Poll: Which conference is deeper

[celticsclay]

The main point of the discussion is the West is better and deeper than the East.  That was true at the beginning of the season and is true now.  And for someone that made such a point to hammer the record home, to completely ignore the record and the trends now is nothing but pure hypocrisy.  Don't be shouting scoreboard in the 1st quarter, then start ignoring it as the scoreboard starts to change.

I believe the East at full strength or anything close to resembling full strength is deeper than the west. I still believe that. I even think that they still have a chance of evening out and coming ahead of the  west head to head if this Covid thing doesn’t continue with 65% of inactive players and many stars indefinitely sidelined for the East. I think that for the same reason I have thought all season. At reasonable strength I think the East has more good teams.

Surely you are not so ignorant and stubborn to claim that if the nets are down 10 players for two weeks including Durant and harden this impacts the depth of the East and the spirit of what we have been discussing for two months now? Or that if the bucks are missing Giannis for an extended time for Covid it impacts their wins? Like this is something a 5 year old understands. (And hilariously far from hypocrisy I may add).

I would like to see Durant, Giannis, young, lavine, harden etc come back (oh can’t forget davion mitchell, Alex len and fox lol) soon and not just watch a bunch of crap basketball for the next month. If you don’t see how this matters and impacts the debate we can just drop and agree to disagree. I really do hope this improves regardless of this discussion because right now the product is worse. I think the Celtics would have clearly won tonight If Covid didn’t make kanter their only big that had to guard Embid for 40 minutes. It sucks.

[celticsclay]

Really good data here on a lot of the things I have been talking about. https://www.theringer.com/nba/2021/12/22/22849108/nba-health-advantages-disadvantages-bucks-lakers-warriors

In particular the chart on the salary lost and connection to record is pretty black and white on how Covid is impacting the season right now.

Also a little insight into white Phoenix and golden state may appear to be so much better than the rest rest of the league (particularly in comparison the injury/Covid destroyed bucks and nets) “The three best teams this season, by both record and underlying metrics, are the Warriors, Suns, and Jazz—and in addition to their inherent talent, those squads are benefiting from relative health compared to the rest of the league. Golden State has used only five different starting lineups this season, while Phoenix and Utah have used only four—tied for the fewest in the league.”

It was fun seeing joe Johnson score a bucket tonight. But it is pretty clear the way the nba is handling the pandemic is completely creating chaos in the standings (there are also some real eye opening stats on the bucks in this article also). I hope we get all the players boosted and away from the kind of carnival like games we have seen the last few weeks. I loved yelling scoreboard today when the Covid ravaged hawks got blown out by the magic tonight cause none of this stuff impacts results lol

[Moranis]

Weekly update time. Only 1 game today between the East and West, which the West won, but the week did favor the East as the West now only has 7 more wins in the head-to-head as opposed to 10 last week.  3 best records in the sport are all in the West and the 2 worst records are in the East.  East did pick up a team in the top 16 though and now has 9 of those to the West's 7.  The 20th team is only 2 games behind the 10th team though (and that is the Clippers whose game today isn't finished, so they could get even closer), so a lot of parity (and 26th team OKC is only 5 games out of 10th).  The longest winning streaks in the sport right now are just 3 games by just the Warriors, Jazz, Bucks, and Heat and only the Warriors and Jazz are 8-2 (or better) in the last 10 and inversely only Portland, Orlando, and Detroit are 2-8 or worse (only 12 of the 30 teams are 6-4 or better). 

[celticsclay]

Weekly update time. Only 1 game today between the East and West, which the West won, but the week did favor the East as the West now only has 7 more wins in the head-to-head as opposed to 10 last week.  3 best records in the sport are all in the West and the 2 worst records are in the East.  East did pick up a team in the top 16 though and now has 9 of those to the West's 7.  The 20th team is only 2 games behind the 10th team though (and that is the Clippers whose game today isn't finished, so they could get even closer), so a lot of parity (and 26th team OKC is only 5 games out of 10th).  The longest winning streaks in the sport right now are just 3 games by just the Warriors, Jazz, Bucks, and Heat and only the Warriors and Jazz are 8-2 (or better) in the last 10 and inversely only Portland, Orlando, and Detroit are 2-8 or worse (only 12 of the 30 teams are 6-4 or better).

We unfortunately seen Covid cases start to rise some for western teams with Minnesota being particularly weakened at the moment. The East has started to get guys back from Covid absences including young, Giannis, lavine and harden (with Durant expected back this week. Butler has also returned for heat though bam is still a ways off. The clippers who already lacked depth have also lost george for what me be a month or longer. Unfortunately whether the east or west is decimated by Covid/injuries it’s not what I want to see. I hope we are back to seeing more meaningfull matchups soon even though the east will probably pick up more games this week.

[celticsclay]

As the east have recovered from having lavine, young, Durant, harden and others out with Covid they have continued to gain ground. Only 3 or 4 games back now I believe. Did some lazy counting so may be off. After their surprising win streak rockets have tumbled back to reality losing 7 straight all by double digits. I’m also starting to really think portland is another flat out bad team in the west after a 2-11 month with a ton of blowouts. Chicago definitely has shown they need to be taken seriously as they have climbed to a winning percentage of .700 and are tied with the jazz in the loss column. Have to be very impressed with demar right now who appears to be the steal of the off-season.

For current Covid status
Hawks have a mind boggling 12 players currently on the list. It is unclear if they will have games canceled this week.

Wizards are second with 8
Blazers third with 7

Big names currently out with Covid include Tatum, ayton, draymond,  randle, sga and towns, russell, garland, jarret allen.

[Moranis]

Yes it is a 4 game lead entering today.  2 games today.  Miami at Sacramento and Phoenix at Charlotte.  They will probably split, but even if West wins both, the East will have picked up some ground over the last week.

[mobilija]

I know there has been lots of discussion on how to objectively assess which conference is deeper and/or better and head to head win loss record seems to be best, but I'm seeing some flaws. Especially if we are talking about depth and not which is best.

As has been pointed out before, the West has arguably the two best teams and the East has the two worst. Does this create an imbalance when aseessing depth? More likely wins for the west bc of two juggernauts to help beat up the average east teams and two cupcakes to get crushed by avg west teams.

Would it make sense, in order to assess depth, to cut out the top two and bottom two teams of each conference? Then count head to head records. This way you are evaluating the meat of each conference and disregarding the outliers. Truly evaluate who has more avg to good quality.

Btw, keep counting the overall for the best discussion.

[celticsclay]

I know there has been lots of discussion on how to objectively assess which conference is deeper and/or better and head to head win loss record seems to be best, but I'm seeing some flaws. Especially if we are talking about depth and not which is best.

As has been pointed out before, the West has arguably the two best teams and the East has the two worst. Does this create an imbalance when aseessing depth? More likely wins for the west bc of two juggernauts to help beat up the average east teams and two cupcakes to get crushed by avg west teams.

Would it make sense, in order to assess depth, to cut out the top two and bottom two teams of each conference? Then count head to head records. This way you are evaluating the meat of each conference and disregarding the outliers. Truly evaluate who has more avg to good quality.

Btw, keep counting the overall for the best discussion.

I mean I agree with this, any it is more about the spirit of what I meant when I started the discussion. But I didn’t feel like arguing anymore about the meaning of a deep conference. So kind of has just broken down to head to head. I will add the pistons are certainly far and away the biggest outlier at 2-11. No other team is more than 5 or 6 games below .500 in either conference. (And this is after Detroit had a very improbably win yesterday).

[Moranis]

Weekly update.  The East picked up 1 game this week, as the West's lead is now down to 6 more wins.  The 3 best records all still in the West and the 2 worst records are still in the East.  Each conference has 8 of the top 16, though the next 4 after that are in the East.  I'd still argue that is because the top 3 teams are in the West and the bottom 2 are in the East which affects all of the records in the middle and which disproportionately favors the Eastern teams.

Since it was brought up GS is 16-4 against the West and 12-3 against the East.  Phoenix is 18-7 against the West and 10-1 against the East.  Chicago is 15-7 against the East and 9-3 against the West.  Brooklyn is 17-7 against the East and 6-4 against the West.  So looking at the top 2 teams from each conference they are 49-18 against the West and 54-18 against the East.  So they have 5 more wins against the East, making it the easier conference for the top 2 of each conference.

Doing the same thing for the 2 worst teams in each conference Detroit is 4-17 against the East and 2-11 against the West, Orlando is 4-22 against the East and 3-8 against the West, Houston is 4-15 against the West and 6-13 against the East, and New Orleans is 8-14 against the West and 5-9 against the East.  So collectively that is 17-48 against the West and 19-61 against the East.  So a slightly better win percentage against the West than the East or the inverse of the good teams. 

[PhoSita]

I really don't understand why people are so invested in this debate

[celticsclay]

I really don't understand why people are so invested in this debate

Can only talk so much about the Celtics with the way they have played.

[Moranis]

I really don't understand why people are so invested in this debate

Can only talk so much about the Celtics with the way they have played.

Yep.  Pretty much.  Only so many things to talk about, so why not talk about something else and something you really can only talk about this year after years of easy and complete dominance by the west.

[Moranis]

Conferences played even on the week as the West still maintains 6 more wins than the East in the head to head.  Top 2 records in the West, though Chicago now has the 3rd best record edging ahead of Utah, however Utah is 4th and Memphis is 5th so 4 of the top 5 records are in the West, though 6 through 9 are in the East.  8 of the top 16 are from each conference and the East is still bringing up the rear with the bottom 2 (though Detroit is getting closer to Houston).   No teams are above .800 any more and now only Orlando is below .200, which puts the percentages at the top and bottom much more in line with history. 

[celticsclay]

Conferences played even on the week as the West still maintains 6 more wins than the East in the head to head.  Top 2 records in the West, though Chicago now has the 3rd best record edging ahead of Utah, however Utah is 4th and Memphis is 5th so 4 of the top 5 records are in the West, though 6 through 9 are in the East.  8 of the top 16 are from each conference and the East is still bringing up the rear with the bottom 2 (though Detroit is getting closer to Houston).   No teams are above .800 any more and now only Orlando is below .200, which puts the percentages at the top and bottom much more in line with history.

Yea, not a hugely interesting fascinating lines outside of the return of Klay. Will see if the Warriors pull away from the west with him back now. Utah and Phoenix are definitely good teams, but I don’t think they were head and shoulders better than the rest of the league. It is kind of interesting Paul is becoming an iron man in his late 30’s. Also continue to be more and more impressed with memphis. I am thinking maybe this could actually translate to the playoffs. On other end of spectrum Sacramento needs to blow this up/retool asap. They have had every chance to pick up games the last few weeks against decimated teams and lose just about every one, often in blowouts.

In the east nets appear to have a bunch of issues that are not going away. I am wondering what they do to mix that team up. I like Claxton, mills, Durant and harden off that roster but not sure who else can even be a consistent role player in the playoffs for them. I don’t think Harris is going to magically save them either.

[Moranis]

The Nets with Durant and Harden will be fine and who knows what Irving will bring.  They have enough role players around the top 2 that could beat anyone in a playoff series.  I'm not saying they will as I've pretty consistently maintained I think Milwaukee will repeat, but it wouldn't surprise me if the Nets won the title as Durant is the 2nd best player in the world and Harden certainly has the potential to be a top 5 player (and absolutely should be a top 10 player).  Now Harden hasn't played all that well, but I think a lot of that was conditioning coupled with the rule changes.  I think this is supported by his last 8 games in which he has averaged 27.6 ppg, 10.1 apg, and 8.6 rpg and upped his FG% to 45% while shooting 3 extra more FT's a game (10.1 over the last 8 games).  In other words, Harden has started to look more like the old Harden the last couple of weeks.  Mills and Harris are good quality starters and the combination of Griffin and Aldridge has worked out.  Claxton seems to like doing the dirty work.  Bembry has flashes of top end potential and has some really good games.  Brown is competent.  The Nets should absolutely still be a top 3 title favorite (with Milwaukee and Golden State).