NBA: It's amazing how stacked the West is

[Splits]

The East is so bad that the Lakers would have a playoff position in the East

They'll make the POs in the West, MVPau won't have it any other way.

[Arcadian]

You're confusing "making the playoffs" with "making the Finals". The West is absolutely stacked. There's 13 playoff quality teams in the West. There's maybe 4 in the East, depending on how Chicago responds to another Rose injury. In the West there's no margin for error. You have to bring your a-game every night or else you'll be on the outside looking in. Teams will cannibalize each other in the West. A 40 win team in the West is easily a 50 win team with an Eastern Conference creampuff schedule. Just because teams like Dallas or Minnesota or the Lakers aren't le contenders doesn't mean the West is not stacked. They would easily be 3rd best in the East. When one side had that many quality teams and the other doesn't even have 1/3 as many, then that one side is most definitely "stacked".

When half of all NBA teams make the playoffs every year, making the playoffs is not much of an achievement. It just means you're in the top half* of the conference.

To me, being stacked does mean having many teams that could potentially win the conference le. I think the NBA is pretty weak/diluted/stratified overall. It's just that one conference is significantly more so.

It's like the East is so ty, it's making the West look better than it really is by comparison.

*Technically, 8 out of 15 teams from each conference make the playoffs, which is more than half.

[Phillip]

i think the compe ion will even out a bit as the season goes on. the east had a bad break with Rose getting hurt again, as well as the Nets being so unexpectedly horrible. and some of these west teams are going to drop back a bit soon. west is still definitely better top to bottom, but the records right now are just bizzare