5 reasons why the East has been worse than the West since 1998

As things stand now, or even as they stood in the 2000s, the NBA's Eastern Conference has been vastly inferior to its Western Conference. Since Michael Jordan's last title with the Bulls in 1998, Eastern Conference teams have only won the NBA title on 6 occasions. Western Conference teams have won it more than twice as often (13 times) as the Eastern Conference teams. Aside from a few years here and there, the West has pretty much owned the East for the better part of the last two decades.

Most NBA fans are unanimous in the 'West is better than the East" proclamation. However, the reasons behind this are not very well known. What actually happened? Why did a conference, which not very long ago featured Michael Jordan & the Chicago Bulls, Patrick Ewing & the New York Knicks, Reggie Miller & the Indiana Pacers and Shaquille O'Neal and the Orlando Magic, turn into the 'Leastern Conference'?

Here's why.

# 5 The 1996 NBA draft

Kobe Bryant was the best player to come out of the 1996 NBA Draft

The 50th draft of the NBA, the 1996 NBA Draft, along with 1984 and 2003, is considered to be one of the 3 best NBA draft classes of all time. Just one look at some names of this draft class is enough to tell you why. Here's a list of the players from this draft, who made the All-Star team at least once in their career:

1. Allen Iverson (1st pick, Philadelphia 76ers)
2. Shareef Abdur-Rahim (3rd pick, Vancouver Grizzlies)
3. Stephon Marbury (4th pick, Milwaukee Bucks)
4. Ray Allen (5th pick, Minnesota Timberwolves)
5. Antoine Walker (6th pick, Boston Celtics)
6. Kobe Bryant (13th pick, Charlotte Hornets)
7. Peja Stojakovic (14th pick, Sacramento Kings)
8. Steve Nash (15th pick, Phoenix Suns)
9. Jermaine O' Neal (17th pick, Portland Trailblazers)
10. Zydrunas Ilgauskas (20th pick, Cleveland Cavaliers)

That's a staggering amount of All-Stars from a single draft and you can clearly see that most of these names went on to define the NBA in the years to come. In other words, the NBA of the 2000s and beyond was pretty much defined by the way the careers of these players panned out.

If you divide these players as per their conferences, you can see that it stands at 5-5. However, because of trades and free agent moves in the subsequent years, only 3 of these 10 players played a major part of their career's primes in the East. This was the true beginning of the disparity between the East and the West. The bad draft and trade choices over the next 20 years are explained next.

#4 Drafts and Trades: Part I

Tim Duncan, another transcendental talent, was drafted by the San Antonio Spurs in 1997

Let's start with where we left off, the 1996 NBA draft. The best player to come out of that draft class was Kobe Bryant. He was drafted by the Charlotte Hornets from the Eastern Conference and traded immediately for Vlade Divac to the Los Angeles Lakers. One month later, one of the biggest stars in the East, Orlando Magic's 24 years old Shaquille O'Neal, left the team to sign with the Lakers.

This led to the formation of one of the greatest NBA dynasties of all time, winning 3 championships from 2000-2002. Since Shaq signed as a free agent, Orlando Magic received absolutely nothing in return and the team which beat Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls in 1995, stopped being a contender.

In the 1997 NBA draft, the biggest prize was the Power Forward from Wake Forest, Tim Duncan. The Boston Celtics had the highest odds of landing the #1 pick. However, the pick went to the San Antonio Spurs and they promptly drafted Tim Duncan, who went on to become the greatest power forward of all time, winning 5 championships on the way. After finishing his rookie contract, Duncan was pursued by the Orlando Magic.

He was very close to signing with them and forming a dynasty with Tracy McGrady. However, Magic coach Doc Rivers declined one of Duncan's requests, which was allowing his wife on the team plane. So Duncan re-signed with the Spurs and finished his career in San Antonio.

The 1998 offseason brought even more doom and gloom to the East. The Washington Bullets (now Wizards) traded their star power forward Chris Webber to the Sacramento Kings for Mitch Ritchmond and Otis Thorpe (both at the end of their careers). Webber would go on to transform the Kings into legitimate title contenders, while the Bullets missed the playoffs for 6 years straight.

In the 1998 NBA draft, the Dallas Mavericks managed to land the 9th pick, Dirk Nowitzki from the Milwaukee Bucks, in exchange for Robert Taylor. Nowitzki has gone on to become one of the greatest players of all time and sits 6th on the All-Time scoring list.The Bucks could've made a dynasty with Nowitzki and a young Ray Allen who they acquired from the Timberwolves via a draft day trade in 1996. However, even Ray Allen was traded to the Seattle Supersonics in 2003 for a past-his-prime Gary Payton and Desmond Mason.

As all these superstar draft picks of the 90s reached their primes, they started dominating the league. Oh, and let's not forget the 5th pick of the 1995 draft, Kevin Garnett. With KG, the Minnesota Timberwolves made the Playoffs for 8 straight seasons, and even though they usually lost in the 1st round, they were better than most top seeds in the east.

A great example of this disparity is the 2002-2003 season. The Detroit Pistons had a record of 50-32, which was good enough for the 1st seed in the East. In the West, the Portland Trailblazers also had a 50-32 record, which was only good enough for the 6th seed!

#3 Drafts and trades: Part II

The 2003 NBA draft brought some great players to the East

Between the years 2000 and 2008, an Eastern Conference team selected 1st overall on every occasion except 2002 and 2007. However, aside from the 2003 NBA draft, with players like LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh and Kyle Korver; all the other top picks didn't do much to reduce the disparity between the East and the West. The main reason behind that was very simple.

Even though players like Kenyon Martin, Dwight Howard, Derrick Rose and the stars from the 2003 draft were very good, they were still developing while the stars drafted in the 90s had reached their primes and established dynasties in Los Angeles and San Antonio. The regular season win count of eastern conference teams had risen, but the best team in the east was still no match for the best from the West. This fact was very evident in the 2007 NBA finals, where the San Antonio Spurs (58-24) swept the LeBron James led Cleveland Cavaliers (50-32).

A blockbuster 2007 offseason for the Boston Celtics saw Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen joining Paul Pierce to form the Big 3 in Beantown. They dominated the 2007-2008 season, beating the Lakers in 6 games in the NBA Finals. However, age and injuries caught up with the Celtics and it'd be 3 more years before another Eastern Conference team prevailed in the Finals.

#2 Drafts and Trades: Part III

Kawhi Leonard was traded by the Indiana Pacers on draft day

As we move closer to today's NBA, the disparity between the two conferences becomes even clearer. As players' careers have played out, it can simply be stated that the West has way better players than the East. Even the ones who weren't drafted originally by a Western conference team ended up there anyway. The best example of that is 2-time Defensive Player of the Year, Kawhi Leonard. In the 2011 draft, he was drafted 15th overall by the Indiana Pacers.

On the same day, the San Antonio Spurs traded their starting point guard George Hill for Leonard and he has gone on to become the face of the Post-Duncan Spurs. More instances of such front office incompetence have been on display recently. Stars such as Jimmy Butler, Paul George and Carmelo Anthony have been traded to Western Conference teams, weakening the East even further.

For the 2017-2018 NBA season, these are the top 10 players as per their Player Efficiency Rating (PER), the stat which takes all of a player's stats into account and then boils it down to a single number.

1. James Harden, HOU
2. Giannis Antetokounmpo, MIL
3. LeBron James, CLE
4. Stephen Curry, GSW
5. Anthony Davis, NOP
6. Clint Capela, HOU
7. Chris Paul, HOU
8. Kevin Durant, GSW
9. Hassan Whiteside, MIA
10. Russell Westbrook, OKC

As you can see, 7 out of the top 10 players play for teams in the Western Conference. When there is such a big gap in the quality of players, the quality of teams will automatically drop. For almost 8 years now, the Western Conference playoffs have been tightly contested, while the East has mostly been a cakewalk for a LeBron James led team, which brings us to our next reason as to why the East is worse than the West.

#1. LeBron James

Lebron James is still dominating in his 15th NBA season

Since the day he burst into the NBA out of Akron's St. Vincent/St Mary's High School, LeBron James has been one of the most dominant athletes to have played any sport. He has been remarkably consistent and injury free throughout his career. Mind you, consistent over here stands for 'consistently at the top'.

He has won 4 MVP awards and has been in the conversation every year. He is the only non-60s era Boston Celtics player to have made it to seven straight NBA Finals. Aside from the seven-game series against the Indiana Pacers in 2012, he has made his march to the Finals look like a cakewalk. Every year, the team which features LeBron James in the East is the prohibitive favorite to reach the NBA Finals.

Regular season records notwithstanding, LeBron James has eaten teams up during the Eastern Conference Playoffs. The 60 win Atlanta Hawks team featuring 4 All-Stars in 2015, were swept 4-0 by the Cleveland Cavaliers while Lebron James averaged a triple-double. Even in the 2017 playoffs, LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers only lost one game on their way to the NBA Finals.

Such extreme dominance of the other Eastern Conference teams has made the East look even worse than it actually is. It has also propelled the argument that LeBron James has just feasted on abysmal competition throughout his career. Now, there is no denying the fact that the East has objectively been worse than the West for some time now. Between 2000 and 2017, twelve Eastern Conference teams have made the playoffs with a losing record.

Within the same time frame, the number of Western Conference teams that have made the playoffs with a losing record, is zero. In the 2013-14 NBA season, the Phoenix Suns won 48 games and missed the playoffs in the West while the Atlanta Hawks made the playoffs by winning just 38 games in the East.

However, if you see the 2016-2017 Golden State Warriors, they swept through the Western Conference Playoffs with ease. They dominated the teams that they faced and went 12-0 to the NBA Finals. This doesn't mean that teams like the San Antonio Spurs aren't great. This just shows that if teams or players possess an extremely high level of talent, they can make their competition look much worse than it is.

Yes, the Eastern Conference is worse than the Western Conference, but LeBron James' other-worldly talent and abilities make the other teams look much worse. He is so much better than the other players that his impact on the Eastern Conference Playoffs dwarves the impact of other teams. In any other era, these teams wouldn't be so bad, in the LeBron James era, they look dreadful.

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