NBA: Eastern Conference Making Early Strides

Ordinarily, the fact the Eastern Conference has a 27-25 record against the Western Conference so far this season wouldn’t be headline news.

Ideally, the balance of power would be split fairly evenly between East and West, making for a good, competitive schedule throughout the season.

The reality, though, has been far from that lofty ideal. The Eastern Conference has played welcome mat to the Western Conference’s muddy shoes for most of the last decade, with the East finishing with a winning record just once in the last 10 seasons.

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The perception that the West was the varsity conference while the East was filled with jayvee scrubs wasn’t just a perception—the numbers bear that out.

From 2005-06 through last season, the West had a whopping 2,458-1,862 advantage in interconference play, a winning percentage of .569.

The only time in those 10 seasons the East had the advantage was 2008-09, when the East held a 231-219 advantage. That was almost entirely a product of the Sacramento Kings somehow managing to go 1-29 against the Eastern Conference that season.

So while Eastern teams have won four of the 10 titles over that decade (the Miami Heat in 2006, 2012 and 2013; and the Boston Celtics in 2008), the regular season has mostly seen the West playing the hammer and the East portraying the nail.

Here are the numbers over the last 10 seasons:

*–Teams played only 18 interconference games in the lockout-shortened 2011-12 campaign, as opposed to 30 in each other season on the list.

Over that time, the Western Conference has not had a team with a losing record reach the postseason and has in fact had eight teams that finished better than .500 (as well as four breakeven clubs) head to the lottery.

Conversely, there have been 10 teams in the East that have been playoff bound despite losing more games than they won and eight .500 teams have also qualified for the postseason during that span.

The lockout-shortened 2011-12 season was the only time over the past 10 seasons the Eastern playoff bracket was comprised of eight teams all with better than .500 marks.

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Conversely, the 2006-07 campaign was the only time in the last decade the West didn’t have a team with a non-losing record in the lottery.

In the first few weeks of this season, the Heat have won all four of their games against the West thus far and the Cleveland Cavaliers are 2-0. The Toronto Raptors and Charlotte Hornets have each won three of four.

On the other side of the ledger, the New Orleans Pelicans are 0-for-5 against Eastern foes, the Portland Trail Blazers and Dallas Mavericks have each lost both of their matchups and the Phoenix Suns dropped their only interconference contest.

The West has had a couple of playoff teams–New Orleans and Portland–go through some struggles. The Pelicans can’t defend anyone and Portland lost four of their five starters from their postseason qualifier from the past two seasons.

Meanwhile, the Heat have revamped their roster in Year Two A.J. (after James) and Charlotte added talent directly from the West (Nicolas Batum from the Blazers and Jeremy Lin from the Los Angeles Lakers).

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It’s far too soon to declare the continental divide between East and West in the NBA has been closed, but the early returns indicate the Western Conference isn’t going to have the cakewalk through the East it’s enjoyed for most of the last decade or more.