The Killer Crossover 02.06.08: Has the East Ever Been This Bad?

Posted by Todd Spehr on 02.06.2008

There's no denying the Eastern Conference is bad this year. But just how bad? As 411's Todd Spehr shows, it's historically bad.

The Eastern Conference has been bad before, that much WE ALL know, but has it ever been this bad?

The game that actually inspired me to write this column occurred two weeks ago in Sacramento. The Nets – this is pre-Kidd: "Get Me Outta Here" Nets – were in the midst of a six-game, eight-day West swing, and they got unequivocally obliterated by a team that was still trying to get its core lineup back. It was real bad. They gave up wide-open shots, layups, you name it; they just gave up, with a team that perhaps will make the playoffs losing by 34 to a team that has no hope of making the playoffs. New Jersey actually lost all six games out West but - tah-dah - upon returning home they still found themselves firmly entrenched in postseason position. Oh, how I love the oxymoronic East.

Then there's Miami, who last week hosted Boston minus KG and Allen, and yet were still dumped by 30. While Pat Riley's vaunted D (trying to keep a straight face) held Pierce to just seven, four Celtic role players rung up 20+ points. And they still lose by 30? (Which reminds me: My brother recently asked me if Shaq has ever played for a sub-500 team… the answer is no. Well, until April 16, that is).

What about Cleveland? They played in Seattle last week - against those same Sonics who have won all of 12 games this year (nine as of last week) - and managed to lose. Yes, I am aware they were without The King, but c'mon, these guys represented the East in The Finals last year. Give me a break. You mean the Cavs still can't beat Seattle? No way. That goes to show two things: 1) The Cavs depth is just plain bad; 2) What does this say about the East, because the Cavs are the third best team in the conference based purely on the LeBron Factor? Tell me they're not.

My daily glance at the standings is getting comical at this point. I remember the East being bad (well, if you had a memory that could only contain nine months of storage you would know that), but has it ever been this bad? I was curious about its historical, well… badness (?), so I went digging.

I decided to check the facts on this, so I looked at the standings every year post-MJ ('98 onwards). Why post-MJ? Well, he was the ultimate answer to every theory that said the West (even back then) was better. As a matter of fact, I remember Terry Porter once saying that all the great teams in the West used to kill each other trying to get to the Finals, and then when they finally get there, they had nothing left. TP may have had a point, but did he really think any of those teams - Drexler's Blazers, Barkley's Suns, Kemp's Blazers or Malone's Jazz - were going to beat MJ anyway? Even if they had three weeks off before? I don't think so. Having said that, since Mike left (Chicago Mike, you've probably already assumed) the balance hasn't just shifted, it has tilted the scales. Here is the proof…

CRAZY STAT #1 – Since '99, three teams from the East (five, if the '08 playoffs started today) have made the postseason with losing records, bottoming out with a 36-win Boston team in '04. The West has had none, not a single one. The closest being a 25-win Wolves team (in a 50-game sked) during the lockout year.

CRAZY STAT #2 – In '01, seven out of the eight playoff teams from the West won 50 or more games. Seriously. The Wolves were the eighth seed that year and they won 47 games. Spare a thought for the '04 Jazz as well, who won 42 games (better than or tied with four playoff teams in the East that year) and finished last in their division, obviously missing the playoffs. What? And get this: Since '99 there have been 49 West teams with 50 or more wins (or better than .610 for the lockout year) but only 22 in the East. Look at that again. 49 to 22. The point here is that this isn't Breaking News, but rather, a trend; it's just that this year seems a little more pronounced for some reason.

CRAZY STAT #3 – Believe it or not, both the East and West have had the same amount of title teams post-MJ. Look it up: Miami ('06) and Detroit ('04) from the East, LA and SA from the West. Funny thing is the Spurs and Lakers have seven championships between them. But here's the thing: If you find the average win total of each team that finished first in each conference over that span, you see the real difference. East: 56.1; West: 61.8.

After having thrown all that at you, it may now be a good time to say that the difference between the conferences may have never been wider. As of February 4, there are two teams in the top eight in the East below .500, yet the Warriors are clinging to their spot in the West despite being ten games above water. How can that be? And couldn't you just totally see a team like Portland or maybe Houston, two teams outside the playoff bracket currently, waltz into New Jersey or Atlanta, two teams in the playoff bracket, during the regular season and just bust ‘em without blinking twice?

Oddly enough, this isn't an entirely new phenomenon. You could make a case that the East hasn't been in good shape since probably the mid-90s, when we saw the last of the likes of the Bad Boy Pistons or the Price/Daugherty Cavs, and were replaced with middle-of-the-road teams like Blaylock's Hawks or Rice's Hornets, teams who were good but never a major playoff threat, just MJ/Bulls playoff fodder. It reached an undeniable low when the eighth-seeded Knicks made the '99 Finals. That should never have happened. (Allan Houston's runner in Game 5 against the Heat was the luckiest shot ever, hands down, and how come no one beat them in subsequent rounds?) Since that point in time, the lower seeds in the East have barely passed for playoff teams themselves, and we have seen uncompetitive opening rounds countless times in the East.

And this is not to say that the top teams in the East suck, no way. As a matter of fact, I like the way Boston matches up with, say, a San Antonio; Detroit could take Dallas I feel; and any team could potentially be susceptible to a motivated, both-ends-of-the-floor LeBron and a halfway-decent supporting cast. It's just that most of the other East teams are so bad. The average amount of wins for the eighth seed in the East post-MJ is barely 41, yet in the West it's 44. We all agree that any team that wins 44 games is pretty good, right? Yeah, well that doesn't guarantee you anything in the West; you have a fair shot at the conference finals in the East with that same mark.

This doesn't appear to be changing anytime soon. Is it time to shake up the format a little? Maybe not, but the facts suggests otherwise.

You can read Todd Spehr's NBA column every Wednesday at 411mania.com. For more NBA talk, check out his blog