How Did The West Get So Much Better Than The East?

[Bless Mathews]

It's kind of amazing if you really think about it

It's not college ball, where recruiting is area related.

All nba teams have same pool of players to choose from.

Same amount of money to spend.

Same up and coming college coaches to hire.

The discrepancy is so much, but all the teams have same opportunities to build teams, same amount of money to sign / re sign.

[Hamtaro CP3KDKG]

The gap is bigger than it was in the early 00s which is insane
it wasnt always this way.........in the 80s the west was what the east is now

[HOoopCityJones]

Shaq , Kobe and Tim Duncan happened.

They spear headed the most Alpha Era of Basketball and the torch is carried by the likes of KD, Steph Curry, Tony Parker and Kawhi Leonard. ( I suppose Cp3 and Dwight too)

[TheReal Kendall]

Great question. I always wondered this myself.

Only thing I could think of is that most of the big markets/cities are in the west.:confusedshrug:

[fpliii]

Incompetent organizations drafting poorly, not having a clue about their assets and giving players bad contracts year after year.

More top end talent in the West as well.

[STATUTORY]

the east has been garbage for 15 years running

it's truly incredible. There's no institutional advantage, it's gotta be an issue of ownership

that and the fact Kobe is in the western conference and Bron is in the east, players sort based on their competitiveness and innate drive. Winners come to the west and losers stay on the east

[JimmyMcAdocious]

Dumber front offices in the East, luckier in the West. Probably.

[Bless Mathews]

Incompetent organizations drafting poorly, not having a clue about their assets and giving players bad contracts year after year.

More top end talent in the West as well.

Top talent in west?

You mean eastern confrence teams can't draft players of their from he west coast??

:facepalm

[oarabbus]

The real reason is that California/Texas just own the shit out of everywhere else when it comes to basketball. Most stars (Curry, CP3, Blake, Dwight, HArden, Cousins, Kobe, Westbrook, Durant to name a few) want to play in the West because it's just better than the East in terms of livability.

[HOoopCityJones]

That's what happens when you build something on one player's back.

The league made that mistake with Jordan and they continued it with Lerbon and the East continues to suffer for it.

Meanwhile the West have always had multiple badasses running shit since the 00's.

[fpliii]

Top talent in west?

You mean eastern confrence teams can't draft players of their from he west coast??

:facepalm
West as in Western conference. Most of the dominant superstars have played in the conference for the past 15+ years.

[Quotable]

East teams were just mismanaged for too long. Bad draft picks, horrible contracts and trades.

The teams that finally made smart moves and built winners either had short windows (Boston, Miami) or had bad luck with injury (Chicago, Indiana).

[tpols]

Well, Shaq got traded to the west.. kobe and duncan got drafted to the west. Those pieces counted for 10 championships out of the last 15 years.

Theres Dirk.. whose kept the mavs relevant for over a decade.

Dwight getting traded out west.. CP3 was drafted out west.

Marc Gasol was traded to a western team for a piece that won another western team two rings(pau, and partially).


Plus the east has a lot of real dead teams.. philly, detroit, orlando, atlanta, milwaukee, even cleveland til the second collusion occured. Feel like theres a lot more shitty, obscure cities out east.

[Bless Mathews]

Great question. I always wondered this myself.

Only thing I could think of is that most of the big markets/cities are in the west.:confusedshrug:

7 out of top 10 markets in east coast bruh.

1. New York.

2. Los Angeles

3. Chicago

4. Dallas

5. Houston

6. Philadelphia

7. Washington, D.C.

8. Miami

9. Atlanta

10. Boston

[kennethgriffin]

basketball reasons

[oarabbus]

Well, Shaq got traded to the west.. kobe and duncan got drafted to the west. Those pieces counted for 10 championships out of the last 15 years.

Theres Dirk.. whose kept the mavs relevant for over a decade.

Dwight getting traded out west.. CP3 was drafted out west.

Marc Gasol was traded to a western team for a piece that won another western team two rings(pau, and partially).


Plus the east has a lot of real dead teams.. philly, detroit, orlando, atlanta, milwaukee, even cleveland til the second collusion occured. Feel like theres a lot more shitty, obscure cities out east.



Ding ding ding!

Most West cities are better than their East counterparts. LA vs. NYC is pretty even, NYC is the lead city in the US with LA a close second, but the weather makes it an even match. But besides that... most people probably would rather live in Denver than Detroit. Or Phoenix over Indiana. Or Portland over Milwaukee.

[Bless Mathews]

Well, Shaq got traded to the west.. kobe and duncan got drafted to the west. Those pieces counted for 10 championships out of the last 15 years.

Theres Dirk.. whose kept the mavs relevant for over a decade.

Dwight getting traded out west.. CP3 was drafted out west.

Marc Gasol was traded to a western team for a piece that won another western team two rings(pau, and partially).


Plus the east has a lot of real dead teams.. philly, detroit, orlando, atlanta, milwaukee, even cleveland til the second collusion occured. Feel like theres a lot more shitty, obscure cities out east.

Best, most logical poast so far.

Trades. Didn't realize all of them

But then again, Shaq went back to east. Pau back in east.

[Bless Mathews]

Ding ding ding!

Most West cities are better than their East counterparts. LA vs. NYC is pretty even, NYC is the lead city in the US with LA a close second, but the weather makes it an even match. But besides that... most people probably would rather live in Denver than Detroit. Or Phoenix over Indiana. Or Portland over Milwaukee.

Oh yea , I forgot doe, pros get to pick the teams they want to get drafted too. They get to take recruiting trips and pick like college players.

:facepalm

With the draft should keep playing field somewhat level. East coast population far more than west, therefore I'm sure more players are from east coast and would want to stay and live in east coast.

[kennethgriffin]

seems like the only way the east gets a ring is if they have a team with 4 allstars



pistons - billups, hamilton, sheed, wallace
boston - garnett, pierce, rondo, allen
heat - lebron, wade, bosh, allen



only exception was miami in 06 due to cheating refs




asside from that. during every title for a west team since 1999. none of them have had more than 2 allstars at a time



it just shows how much more alpha the west is compared to the colluding east

[Collie]

If you look at the top teams in both conferences, they're been relatively even except maybe for the past couple of years. Miami, 00's Detroit, Boston, Healthy Rose + Bulls were teams that were competitive with anything the West had to offer. It's when you reach the bottom half of the East where you see the disparity.

I guess it's a combination of management and scouting that makes the difference. A lot of the terrible GMs are in the East, and while the West have their share of bad GMs, guys like Duncan, Kobe, KD, etc. landing in the West makes up for it.

I guess it's a cycle? The 80's had a lot of really shit Western teams other than the Lakers... so much so that you practically expected LA to reach the Finals each year. Things were relatively even during the 90's in terms of talent, then things started shifting West when Shaq, Duncan, Kobe and Dirk were drafted to Western teams.

If we see some legit stars get drafted into the East in the next few years, we'll probably see another shift again down the line.

[oarabbus]

Oh yea , I forgot doe, pros get to pick the teams they want to get drafted too. They get to take recruiting trips and pick like college players.

:facepalm

With the draft should keep playing field somewhat level. East coast population far more than west, therefore I'm sure more players are from east coast and would want to stay and live in east coast.


But free agency tho. And you know, players getting their agents to do work. And not to mention Kobe forced a trade to LA.

[HOoopCityJones]

But free agency tho. And you know, players getting their agents to do work. And not to mention Jerry West forced Charlotte to trade Kobe to LA.

Fixed.

[Bless Mathews]

If you look at the top teams in both conferences, they're been relatively even except maybe for the past couple of years. Miami, 00's Detroit, Boston, Healthy Rose + Bulls were teams that were competitive with anything the West had to offer. It's when you reach the bottom half of the East where you see the disparity.

I guess it's a combination of management and scouting that makes the difference. A lot of the terrible GMs are in the East, and while the West have their share of bad GMs, guys like Duncan, Kobe, KD, etc. landing in the West makes up for it.

I guess it's a cycle? The 80's had a lot of really shit Western teams other than the Lakers... so much so that you practically expected LA to reach the Finals each year. Things were relatively even during the 90's in terms of talent, then things started shifting West when Shaq, Duncan, Kobe and Dirk were drafted to Western teams.

If we see some legit stars get drafted into the East in the next few years, we'll probably see another shift again down the line.

Word.

I guess it is a cycle.

But it's been west dominate for 15 years.

Plenty of drafts. Plenty of free agents to land. Plenty of coaches to hire.

And when west was "winning" in 80's it was the lakers, yes.

But top to bottom, it's OVERWHELMING west now. 10th seeds in west would be 5,6 seeds in east. It's just bizarre.

[MavsSuperFan]

I think it was just luck in the beginning, and later FA choose to go to successful teams. Thus a snowball effect.

[JimmyMcAdocious]

7 out of top 10 markets in east coast bruh.

By franchise estimated value:

New York (e)
Los Angeles (w)
Chicago (e)
Boston (e)
Brooklyn (e)
Houston (w)
Miami (e)
Dallas (w)
Golden State (w)
San Antonio (w)

http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbespr/2014/01/22/forbes-releases-16th-annual-nba-team-valuations/

Follows the same order as this:
http://www.cbssports.com/nba/eye-on-basketball/24416936/knicks-lakers-bulls-top-1-billion-in-forbes-nba-evaluations

so...

11) OKC (w)
Portland (w)
Los Angeles (w)
Phoenix (w)
Orlando (e)
Sac (w)
Utah (w)
Toronto (e)
Cleveland (e)
Denver (w)

12 of the 15 Western Conference teams in the top 20. 12 in the top 17. 9 of the top 14. 5 of the top 10.

You look at the major markets in the East and other than the Knicks, the rest of them have had good teams. Chicago has had a contender with Rose, Celtics won a championship with their Big 3, Nets were in the Finals and then had those VC/Kidd teams, and Miami with Wade and Shaq and then their Big 3. East's next is Orlando at 15 and they had Dwight with a Finals appearances.

What happened to those teams? Chicago is still contending, Celtics reached their ceiling, Nets reached their ceiling (they were never beating the Lakers or Spurs), Miami reached their ceiling, and Orlando reached their ceiling (they were never beating the Lakers or Spurs).

I'd say the biggest markets did as much as they could. Except the Knicks...

Too many shit low end teams in the East dragging the rest of the conference down.

Doesn't help that Shaq, Kobe, and Duncan won most of the championships since 2000. And they spent either all or most of their career in the West.

[bdreason]

Warmer weather out West. Hotter bitches too.

[Droid101]

100% of the stupid conference system.

Because the East is bad, you have below .500 teams making the playoffs, therefore not getting a chance at the lottery.

Yet, in the West, you have 48 win teams getting into the lottery.

So... you have a 48 win team possibly getting a top 3 pick, and a 39 win team getting the 16th pick.

It gets worse and worse every year this goes on.

[oarabbus]

100% of the stupid conference system.

Because the East is bad, you have below .500 teams making the playoffs, therefore not getting a chance at the lottery.

Yet, in the West, you have 48 win teams getting into the lottery.

So... you have a 48 win team possibly getting a top 3 pick, and a 39 win team getting the 16th pick.

It gets worse and worse every year this goes on.

Oh shit. Good post, never considered it like that although it's plainly obvious now

[Bless Mathews]

100% of the stupid conference system.

Because the East is bad, you have below .500 teams making the playoffs, therefore not getting a chance at the lottery.

Yet, in the West, you have 48 win teams getting into the lottery.

So... you have a 48 win team possibly getting a top 3 pick, and a 39 win team getting the 16th pick.

It gets worse and worse every year this goes on.

Hmmmmmmm. Would like to see more details and exact picks.

Great point doe.

[HOoopCityJones]

100% of the stupid conference system.

Because the East is bad, you have below .500 teams making the playoffs, therefore not getting a chance at the lottery.

Yet, in the West, you have 48 win teams getting into the lottery.

So... you have a 48 win team possibly getting a top 3 pick, and a 39 win team getting the 16th pick.

It gets worse and worse every year this goes on.

Damn. :biggums:

How has the league not spotted such a huge flaw?

[Collie]

100% of the stupid conference system.

Because the East is bad, you have below .500 teams making the playoffs, therefore not getting a chance at the lottery.

Yet, in the West, you have 48 win teams getting into the lottery.

So... you have a 48 win team possibly getting a top 3 pick, and a 39 win team getting the 16th pick.

It gets worse and worse every year this goes on.

Yeah this too.

The West has been unbelievably lucky in their drafts as well. I mean, San Antonio going from a 60 win team to a less than 20 win one right before the Duncan draft? West getting both 1st and second picks during the Oden/Durant sweepstakes? Pretty lucky. Even the players in the East who were drafted and turned out good as the hype eventually had injury problems (Rose being the best example). Just imagine if Duncan went to Boston, or KD went to the Knicks.

It seems Western teams were also quicker to find the hidden European gems in the draft. Nowitzki, both Gasols, Manu, even guys like Rubio and Splitter - all drafted in the West.

[pastis]

i think kenneth griffin and droid101 are right.
maybe you can just add luck.
i can speak for dirk. dallas just get lucky, nobody would expect that dirk would become a franchise-player and all-time great. nobody.
milwaukee focused on robert traylor e.g.

[Ariza4three]

TBH the west isn't really that good.

[Bigsmoke]

Western teams draft better and players sometime are b*itches

Dwight went on the record and said he doesn't want to play for the Bulls because of cold weather