The Best and the Rest of the NBA
February 23, 2007
The NBA All-Star game provided me the chance to sit back and reflect on the up-and-down ride that was the first half of the 2007 National Basketball Association season.
We saw the Dallas Mavericks, perennial playoff contenders, look like pretenders after losing their first four games of the season—then go back to their contender status with a 12-game win streak. We saw four teams from the Western Conference amass the top four records in the league, while the Eastern Conference has a lone representative among the league greats in the form of the Detroit Pistons. The way things are looking in the East right now, the decision between watching an Eastern conference “battle” on TV or Wayne Newton’s pre-game performance might actually involve some heavy deliberation.
Let’s face it. It doesn’t take a genius to figure it out. The obvious imbalance between the mighty Western Conference and the measly Eastern Conference is starting to become too embarrassing to watch.
While inter-league differences have become a common topic in all the major sports—the AFC being better than the NFC in the NFL and the AL being stronger then the NL in MLB—the discrepancy between the conferences in the NBA is much more embarrassing.
The Eastern has only one team on pace to win 50 games this season. It seems that as the years go on, the East gets worse while the West flourishes. But when did this happen?
One can pinpoint this recent downfall—and perhaps a turning point in the NBA—to one day: June 14, 1998. What does this date signify?
First, it was the last time Michael Jordan would ever run out onto the court wearing a Chicago Bulls uniform. Second, it was the last of the six NBA Championships that would define the Bulls dynasty. Third and most importantly, it would represent the shift in power from the Eastern Conference to the West. From 1980 until 1998, the Eastern Conference was victorious 12 times out of 18 in terms of championship wins. It was an era of dynasties who at certain times could claim titles of being the beasts of the east: the Boston Celtics, the Detroit Pistons, and the Chicago Bulls.
Since then, the Western Conference has taken the reigns and won an impressive and dominating six of eight NBA Finals, with the Los Angeles Lakers and San Antonio Spurs capturing three respectively. However, it is not as much the number of championships won that has exemplified the shift in power but more the overall performance of the teams in each conference.
Take for instance, the Detroit Pistons. Their current record is 32–19, which has them in first place in the Eastern Conference. Detroit is the pick of many to be the Eastern representatives in the finals but their record, if put amongst the teams in the Western Conference, would yield them a shocking sixth seed.
That also means that if you took West’s fifth seed, the Houston Rockets, and put them in the East, they would be riding into the playoffs with the number one seed and more importantly, home-court advantage instead of having to worry about which powerhouse team they are going to have to face in the first round.
The differences are endless and personally, I believe that there’s a serious problem in the league when the worst team in the West, the Memphis Grizzlies, and the worst team in the East, the Boston Celtics—the team that toyed with the idea of having the longest losing streak in the history of the NBA—are a combined 30.5 games back of their division leaders.
While the conferences grow in inequality, the league has refused to make any changes, the most obvious one being to mix up the conferences. While the apparent differences in talent between conferences have many fans disgruntled that less skilled teams have the opportunity to make it farther in the playoffs than their own, mixing the league would be far from an appropriate solution. The mixing of teams would simply be a short term solution and it wouldn’t be long before one of the two new conferences became more powerful.
The truth is the NBA, like all other major sports leagues, is a league of cycles. Conferences will have their dominant and dormant periods and while one conference enjoys its success, the other will undergo a rebuilding progress and soon enough be just as competitive.
If you look at the best young players in the game, most of them are situated in the East. LeBron James, Chris Bosh, Dwayne Wade, and Dwight Howard? All in the East, while the West has comparatively few. Analysts have been saying for some time now that young teams like the Chicago Bulls and Cleveland Cavaliers were going to join the Pistons and Heat as premier teams in the East so the shift might come soon.
Yet, if one looks into the history of league, the discrepancies between the two conferences seems to be directly correlated to the addition of new franchises.
Expansion can be blamed for the watered-down talent pool and lack of depth on individual teams. In 1976, the league had 22 teams after adding four ABA teams. Since then, the number has increased to 30 teams with the expansion of the league to cities like Orlando, Toronto, and Minnesota.
Since the league is looking to make a profit, they see this expansion as a good thing since they are getting more revenue from these individual franchises.
But now the talent is being worn thin amongst the teams and true depth is hard to find.
For example, in the 1980s, the two teams that dominated the era were the Los Angeles Lakers and the Boston Celtics. It seemed as if they represented their respective conferences every year in the Finals.
If you look closely at the teams, you can see why. The Lakers starting line up for most of the 80s consisted of Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and James Worthy. The Celtics could throw out Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Robert Parrish, and Larry Johnson. Six of the seven names I have mentioned are enshrined in the Hall of Fame.
One would be hard-pressed to find more than a handful of teams today that consists of one superstar—let alone a future Hall of Famer.
The formulaic NBA team today consists of one above-average player surrounded by average players. A couple of teams here and there can say they have a legitimate Hall of Famer (Lakers with Kobe Bryant, San Antonio Spurs with Tim Duncan, etc.) and there are some teams who have a player right below HOF status (i.e. the Celtics with Paul Pierce, the Milwaukee Bucks with Michael Redd). Usually these teams play on the shoulders of these special players, hoping the mediocre talent around these stars will be enough to push them into contender category.
But can you actually think of one team out there today that can boast two or more Hall of Famers?
Phoenix’s success these past couple of seasons have to do with their depth. The Suns have Steve Nash who could be enshrined in the Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts if he plays at the level that he has been the past three seasons. They also have Amare Stoudamire, who has the pure talent to be a special player barring anymore setbacks with injuries. In a more John Madden-esque statement, I’m going to state the obvious: the more talent you have, the more successful you’re going to be.
There aren’t enough teams in the East that have real, actual depth. The players are too young, coming out of either high school or college too early, and the players who are difference makers are scattered amongst the 30 franchises in the league. You can’t win on the back of one player alone. Teams in the 80s never had to deal with this issue, mainly because there were less teams so the players weren’t so widely dispersed.
In retrospect, the disparity in the league has served a helpful purpose for both conferences. In the Western Conference, the obvious plethora of talent and depth in the conference has forced teams to be bold in the free agent and rookie draft market and as a result, we have seen a tendency for teams to upgrade as much as possible in order to help raise their chances of success against other powerful conference teams.
Over in the East, teams still continue to try and improve their rosters as they look to take advantage of the weak conference.
As a result, we see one conference that has to play great basketball just to stay afloat, and another conference that is forced to play decent basketball to avoid missing the inviting opportunity of success.
Consequently, the NBA is reaching new heights of entertainment with a collection of individual talents such as LeBron James, Tracy McGrady, Dwane Wade, and Kobe Bryant, making it impossible to say that there aren’t enough quality stars.
However, while the great divide between the leagues has had its perks, one can only imagine how much better the NBA would be if the Eastern Conference teams could match the level of skill that the Western Conference currently possesses—if it could go back to the days when the Finals match up was literally a toss-up.
In reality, once we get to the NBA finals, it’s anybody’s championship to win. While the majority of the conference is in shambles, the top two or three of the Eastern Conference, such as the Heat or Pistons still have what it takes to win.
Yet imagine not having to wait until the Finals to see an inter-conference match up that’s actually entertaining. Imagine being able to turn the channel to TNT on Thursday nights and watch the Celtics play a thriller with the Seattle Supersonics. Imagine being able to watch an Eastern Conference team that doesn’t have a player named LeBron or Dwayne and actually be excited about the match up you’re about to witness.
Right now, the West has their fans watering at the mouth while the East has them switching the channel. I think we all agree it’s about time that the majority of the Eastern bottom dwellers bring up their game. Presidents and general managers owe it to their loyal fans to put a team on the floor that can not only win, but also bring the pride and honor that every city that has a professional team deserves. Otherwise, for Eastern Conference fans, it’s going to be a long wait till the Nowitzski’s, Ming’s, and Garnett’s call it a day on their career, and the Western Conference finally loses its tag as the better league.
William Karas is a sophomore majoring in International Relations.