West vs. East

[SameOldNudityDrew]

Here's a question. Why is the Western Conference consistently better than the East?

Here are the last 11 years of stats from ESPN (as far back as they go in the "standings" column), based on the year the playoffs started. The first percentage is the winning percentage needed to make the playoffs in that conference, and the second is the number of teams with a winning percentage higher than .600. For at least 11 years straight, and probably going back longer, the Western Conference has required a higher winning percentage to make the playoffs and had more teams crack .600 (except for one tie in 2006).

Things have been in a bit of a decline in recent years in terms of teams over .600 (5 each year after several seasons of getting 6 or even 8! in 2008). But they're still consistently fielding more good teams than the East.

2013, W-.549 (5), E-.463 (3)
2012, W-.545 (5), E-.530 (3)
2011, W-.561 (5), E-.451 (4)
2010, W-.610 (8), E-.500 (4)
2009, W-.585 (6), E-.476 (3)
2008, W-.610 (8), E-.451 (3)
2007, W-.512 (5), E-.488 (2)
2006, W-.537 (3), E-.488 (3)
2005, W-.549 (6), E-.512 (2)
2004, W-.524 (6), E-.439 (2)
2003, W-.537 (6), E-.512 (1)
2002, W-.537 (5), E-.512 (2)

My theory is not just talent (Kobe, Duncan, and Shaq have been a huge part of that imbalance), but also coaching stability. I remember seeing someplace that the coaching tenures in the West are often much longer. I think that's changed a bit in recent years as Sloan left the Jazz, and then Jackson retired. Pop is still doing his thing. What do you guys think?

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

These are outstanding numbers. I think it's always assumed that the West is better, and man oh man, it's been that way for over a decade!

[markkbu [enjin:6588958]]

Nice post Drew. I think that you are correct about coaching tenures and talent, I think that it has something to do with over franchise quality. The knicks have been a mess of an organization for a very long time. Milwaukee always seems to make questionable moves. Wizards had a guy with a gun in the locker room. Charlotte just seems to make bad decisions (MJ is over his head). Atlanta goal for many years seems to get booted in the first round or the playoffs.

When I think of poorly run franchises over a longer period of time, most of those are in the East.

That might add to it.

[SameOldNudityDrew]

That's a good point Markkbu. Some teams just don't seem to have winning cultures, and others do. And it seems like the East seems to have some really bad teams. I wonder sometimes how much the fan base and owners have to do with it. Atlanta seems like it SHOULD have a good fan base, but just doesn't. But that can't be all of it, because the Knicks have a great fan base (yes, they're harsh and impatient, but they're ridiculously passionate about that team--and it helps that you're in the biggest city in the country), but their team has struggled for years. And that's where I think ownership might come in. Obviously, Isaiah was a bad GM for them, but the decisions they've made in recent years too have not generally worked out. There I think Dolan is partly to blame. He's just not the kind of guy that commands respect from the players, and he doesn't signal confidence in his front office so everybody's looking over their shoulder making short-term decisions, which is how you get saddled with bad contracts.

[horatio81 [enjin:7751176]]

The thing to remember about professional sports is that even with (arguably) too many teams, you're looking at a relatively small sample size. It honestly doesn't take more than 2-3 inept GMs, great players, or bad breaks (one way or the other) to skew the numbers pretty heavily. In fact, what percentage of the disparity could we potentially chalk up to the Spurs alone? I'm not saying there isn't a pattern or that it isn't occasionally quite pronounced, but a small handful of changes could easily swing the next ten years in the other direction.

And the East hasn't exactly been losing NBA Finals of late...

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

The thing to remember about professional sports is that even with (arguably) too many teams, you're looking at a relatively small sample size. It honestly doesn't take more than 2-3 inept GMs, great players, or bad breaks (one way or the other) to skew the numbers pretty heavily. In fact, what percentage of the disparity could we potentially chalk up to the Spurs alone? I'm not saying there isn't a pattern or that it isn't occasionally quite pronounced, but a small handful of changes could easily swing the next ten years in the other direction.

And the East hasn't exactly been losing NBA Finals of late...

When talking about the whole conferences themselves, I think it's definitely more than just a few GMs skewing the numbers, especially considering this was about playoff teams rather than bottom feeders. Also, the East winning NBA Finals as of late? You're using that, seriously? The Miami Heat (LeBron James) has won the last two.

Here's the last 11 champions:

*Heat (E)
*Heat (E)
*Mavs (W)
*Lakers (W)
*Lakers (W)
*Celtics (E)
*Spurs (W)
*Heat (E)
*Spurs (W)
*Pistons (E)
*Spurs (W)

6-5 in the West's favor. When determining conference strength, looking at the NBA champion does relatively nothing, in my opinion. The Heat being champions doesn't mean the East is strong as a whole. That's pretty clear considering after the fourth seed, the East is weak.

[SameOldNudityDrew]

I think it's fair to consider who won the championship, and by that measure, the conferences definitely look a little more balanced at the very top. That doesn't discredit the fact that the Western conference has fielded a playoff bracket that had more teams win more games over the last decade or more.

And that's not just the Spurs. Look at the numbers that I compiled. Those are the lowest winning percentages of the 8th seed in each conference, and the West consistently had teams with higher percentages than the East. And the second number, teams above .600, shows, well, that there have been more elite teams in the West. There, the disparity has narrowed. At one point, you could pretty much bank on 6 West teams cracking .600 and only 2 East teams doing so. Now it's more like 5 and 3.

Among the very top one team, there seems to be more balance, and at the same time, the West has just had more consistently top teams. Those are compatible, and interesting, facts.