Worse conference: 1980's West or 2000's East

[SouBeachTalents]

Which of these conferences was worse?

[Bigsmoke]

the 80's Lakers >>>>>>>>>> any East team in the 00's

[PJR]

the 80's Lakers >>>>>>>>>> any East team in the 00's

This wasn't the question being asked now was it?

[FKAri]

80's West had some really bad teams but the early 2000's East as a whole was worse.

[SHAQisGOAT]

the 80's Lakers >>>>>>>>>> any East team in the 00's

This. Showtime Lakers were GOAT-level, and lasted for like 10 years... you can't say the same for any recent team in the East.

Plus, you had:
-Hakeem/Sampson, Twin Towers Rockets, which managed to have a great season while showing great potential (before falling apart), even beating the Lakers;
-Nuggets were pretty good for many years in that decade, they were kinda like the Nash's Suns of those days;
-Malone/Stockton's Jazz were already up and running since 1987, similar for Drexler's Blazers;
-Dallas had a very legit team in the late 80's almost reaching the Finals;
-Gervin's Spurs were good in the early 80's, Suns too with some nice, balanced squads;
-SuperSonics (champions in 1979) still had a great season in 1980, later on they had a decent team with Ellis, Chambers and McDaniel.
...
I mean, it wasn't shitty as some people make it out to be...

Discrepancy between the East and West in the 1980's is not even as big as in recent times (thanks to Hizack for this):

[QUOTE=Hizack][code] ┌──────────────────────────────────────────── ───┐
│ [B]Regular Season head-to-head record │
│ (All East vs All West) │
└──────────────────────────────────────────── ───┘
Season East West Total East % West %
---------- ----- ----- ------ ------ ------
2014

[Mr. Jabbar]

00's east

50's players could time travel and dominate that conference :facepalm

[SugarHill]

00's east

50's players could time travel and dominate that conference :facepalm
Still beat your Lakers in 04 :dancin

[Mr. Jabbar]

Still beat your Lakers in 04 :dancin

dwight made some clutch free throws the other day...:banana:

[kuniva_dAMiGhTy]

2K east was horrid

At least in the "80s West", you had Portland/Lakers/Suns/Jazz (late 80s)/Dallas/Houston, all 50 win ball clubs at one point or another.

[Thorn]

Well, the early 00s East (especially like 01-03 before the Pistons) was an abomination. The Pistons and Heat were good in the mid 00s but not all-time quality, then the Celts and Cavs came on later in the decade.

For the 80s West, the Showtime Lakers dominated the entire decade and they had some all-time teams (82, 85, 87). The early 80s West apart from the Lakers sucked. Mid 80s West had the Twin Towers in Houston for one year, the Jazz, and Blazers all coming on strong from like 87 onward. The Mavs had a few good years before Tarpley got addicted to coke. Mid 80s Denver was okay.

Overall you have to give the edge to the 80s West because although the end of the 00s East had a few all-time teams, they don't have anything matching the 80s Lakers.

[ArbitraryWater]

2K east was horrid

At least in the "80s West", you had Portland/Lakers/Suns/Jazz (late 80s)/Dallas/Houston, all 50 win ball clubs at one point or another.

Really irrelevant here, because we are trying to see which conference was more awful, and those came in awful conferences... We can't measure by this which one was worse, and which teams may have had it easier.

[Kblaze8855]

There were once two sub .500 teams in the WCF.

The Rockets vs the Kansas city Kings led by I believe Otis Birdsong.

The Lakers managed to make the finals by beating a 39 win team in the WCF. And I think a 42 win team another time.....

[Artillery]

There were once two sub .500 teams in the WCF.

The Rockets vs the Kansas city Kings led by I believe Otis Birdsong.

The Lakers managed to make the finals by beating a 39 win team in the WCF. And I think a 42 win team another time.....

1987 Lakers played:

37 win Nuggets team - 1st round
42 win Warriors team - 2nd round
39 win Sonics team - WCF

Weakest run to a Finals in NBA history. Didn't play a single 50 win team until the Finals. Warriors were just barely a .500 team. The 80s Western Conference was abysmal and it doesn't get talked about enough.

[Artillery]

[B]This. Showtime Lakers were GOAT-level, and lasted for like 10 years... you can't say the same for any recent team in the East.


The entire reason why the Showtime Lakers lasted for ten years was because they had no goddamn competition to step up and challenge them in the West.

[kuniva_dAMiGhTy]

Really irrelevant here, because we are trying to see which conference was more awful, and those came in awful conferences... We can't measure by this which one was worse, and which teams may have had it easier.
Read the post above yours.

At one point, the Mavs, Blazers, Jazz, and Lakers were all playing solid basketball. So yeah winning 50 games may be irrelevant to you, but that doesn't change the fact there were squads in a conference just flat out more competitive than the 2K east shitshow.

[Artillery]

Read the post above yours.

At one point, the Mavs, Blazers, Jazz, and Lakers were all playing solid basketball. So yeah winning 50 games may be irrelevant to you, but that doesn't change the fact there were squads in a conference just flat out more competitive than the 2K east shitshow.

1987 Lakers made the Finals without playing a single 50 win opponent. Two of their opponents were sub .500 teams. All-time weakest run to a Finals in NBA history.

[DamnMixes]

Both of them conferences can http://www.thecoli.com/styles/default/xenforo/smilies/camby.png

The first half of 00s was pretty much nets, pacers and pistons.

The Allen Iverson thing did not work for too long, and bucks kind of disappeared too soon? VC and TMac fukked it up by splitting.

Middle was pretty much Pistons and Heat

Then the 2nd half started cooking from like 2007, we have Celtcs, Cavs, Pistons, Magic all doing great job.


Who were great in the early 80s from the west besides lakers? Moses rockets? Alex English and George Gerving doing their job without enough help?

Both conferences had plenty of teams with one future hall of famer and bunch of pieces that didn't translate it to championship contention.

[Kblaze8855]

Like 9 franchises in the east have won 50 games just since 2009. The Raptors probably got close last year.

The recent east has good teams that quickly fizzle out for one reason or another.

[kuniva_dAMiGhTy]

Like 9 franchises in the east have won 50 games just since 2009. The Raptors probably got close last year.

The recent east has good teams that quickly fizzle out for one reason or another.
2009 and later was never part of the discussion.

[Kblaze8855]

Just says 2000s....and im seeing numbers on years as late as...the current season.

I didnt want to go too far back and start counting the Kidd Nets and so on.

People bitch more about the east today than they did 10 years ago.

[Akhenaten]

1987 Lakers played:

37 win Nuggets team - 1st round
42 win Warriors team - 2nd round
39 win Sonics team - WCF



:biggums:

[T_L_P]

Just says 2000s....and im seeing numbers on years as late as...the current season.

I didnt want to go too far back and start counting the Kidd Nets and so on.

People bitch more about the east today than they did 10 years ago.

2001-2003 was dark for the East.

Those were the only legit years, perhaps ever (at least post Magic/Bird), where whoever came out of the West was winning the title.

The fact that New Jersey were winning in game 6 against San Antonio still shocks me.

[Psileas]

http://www.sports-reference.com/blog/2013/12/historical-western-conference-vs-eastern-conference-disparity/

The 80's West was closer to the 80's East than 00's East to 00's West. Actually, it's not comparatively worse than the East was compared to the West in most of the early-mid 90's, and I don't remember many making a big deal out of that discrepancy back then.

[kuniva_dAMiGhTy]

Just says 2000s....and im seeing numbers on years as late as...the current season.

I didnt want to go too far back and start counting the Kidd Nets and so on.

People bitch more about the east today than they did 10 years ago.

80's West vs 2k East (2000 - 2009), who ya got?

Today's eastern conference is actually competitive; the West is better, by far, but the disparity honestly isn't as big as people make it out to be.

[DamnMixes]

2K east was horrid

At least in the "80s West", you had Portland/Lakers/Suns/Jazz (late 80s)/Dallas/Houston, all 50 win ball clubs at one point or another.

I don't know breh, I though portland became what they were in like 1989, which is almost another decade. What was so special about the suns then? Only from 88-89 season they were nice when they got tom chambers and kevin johnson.

Pacers and Pistons were ballin in mid 00s, The 07-08 celtics were something else, the Bron cavs were not enough to win a championship but indeed competitive, magic started kicking it in late 00s by surrounding dwight with them shooters. The biggest shitfest of that east imo was early 00s up until like 2003 and probably 06-07 season is exception too.

[Artillery]

:biggums:

Serously. People talk about Lebron having a cakewalk to the Finals when Magic and Kareem(both top 5 players) would routinely play trash opponents like that every year in the West.

[L.Kizzle]

The 80s west were a little better.

Here's something, the Bucks used to be an Western Conference team until the 1980-1981 season. Imagine had they'd stayed in the West and battled LA Lakers instead on Phily and Boston. And one time or another, Bucks actually beat the Celtics/Sixers only to run into the other and lose in the Conference Finals.

Besides the Lakers, I'd say the Denver Nuggets were the most consistent in that decade led by Alex English, making the WCF one season.

-The early 80s Sonics (led by Gus Williams) and Suns (led by former Sonic, Dennis Johnson and Walter Davis) had a few 50 win seasons.

-Gervin/Gilmore Spurs were good for 48-53 wins going into the the 83 season.

-Portland even before Drexler, were making the playoffs. Houston, Utah, Phoenix Suns were making strides.

-Dallas Mavericks once Blackman, Aguirre, Detlef settled in, were in a game 7 vs. Lakers in 88.

[Akhenaten]

The 80's West was closer to the 80's East than 00's East to 00's West.

What is this opinion based on? Top 8 West teams lost 60% of their matchups vs the top 8 East teams from 1980-1989. Same exact numbers as the top 8 East vs the top 8 West of the 2000's (60%)

2000's East also had 3 teams that won rings from 2000-2010, West had ONE. 2003's East also had more 50 win teams, more 60 win teams, more teams that made Finals appearances. I cant think of what criteria ou could possibly be using to justify your opinion, I'm intrigued to hear it though.


Actually, it's not comparatively worse than the East was compared to the West in most of the early-mid 90's, and I don't remember many making a big deal out of that discrepancy back then.

Thread is about the 80's (80-89) vs the 2000's (00-09), not the 90's. To you not remembering people crabbing about the disparity, the answer's simple we live in the age of micro-analysis.

People in the 80's didnt make a big deal out of what a guy's shooting % was in 1 possession games with 24 secs or less left of the clock either, now we do.

Folks probably didnt give prime Hakeem too much hell for getting knocked out in four consecutive 1st rounds from 88-91 either, let that happen to a Lebron/Kobe/Wade/KD/Carmelo lead team in this era and they would be EVISCERATED.

As humans we always tend to romanticize the past, magnify the positive, marginalize the negative.

[TheBigVeto]

The 1980's western conference is a joke.
That (and David Stern) were the reasons for the Lakers making the finals so many times.

[Psileas]

What is this opinion based on? Top 8 West teams lost 60% of their matchups vs the top 8 East teams from 1980-1989. Same exact numbers as the top 8 East vs the top 8 West of the 2000's (60%)

It's based on the very simple fact that we're comparing East vs West top to bottom, so all those top-8 vs top-8 don't make much sense in the grander scheme. As much as competition is enhanced by great teams, it's deflated by bad ones, so why pretend bad teams don't play a role?
But even going by your criterion, your numbers are way off, according to what Shaq posted: Top-8 West teams lost 54% of their games vs East's top-8 in 1980-89, so, they still fare significantly better than the 2000's Eastern ones.


2000's East also had 3 teams that won rings from 2000-2010, West had ONE. 2003's East also had more 50 win teams, more 60 win teams, more teams that made Finals appearances. I cant think of what criteria ou could possibly be using to justify your opinion, I'm intrigued to hear it though.

West had 2 such teams, and each one won at least as many rings as all the Eastern teams combined. As for the number of Eastern vs Western teams that got to the Finals, the format of the playoffs is the worst possible to judge competition based on it. It's always East's #1 vs West's #1, not Top-2 NBA vs Top-2 NBA. I can't remember of a single Eastern team that has been a consistent NBA power throughout most of the decade (Detroit has been crap during much of the 2000's, so has Cleveland, N.J, Philadelphia, Boston, etc) and I don't think their lack of durability compared to Western ones is due to the level of competition (the overall Eastern record doesn't support this).


Thread is about the 80's (80-89) vs the 2000's (00-09), not the 90's.

My point is that, since the 80's West's record was not very dissimilar to the early-mid 90's East that people don't make any fuss about, I don't see how people put it in the same sentence with the significantly lesser 2000's East.


To you not remembering people crabbing about the disparity, the answer's simple we live in the age of micro-analysis.

People in the 80's didnt make a big deal out of what a guy's shooting % was in 1 possession games with 24 secs or less left of the clock either, now we do.

I won't put comparing East vs West records to the same level of sophistication with advanced stats. I'd been calculating East vs West records once in a while for mere fun many years before starting caring about advanced stats and I strongly doubt many have taken the opposite route. It's not as if it was a well hidden secret among fans even in the 80's that the East was stronger than the West.


Folks probably didnt give prime Hakeem too much hell for getting knocked out in four consecutive 1st rounds from 88-91 either, let that happen to a Lebron/Kobe/Wade/KD/Carmelo lead team in this era and they would be EVISCERATED.

As humans we always tend to romanticize the past, magnify the positive, marginalize the negative.

I say we always tend to romanticize the years that shaped the most our character, feelings and opinions, and usually these are our pre-teen/teen/early 20's years. Past vs present? Judging by this board, there are many fans who love or dislike both periods.
Since I admit that today's (or 2000's) West is more competitive that the 80's West (and probably any version of it), I don't see me belonging to the "romantics" category.

[Akhenaten]

It's based on the very simple fact that we're comparing East vs West top to bottom, so all those top-8 vs top-8 don't make much sense in the grander scheme. As much as competition is enhanced by great teams, it's deflated by bad ones, so why pretend bad teams don't play a role?

ok fine, numbers hash out to

from 80-81 to 89-90

1529-1259 in favour of the 80's East, 55%
2495-1885 in favour of the 2000's West, 57%

Considering we're talking about 600 more games played in the 2000's, 2% is negligible. So equal disparity wise.



But even going by your criterion, your numbers are way off, according to what Shaq posted: Top-8 West teams lost 54% of their games vs East's top-8 in 1980-89, so, they still fare significantly better than the 2000's Eastern ones.

Correct, miscalculation on my part, but as you said above top 8 isn't as important as top to bottom and top to bottom both conferences were equally as bad.



West had 2 such teams, and each one won at least as many rings as all the Eastern teams combined.

I'm going by when the season starts, so 80-81 thru 89-90 I guess you're squeezing the 79-80 Sonics in...ok. The Eastern teams won 3 rings, so are you saying that both Lakers and Sonics won at least three rings?

I think perhaps you mean those two teams combined won twice as many rings as the 2000's East (6 rings to 3 rings)?

If so, it's besides the point I was making by saying that 3 different teams won in 00's. That point being, TOP to BOTTOM the East in the 2000's had easily more teams that either won or were LEGITIMATELY capable of winning a ring/s than the 80's West.


In the 80's West (80-81 thru-89-90), NO TEAM had a shot besides the Lakers and the Rockets for couple seasons THAT'S IT. In the 2000's we had the Pacers, Pistons, Heat, Magic, Celtics (left off the Cavs, Nets and Sixers cause they had no shot of actually winning), even those Cavs and Sixer teams were still 50+ win teams.



As for the number of Eastern vs Western teams that got to the Finals, the format of the playoffs is the worst possible to judge competition based on it. It's always East's #1 vs West's #1, not Top-2 NBA vs Top-2 NBA.

Doesn't matter we are talking top to bottom competitiveness intra-conference, both conferences sucked relative to their counterpart conference so your point is an inane one.


I can't remember of a single Eastern team that has been a consistent NBA power throughout most of the decade (Detroit has been crap during much of the 2000's, so has Cleveland, N.J, Philadelphia, Boston, etc)

Ok 80's West had ONE consistent power we ALL know this, so if your argument for the 80's West being top to bottom more competitive than the 2000's East is that the 80's West had one consistent power while the East had none then that's fine.

I thought the argument was top to bottom who was least crappy lol, while not consistent there were at least a slew of 2000 East teams that would have a LEGIT shot at beating those 80's Lakers. 04 and 05 Pistons, 2000 and 2003 Pacers, 05 and 06 Heat, 08 Celtics and 2010 Celtics, 09 Magic.

Name the 80's West teams that had a legit shot at beating those Lakers outside of the 81 and 86 Rockets? I'll wait.


My point is that, since the 80's West's record was not very dissimilar to the early-mid 90's East that people don't make any fuss about, I don't see how people put it in the same sentence with the significantly lesser 2000's East.


Again this is based on WHAT? We have the head 2 head numbers for both, 2% difference with 600 less games played, less championship contenders in a 10 year span, less 50+ win teams.

How does that distill to the 80's West being SIGNIFICANTLY better than the 2000's East?

[QUOTE=Psileas]I won't put comparing East vs West records to the same level of sophistication with advanced stats.

Huh? FG% in a specific situation is not an "advanced stat"....that's besides the point any way.

The point is your argument that "people" in general were not saying the sky is falling when talking about the 80's West like they do today when talking about the East is asinine because people in those days didn't micro-analyze every little thing like they do now.

In the 80's people cared about Bird vs Magic, nobody called for the 15 win Mavs, or 17 win Clippers (happened twice), or 14 win Rockets, or 22 win Warriors, or 12 win Clippers.

I'm sure you don't remember widespread cries for the Clippers to be contracted out the league either. People nowadays make a big deal out of EVERY LITTLE THING.

Nobody tried minimizing Magic's championship run's because of shitty competition like they do Lebron now. People are FUSSY in 2014, it's the INFORMATION age, so consequently more people have LOUDER opinions on EVERYTHING.

That's the point, just cause people were making a big fuss means that those teams weren't as bad? :biggums:

No it means people just cared less and were less informed.



I'd been calculating East vs West records once in a while for mere fun many years before starting caring about advanced stats and I strongly doubt many have taken the opposite route. It's not as if it was a well hidden secret among fans even in the 80's that the East was stronger than the West.

You were calculating (I doubt you cared about that crap in 1984), nowadays virtually everybody has access to that information and they don't have to calculate we have websites that do all that.

Yes people knew in general the 80's East was better but they weren't KEENLY aware of just HOW bad. They didn't have ESPN and a million media outlets CONSTANTLY pushing the narrative and highlighting PRECISE statistical data of just EXACTLY HOW BAD the West was.

Different time, you're well aware, stop trying to be slick.



I say we always tend to romanticize the years that shaped the most our character, feelings and opinions, and usually these are our pre-teen/teen/early 20's years. Past vs present? Judging by this board, there are many fans who love or dislike both periods.
Since I admit that today's (or 2000's) West is more competitive that the 80's West (and probably any version of it), I don't see me belonging to the "romantics" category.

Again, you don't REMEMBER how bad the 80's West was because the mind tends to remember in narratives, you remember the general narrative that the East was better but you don't remember just how bad it was, the Clippers perennially winning less than 20 games, multiple teams winning under 20 games, The Laker never facing a 45 win team on their way to the Finals in 87.

All that information has been CONDENSED into "The East was better than the West", the details have been naturally eschewed particularly to most distasteful details.

We're all naturally biased you're not above it.

[Psileas]

ok fine, numbers hash out to

from 80-81 to 89-90

1529-1259 in favour of the 80's East, 55%
2495-1885 in favour of the 2000's West, 57%

Considering we're talking about 600 more games played in the 2000's, 2% is negligible. So equal disparity wise.


Correct, miscalculation on my part, but as you said above top 8 isn't as important as top to bottom and top to bottom both conferences were equally as bad.

You know what, you're right in that we're all biased, because you still post wrong numbers for the 80's West. The actual overall record between '81 and '90 was 1497-1291, and the difference between this and the respective 2000's record is a whooping 998-594 (62.7% vs 37.3%), not neglegible at all.


I'm going by when the season starts, so 80-81 thru 89-90 I guess you're squeezing the 79-80 Sonics in...ok. The Eastern teams won 3 rings, so are you saying that both Lakers and Sonics won at least three rings?

I think perhaps you mean those two teams combined won twice as many rings as the 2000's East (6 rings to 3 rings)?

Sorry, I had the 2000's West in mind. Scratch this.
By the way, for cases like this, it's more correct to count decades by using the "1 up to 10" logic than the "0 up to 9".


If so, it's besides the point I was making by saying that 3 different teams won in 00's. That point being, TOP to BOTTOM the East in the 2000's had easily more teams that either won or were LEGITIMATELY capable of winning a ring/s than the 80's West.

In the 80's West (80-81 thru-89-90), NO TEAM had a shot besides the Lakers and the Rockets for couple seasons THAT'S IT. In the 2000's we had the Pacers, Pistons, Heat, Magic, Celtics (left off the Cavs, Nets and Sixers cause they had no shot of actually winning), even those Cavs and Sixer teams were still 50+ win teams.

This goes back to what I've already wrote. We compare decades, so we combined their overall respective seasons. The problem lies in that none of the 2000's teams that you mention were a legit power throughout the whole decade - pretty much never in the 2000's were all these teams title contenders at the same time and, knowing that the whole 2000's East was significantly weaker than the West, this can't be attributed to high levels of competition, but to bad team management. To put it another way: How many title contenders did the 2000's East have compared to 1980 West year by year? And that's still while only talking about elite teams - to which you're too generous to include the Magic, but not enough to include the '88 Mavs that sent the eventual champions to 7 games.


Doesn't matter we are talking top to bottom competitiveness intra-conference, both conferences sucked relative to their counterpart conference so your point is an inane one.

The whole question is: Which sucked more? And all things point out that the 2000's East is on a worse level.


Ok 80's West had ONE consistent power we ALL know this, so if your argument for the 80's West being top to bottom more competitive than the 2000's East is that the 80's West had one consistent power while the East had none then that's fine.

I thought the argument was top to bottom who was least crappy lol, while not consistent there were at least a slew of 2000 East teams that would have a LEGIT shot at beating those 80's Lakers. 04 and 05 Pistons, 2000 and 2003 Pacers, 05 and 06 Heat, 08 Celtics and 2010 Celtics, 09 Magic.

Name the 80's West teams that had a legit shot at beating those Lakers outside of the 81 and 86 Rockets? I'll wait.

See, however you cut it, things don't look better for the East: Top to bottom, I've already posted their numbers, the difference is not negligible. Top teams, the 80's West had the Lakers and once in a while someone more, while the 00's East had some team and once in a while nobody.
Second, I don't see many of the teams you posted posing a serious threat to the Lakers. The Celtics and the Pistons are the ones who'd have a shot. The rest, I don't think so.
Third, what other Western team could beat the Lakers? The Mavs sent them to 7 games and so did the Jazz. Plus, the Suns beat them in 1990.


Again this is based on WHAT? We have the head 2 head numbers for both, 2% difference with 600 less games played, less championship contenders in a 10 year span, less 50+ win teams.

How does that distill to the 80's West being SIGNIFICANTLY better than the 2000's East?

See above.


Huh? FG% in a specific situation is not an "advanced stat"....that's besides the point any way.

I wan't talking about FG%'s in general, but FG%'s in specific situations like the ones you had mentioned in your previous posts. It's not a composite stat like PER (if that's what you mean by "advanced stat"), but it's not something many had in mind in previous decades. Name it "specialized stat" if you don't like the word "advanced" - not many "advanced" stats are really advanced to be honest.


The point is your argument that "people" in general were not saying the sky is falling when talking about the 80's West like they do today when talking about the East is asinine because people in those days didn't micro-analyze every little thing like they do now.

In the 80's people cared about Bird vs Magic, nobody called for the 15 win Mavs, or 17 win Clippers (happened twice), or 14 win Rockets, or 22 win Warriors, or 12 win Clippers.

I'm sure you don't remember widespread cries for the Clippers to be contracted out the league either. People nowadays make a big deal out of EVERY LITTLE THING.

Nobody tried minimizing Magic's championship run's because of shitty competition like they do Lebron now. People are FUSSY in 2014, it's the INFORMATION age, so consequently more people have LOUDER opinions on EVERYTHING.

That's the point, just cause people were making a big fuss means that those teams weren't as bad?

No it means people just cared less and were less informed.

I don't know what you're trying to argue here. My whole point is that the general East vs West debate is not exactly a matter of micro-analysis. People had less info on their hands, but they weren't blind. Not on a matter as basic as "East vs West", so it can't be put in the same category with stuff like "who has the most points per possession/the better FG%'s when the game enters its final 5 minutes and the margin is 5 points or less".
People in the 80's knew the Lakers were going to contend year after year and this fact by itself gave some prestige to the West. In today's East, you have teams going from great to garbage in single seasons and you're expecting that people would need micro-analysis to realize this?


You were calculating (I doubt you cared about that crap in 1984), nowadays virtually everybody has access to that information and they don't have to calculate we have websites that do all that.

Yes people knew in general the 80's East was better but they weren't KEENLY aware of just HOW bad. They didn't have ESPN and a million media outlets CONSTANTLY pushing the narrative and highlighting PRECISE statistical data of just EXACTLY HOW BAD the West was.

Different time, you're well aware, stop trying to be slick.

Of course many wouldn't care how bad the West was, since it almost consistently included one of the GOAT teams and, the Western teams record vs the ones of the East, as I've shown, isn't that bad. A ratio of 57/43 over a whole decade is a lot less negligible than 53.7/46.3. The first means that the 2000's West wins 32% more games vs the East, the second means that the 80's East was winning 16% more games vs the West. Not the same thing, deal with it.

EDIT: Forgot this:


Again, you don't REMEMBER how bad the 80's West was because the mind tends to remember in narratives, you remember the general narrative that the East was better but you don't remember just how bad it was, the Clippers perennially winning less than 20 games, multiple teams winning under 20 games, The Laker never facing a 45 win team on their way to the Finals in 87.

All that information has been CONDENSED into "The East was better than the West", the details have been naturally eschewed particularly to most distasteful details.

Do I have to post percentages once again? Do you think it's going to change anything significant to go year by year? I cared equally about the 80's Clippers with the 00's Bobcats. And when I calculate overall stats, they both enter, so it's not as if I'm excluding what doesn't serve me. After all, I did claim that I'm talking top to bottom, right?