NBA’s East is Least: A Quick Rant

Matt on 12 17, 2009

We’re used to the NBA’s eastern conference being bad, but holy crap. Take a look at it this year so far. It’s dreadful. Only five teams are above .500 right now, and a staggering 10 teams are under .500. The combined records of those 10 teams is 83-160. Appalling. The East features New Jersey, who has 2 wins, Philadelphia, with 6 wins, and Washington, with 7.

The western conference, which has all of its 8 playoff teams above .500, and even the 9^th seed above .500, is significantly deeper with quality teams. Sure, there’s 3 powerhouses in the east, but the west is still a lot better.

Why the difference? It’s been like this for practically the entire post Jordan era. Let’s take a look at the # 1 overall draft picks for the last 13 years:

2009 Blake Griffin, Los Angeles Clippers

2008 Derrick Rose, Chicago

2007 Greg Oden, Portland

2006 Andrea Bargnani, Toronto

2005 Andrew Bogut, Milwaukee

2004 Dwight Howard, Orlando

2003 LeBron James, Cleveland

2002 Yao Ming, Houston

2001 Kwame Brown, Washington

2000 Kenyon Martin, New Jersey

1999 Elton Brand, Chicago

1998 Michael Olowokandi, Los Angeles Clippers

1997 Tim Duncan, San Antonio

1996 Allen Iverson, Philadelphia

9 of the last 14 # 1 overall picks have gone to the Eastern Conference teams. So…what the hell? Why is the east so bad? Some of the picks have been busts, but still. Let’s just blame Kwame Brown. That’s easy enough. Or the Knicks. Let’s blame the New York Knicks. (I kid). Well, I don’t know. I really don’t. I’m just saying, the Eastern Conference is really bad. That is all.