Poll: Which conference is deeper

[celticsclay]

The bottom 3 don't matter since they have the same odds, it is whether the teams like Oklahoma City, Indiana, Sacramento, San Antonio, and New York really enter the tanking discussion.  Those are the teams that can increase their odds if they go more into the crapper.

Yeah Indiana and San Antonio definitely can and should. The spurs did randomly rest Murray, Poetl and Johnson for the same game last week. I think the Knicks have probably already won too many games. Portland is a key team in this too. I believe they lose their pick if they do too well. The shutting down of Nurkic seemed to reek of a tank move.

[Moranis]

East shaved a couple of more wins off the West's lead as the lead is down to 12.  3 best records in west and 4 of top 5.  Rockets are now the worst team followed by Orlando and Detroit.  Pretty typical week last week on the whole.

[Quetzalcoatl]

This is the most even I can remember them honestly

[Moranis]

Great week for the East as the West now only has 3 more wins on the season.  The Warriors have been falling as well and are down to 3 in the West and tied with Miami.  Clippers also falling back, now out of the top 16 so 9 from the East and 7 from the West.  West is still better 1 to 7 and have 5 of the 9 teams at .600 or better.  Lakers keep free falling as well, though still have a 2.5 game lead on the Spurs for 10th. 

[celticsclay]

Great week for the East as the West now only has 3 more wins on the season.  The Warriors have been falling as well and are down to 3 in the West and tied with Miami.  Clippers also falling back, now out of the top 16 so 9 from the East and 7 from the West.  West is still better 1 to 7 and have 5 of the 9 teams at .600 or better.  Lakers keep free falling as well, though still have a 2.5 game lead on the Spurs for 10th.

I was thinking yesterday that the Spurs could potentially catch the Lakers and are the only team with a chance. Portland is both not trying and decimated by injuries (they are 9 point underdogs tonight against detroit for example). Possible the east ties it up tonight. Tanking will also get interesting as there are now 4 teams "competing" for the bottom 3 spots. (unless I am not remembering how this lottery works).

[celticsclay]

Well as we approach the final week of the season, the results on this have really kind of settled out. I don't know if the east or west is ahead by a game or two, but it is very close either way. The more important aspect of this is how the standings look. Even the most insane stretching of a definition of what the words "deep" or "depth" mean can't really create an argument that an eastern conference with an above .500 10th seed in the nets is not deeper than a western conference where the ten seed is the Spurs 13 games under .500. Even the most outlandish contrarian viewpoints couldn't contrive an argument where an eastern conference where the 9 seed is also 2 games above .500 is not deeper than a conference where the 9th seed is 9 games under .500. And I've been on here a long time and read a lot of crazy things, even some written by myself, but surely even if we translated the conversation to french there would be no misunderstanding that a conference with a mind boggling 10 teams over .500 is in fact deeper than a conference with 7 teams above .500. It was a fun debate. TP for MO for engaging throughout the season. Related to this, as every NBA analyst says the east playoffs will be an absolute bloodbath. While the collapses of Golden State and Utah (and appearances of teams like the pelicans and spurs potentially) have really made for a less interesting Western conference playoffs.

[Moranis]

After the 1 game today, the West has 3 more wins.

And you have to account for the 17 wins that Phoenix and Memphis are better than Miami.  You add those 17 wins to the Clippers and Pelicans and they would have a better record than Atlanta and Charlotte (just as every other team in the top 7 would their respective counterparts) and you would still have a few left over to shrink the gap on the Spurs and Nets.

Mediocrity is not depth.  Depth has always implied a level of quality and the West has more good teams.  The betting odds support this (7 of the top 12 and 8 of the top 14 championship odds are in the West), as do countless other subjective factors.

But at the end of the day, the West has more wins than the East in the head to head, which I have been repeatedly told matters the most. 

[gouki88]

After the 1 game today, the West has 3 more wins.

And you have to account for the 17 wins that Phoenix and Memphis are better than Miami.  You add those 17 wins to the Clippers and Pelicans and they would have a better record than Atlanta and Charlotte (just as every other team in the top 7 would their respective counterparts) and you would still have a few left over to shrink the gap on the Spurs and Nets.

Mediocrity is not depth.  Depth has always implied a level of quality and the West has more good teams.  The betting odds support this (7 of the top 12 and 8 of the top 14 championship odds are in the West), as do countless other subjective factors.

But at the end of the day, the West has more wins than the East in the head to head, which I have been repeatedly told matters the most.

What is a "good team"? Both have 6 45+ win teams. The West has one more 50+ win team (the only 60+ win team in the league).

You are also weirdly ignoring how many more bad teams the West has, which I find funny. It's a two way street

[pokeKingCurtis]

I was gonna bump this.

Feels like the East is a bit better at the 8-12th ish spots. Wiz, Hornet's, Pacers. The Lakers would be in an even worse position in the East right? Just a hot take after some Wiz highlights, they look interesting with Porzingas.

Love more parity at any rate. Personally a fan of the east play in race.

[jambr380]

I was gonna bump this.

Feels like the East is a bit better at the 8-12th ish spots. Wiz, Hornet's, Pacers. The Lakers would be in an even worse position in the East right? Just a hot take after some Wiz highlights, they look interesting with Porzingas.

Love more parity at any rate. Personally a fan of the east play in race.

This whole thing is weird. The West is more top heavy and the East is deeper. The 10th place team in the East is 2 games above .500. 10th in the West is 15 games below .500. Sure, the West has a couple of more wins than the East, but that's not what the question is asking.

[pokeKingCurtis]

I was gonna bump this.

Feels like the East is a bit better at the 8-12th ish spots. Wiz, Hornet's, Pacers. The Lakers would be in an even worse position in the East right? Just a hot take after some Wiz highlights, they look interesting with Porzingas.

Love more parity at any rate. Personally a fan of the east play in race.

This whole thing is weird. The West is more top heavy and the East is deeper. The 10th place team in the East is 2 games above .500. 10th in the West is 15 games below .500. Sure, the West has a couple of more wins than the East, but that's not what the question is asking.

I wanna believe it's a culmination of there being more advanced training/scouting and a deeper talent pool, and the rules being more favorable to parity (3s being a great equalizer, but this year more physical defense allowed)

I'm just talking out of my rear end. Hoping this trend of depth and parity continues. But next year the Clips and Nuggets come back healthy, will be interesting to see how that affects things.

[Moranis]

After the 1 game today, the West has 3 more wins.

And you have to account for the 17 wins that Phoenix and Memphis are better than Miami.  You add those 17 wins to the Clippers and Pelicans and they would have a better record than Atlanta and Charlotte (just as every other team in the top 7 would their respective counterparts) and you would still have a few left over to shrink the gap on the Spurs and Nets.

Mediocrity is not depth.  Depth has always implied a level of quality and the West has more good teams.  The betting odds support this (7 of the top 12 and 8 of the top 14 championship odds are in the West), as do countless other subjective factors.

But at the end of the day, the West has more wins than the East in the head to head, which I have been repeatedly told matters the most.

What is a "good team"? Both have 6 45+ win teams. The West has one more 50+ win team (the only 60+ win team in the league).

You are also weirdly ignoring how many more bad teams the West has, which I find funny. It's a two way street

The bottom 2 teams in each conference have basically the same records, the 3rd worst team in the East is slightly worse than the 3rd worst team in the West. 

The 12 wins Phoenix has on Miami and the 7 wins Memphis has on Milwaukee significantly skew the numbers down the conferences, deflating the records of the teams in the West or inflating the records of the teams in the East (or some combination thereof).  That is additionally compounded when the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th best teams in the West all have a better record (by basically a game) than their counterparts in the East, adding 5 more wins.  You take those 24 wins and spread them out on the teams 8-15 and see how the records get adjusted.  And I get that some of those wins would probably go to Eastern teams, but the vast majority would go west. 

Vegas says 8 of the top 14 teams are in the West.  That is more of the good teams.

[Moranis]

I was gonna bump this.

Feels like the East is a bit better at the 8-12th ish spots. Wiz, Hornet's, Pacers. The Lakers would be in an even worse position in the East right? Just a hot take after some Wiz highlights, they look interesting with Porzingas.

Love more parity at any rate. Personally a fan of the east play in race.

This whole thing is weird. The West is more top heavy and the East is deeper. The 10th place team in the East is 2 games above .500. 10th in the West is 15 games below .500. Sure, the West has a couple of more wins than the East, but that's not what the question is asking.

How could the deeper conference not have the better record in the head to head though?

[gouki88]

I was gonna bump this.

Feels like the East is a bit better at the 8-12th ish spots. Wiz, Hornet's, Pacers. The Lakers would be in an even worse position in the East right? Just a hot take after some Wiz highlights, they look interesting with Porzingas.

Love more parity at any rate. Personally a fan of the east play in race.

This whole thing is weird. The West is more top heavy and the East is deeper. The 10th place team in the East is 2 games above .500. 10th in the West is 15 games below .500. Sure, the West has a couple of more wins than the East, but that's not what the question is asking.

How could the deeper conference not have the better record in the head to head though?

Your consistent banging of this drum is just obtuse at this stage. Top heavy =/= depth

[Moranis]

I was gonna bump this.

Feels like the East is a bit better at the 8-12th ish spots. Wiz, Hornet's, Pacers. The Lakers would be in an even worse position in the East right? Just a hot take after some Wiz highlights, they look interesting with Porzingas.

Love more parity at any rate. Personally a fan of the east play in race.

This whole thing is weird. The West is more top heavy and the East is deeper. The 10th place team in the East is 2 games above .500. 10th in the West is 15 games below .500. Sure, the West has a couple of more wins than the East, but that's not what the question is asking.

How could the deeper conference not have the better record in the head to head though?

Your consistent banging of this drum is just obtuse at this stage. Top heavy =/= depth

But how do they have a better record if they are top heavy?  Wouldn't all of those crappy teams at the end of the conference lose to their counterparts more than the Phoenix and Memphis of the world beat theirs?

Or maybe just maybe it is the fact that Phoenix and Memphis are so good that it deflates the records of the rest of their conference and they are in fact the deeper and better conference.