Despite belief that the East was set to become stronger than ever after the Knicks championship, the rising Hawks, Giannis and Bam teaming up, a Sixers super team, a revitalized Wizards squad, a young and hungry Detroit team, Kawhi to the Raptors, a potentially healthy Indiana and more, circumstances have made the East come out of the gate weaker than ever with the exception of the few top teams

The West‘s 78% winning percentage against the east is the highest it’s ever been in history.

The west has won the head-to-head battle with the east in 24 of the last 27 seasons

kidfrombellwood

21 | 8 hours ago

Do you agree that we should relegate the Eastern Conference to the D-League for being inferior?

Morezingis [OP]

3 | 8 hours ago

No, just hurry up with this expansion so we can come play you guys more times

AroundNdowN

1 | 3 hours ago

Can’t wait to see the Wolves win the exact same number of games when they switch conferences.

kidfrombellwood

-4 | 8 hours ago

There’s no need to hurry because it won’t change the fact that the Eastern Conference needs to be relegated to the D-League because they are inferior.

yourloudneighbor

1 | 5 hours ago

I was thinking Chinese Basketball league but D/G league might be easier/cheaper

Vet100

109 | 8 hours ago

The 76ers, Pistons, Celtics & Knicks have 1 played game v the west between them. And the Suns, Clippers, Jazz & Kings haven’t played the east.

It’s way too early. I think there’s probably 5 genuine playoff teams in each conference, and the remaining 3 that make it won’t do much. I thought OKC were the favourites but with their injuries I’m less sure now. So remains to be seen.

Mosh00Rider

11 | 5 hours ago

We played the East today and won.

tylerconley

9 | 5 hours ago

The magic don’t count they’re awful

Sharp-Selection-3541

3 | 3 hours ago

Common misconception but the Magic are actually in the Leastern conference.

Alexcox95

10 | 7 hours ago

Sixers don’t have to play an away game against a western conference team until Christmas

12footjumpshot

5 | 5 hours ago

It was the same last season why does the NBA do that?

PianoJealous307

10 | 7 hours ago

LeSchedule

azure275

1 | 3 hours ago

The Knicks and Celtics aren’t much better to be fair

IllegitimateRisk

12 | 8 hours ago

Yeah NBA is trying to capture our attention with a northeast brawl while the west pretenders get to take on the hawks and heat.

dafdiego777

-1 | 8 hours ago

We just beat the Celtics

djabae

-1 | 4 hours ago

Without Paul George. They didn’t take you guys seriously enough to play him.

dafdiego777

1 | 3 hours ago

I live in boston and can say this is not true. everyone was bummed they treated it as a schedule loss

onelegonedream

2 | 8 hours ago

I actually like this bit and hope someone posts the West vs East record after every day, we need a running tally to figure out which conference is better obviously

JudoExpert

1 | 4 hours ago

The raptors have played the Clippers

Extension-Click-8271

1 | 2 hours ago

Interesting. What are they afraid of? Come play out west cowards

New-Process-6463

-8 | 7 hours ago

OKC wont even make the second round

redditcherry

5 | 7 hours ago

Talk your shit while we’re down 3 starters.

purplenyellowrose909

2 | 5 hours ago

SA knows a thing or two about beating injured teams

New-Process-6463

0 | 4 hours ago

You play the opponent in front of you

BradyReas

9 | 8 hours ago

But too early for this type of convo

Andy_Wiggins

25 | 8 hours ago

The Wolves are currently #1 in the league in net rating and are 6-3, yet they are sitting 8th in the Western Conference Standings.

Meanwhile the 4th seed Atlanta Hawks are currently 5-4 and sit #13 in net rating.

The top 4 teams in net rating and 6 of the top 7 in net rating all reside in the Western Conference.

TukkerWolf

4 | 8 hours ago

Yeah, it’s early in the season so a lot will change, but I really thought the west would be weaker and east stronger than they are. The Trailblazers, Warriors and Grizzlies look stronger than expected while the Heat, Magic and Pacers look weaker than expected.

But the scheduling has been really weird for some teams. Why did the Grizzles already play the Jazz and Kings twice?

OpeDefinitely

5 | 8 hours ago

The Pacers started off a little rusty, but they’ve looked more promising than their record suggests - at least outside of a disaster 1st half against the Mavs in the 2nd game.

Problem is that they’ve been running a hospital squad out there. An early stretch of 3 games in 4 nights in which Rick inexplicably ran everybody into the ground. Gave up a big lead in the 2nd half of the 4th game because guys had no legs, then got too hurt to field viable rosters. At one point, the Pacers only had 6 healthy players to play in a game - 3 heavier minute bench guys and 3 two ways.

Zubac and Nembhard were back against Memphis, and the team got back to playing winning basketball. Tyrese and Oubre should be back within a week. Not sure what TJ’s status is, but the Pacers will be just fine if just TJ misses some time.

Interestingly (and annoyingly), the Pacers have not won a single game at home, but are 3-2 on the road. Also 1-5 vs the East, but 2-1 vs the West. Of course, 9 games is such a small sample size that these differences are meaningless; just a function of when the team was relatively healthy vs not.

PianoJealous307

3 | 8 hours ago

Net ratings don’t mean that much.

The Sixers have the best record in the NBA and are only #9 in net rating, but if you see their games it’s obvious that they fuck around for most of the game and lock-in only when he’s needed.

Andy_Wiggins

9 | 8 hours ago

Net rating is the single best indicator of team quality. Better than record.

It’s still super early so the data is noisy as fuck and at least partially dependent on whom you’ve played, but net rating is objectively a super valuable stat.

icemankiller8

6 | 7 hours ago

What was the Knicks net rating last year

PianoJealous307

5 | 7 hours ago

So why last year the Knicks were #5 in net rating while the freakin Hornets were #8?

Tall-Dot-607

1 | 3 hours ago

Some variables occur in every data set. Hornets had the highest net rating of any team to not make the playoffs since we started tracking net rsting in 1984.

They are clearly an exception. Also, everyone know the knicks switched up their playstyle in the playoffs

Lucky13200

1 | 3 hours ago

Because all stats have noise including records. Net rating is a valuable stat to evaluating teams but you cant just look at one stat and really understand teams. We definitely have seen teams that coast in the regular season and turn it on in the playoffs (Knicks definitely have stretches where they dont play up to their standards). So no stat is ever going to be able to be able to perfectly predict what going to happen going forward.

Admirable_Let_2961

5 | 8 hours ago

Early days

Lanky_Form8169

4 | 7 hours ago

All non conference consecutive 3 or 4 game road games have been played in the west. Lakers will be first west coast team to travel more than 3 days out east so this stat isn’t surprising

walter_____pinkman

1 | 3 hours ago

Never understood this “rising Hawks” stuff.

coolcatt9998

2 | 4 hours ago

It’s always a competition with y’all. u/morezingis

irundoonayee

5 | 8 hours ago

Same old

torbsorbs

1 | 8 hours ago

Yup, then the west champ will look unstoppable, be heavy favorites against the 3seed from the east, and it will go 7

jalGurg

0 | 8 hours ago

The East sucks and Lebron is there…. Is it 2016 again?

New-Process-6463

-6 | 7 hours ago

Why do u think LeBron is there. He can only win in weak conferences

djabae

2 | 4 hours ago

Weird how everytime Lebron is in the East it’s “weak.”

The West currently has an 18-5 record against the East this season.