5 seeds. The East went 47-43, 52%. The West went 59-31, 66%. That's a huge difference.

OK so the top two teams in the East are in the same tier as the 2-4th best teams in the West, nice, but the West has the tier all-by-itself team and the West has twice as many tier 3 teams?

That seems like an enormous gap. Compare the teams fighting for playoffs spots in the West (POR, UTA, LAC, NOP, MEM) to the teams fighting for playoff spots in the East (CHA, DET, ORL, PHI)

On a macro level there's no comparison between the two conferences. Cherry picking opponents (who had injuries on both sites) in playoff series doesn't work on any level unless you're just talking about the binary nature of the playoff format where you'll only play 3 teams and not the 7 other teams that made the playoffs. That's true, and in that sense the actually road to the finals perhaps gets a little overblown, but at every step of the way (regular season and each round) the West is likely to be either slightly tougher or egregiously tougher.

This is my main point. Also should be clear that I was talking about before this year. I think the West is gonna be ridiculous this year. Hilariously enough GS will still run away with it. lol at them not being the best team of all time.

This. Totally this.

And even if you're solely talking about the playoff road for the top teams, every round is harder in the West, with the conference finals being tremendously harder. SAS in the last couple years (or '16 playoff OKC) has been way better than Toronto or Boston.

I say **** east/west
**** extra travel - its 2017 not 1987
Make the NBA regular season schedule as equal as possible
And Seed the playoffs 1-16

Amen. Basically every team plays every other team 3x, except 2x for 5 teams. It's not hard.

But owners and execs love their silly little division/conference titles. No way that drives as much revenue as better playoff series would.

Exactly.

patron, I like your style.

That won't happen as long as Lebron as a free pass to the NBA finals every year

Get it together, East.

If anyone wants to bet Minny vs Cle or Boston for regular season wins I'd be happy to oblige. Will even ignore the win difference in those great projections!!

def *some* bull**** there, "from the start of free agency i wanted to be in philly". wat clearly he was keen on houston

wow jj great watch

On sportsbook, the Wolves are 47 wins. Boston is 55.5

Wolves are an injury to Teague, Wiggins, or Butler, or Crawford away from playing DLeague guys. Heck, even if Butler misses his standard 15 games the Wolves are probably screwed in the hardest ever conference.

The Lakers win total is interesting. I think they need to move Clarkson by the deadline to be able to max 2 next year.

If you get rid of conferences, I say go with an unbalanced schedule where you have good teams facing each other more often. The NFL does stuff like that. The TV product is an important revenue source, so massage things for better games on TV.

I could definitely get behind this.

they could trade him next offseason too

Lose leverage though

Olynyk is on the Heat, that post must've been written awhile ago?

July 4th.