Death. Taxes. The NBA Western Conference being conclusively and comprehensively better than the Eastern Conference.
We have lived with this reality in the NBA for some time, and at the All-Star break, we could very well see it in evidence yet again.
However, it certainly doesn’t exist right now. After one month of very uneven professional basketball, the Western Conference is a tissue-thin realm where only two teams have flexed their muscles and a third is beginning to show signs of joining the top tier. Otherwise, the West has become a lot more flawed than most suspected.
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How deep and pervasive is the carnage in the West? The simple facts speak for themselves:
— Only three teams are better than two games over .500.
— The fourth-place team is a group of Dallas Mavericks which, by any reasonable measurement, is overachieving.
— The ninth- through 12th-place teams in the East have a composite record of 30-32. Teams 9 through 12 in the West are a combined 25-39.
— The 12th-place team in the East is 6-7 Washington, which has been severely hampered by injuries. The 12th-place team in the West is 6-10 Portland, diminished more by offseason transactions and an inability to finish games, most notably the gack attack a few weeks ago against the lowly Houston Rockets.
— Speaking of the Rockets, they’re 6-10 and show no real signs of improving.
— The New Orleans Pelicans, which were supposed to be a poster child for the West’s quality depth this season, are 4-12, a few games worse than the 6-10 Denver Nuggets and the 6-10 Sacramento Kings.
— Atlanta had lost six of its last nine, but the Hawks outscored the Grizzlies in the second half to the tune of 63-43 in Memphis, pulling away for a comfortable 116-101 decision. Memphis has slowly and slightly improved since the Mario Chalmers-Beno Udrih trade, but the Grizzlies are much more a break-even team than a contender in the making.
— The Los Angeles Clippers are 8-8 through 16 games. Along with the Grizzlies, Rockets and Pelicans, this team is performing well below preseason expectations. Has the injury to J.J. Redick mattered? Of course it has. Yet, this team had the knife to the throat of the Golden State Warriors — twice — and failed to finish. This team should not be where it is. Period.
— The Minnesota Timberwolves and the Dante Exum-less Utah Jazz are both promising teams bursting with young talent. Yet, they are limited teams. That they are holding down the last two West playoff slots at the moment — ahead of Phoenix and Houston and New Orleans — suggests that the West’s hold on the “superior depth” label is tenuous at best.
— New Orleans is 0-5 against the East this season. Houston is 2-4. Small sample size? Yes. However, six games represent 20 percent of a non-conference schedule. That paints the Rockets’ mark against the East in a slightly different (and more substantial) light.
— Teams 9 and 10 in the West — Phoenix and Denver — have lost their last nine games combined. Phoenix is immersed in a four-game losing streak, Denver in a fat and ugly “L-5.” Denver’s difficulties are to be expected. Phoenix has had to play the Spurs and Warriors over the past 10 days, but two losses (one home and one away) to the 4-12 Pelicans? That shouldn’t happen to a team which could very well snatch a playoff seed by season’s end.
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It’s only one month. That pronouncement can never be made too often on Thanksgiving Weekend in the NBA. Noted for the record, your honor.
Yet, if we’re sitting here on Christmas Day with a similar dynamic in place, we’ll have to give more credence to the idea that the old balance of power in the NBA might be giving way to something different and far more fluid.
