If the Eastern Conference is extremely bunched up, the Western Conference is as well — you just have to exclude the Golden State Warriors and San Antonio Spurs from the picture first.
Yes, the East is a bumper-car battle, with the top 10 teams separated by three games and the second through eighth seeds separated by a single dime-thin game. Yet, in the West, this same larger picture of clutter is similarly apparent… once you get past the top two teams in Oakland and the Alamo City.
For perspective on how the West has changed, consider the standings on December 11, 2014:
Golden State 19 2
Memphis 17 4
Houston 17 5
Portland 17 5
L.A. Clippers 16 5
San Antonio 16 6
Dallas 17 7
Phoenix 12 11
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Sacramento 11 12
New Orleans 10 11
Denver 10 12
Oklahoma City 9 13
L.A. Lakers 6 16
Utah 6 16
Minnesota 5 16
Naturally, everyone expected Portland to suffer due to the departure of LaMarcus Aldridge. That has in fact happened. The Trail Blazers are 8.5 games worse (17 games lower, relative to the .500 mark) than they were at this point last season. It’s the teams other than Portland which tell the true story of how the West is going south this season.
Memphis had reason to be concerned heading into this campaign, and so far (despite Matt Barnes’s game-winner on Wednesday night in Auburn Hills against the Pistons), the Grizzlies’ worst fears have been realized. Without Barnes’s answered prayer, the Grizz would be 12-11, stuck in third gear and largely bereft of new ideas, as a quicker and smaller pair of teams — OKC and the Warriors — joins the Spurs in passing them by. Given how mediocre most of the West has been, Memphis really should be in third place if the vision and blueprint for the franchise are working. A modest fifth-place tie with Dallas is not where the Grizzlies should be.
Speaking of Dallas, the earlier example of the Portland Trail Blazers helps to illustrate how remarkably well the Mavericks have done through 23 games. The fall-off-the-cliff scenario in Portland is what was supposed to victimize Dallas, but Rick Carlisle, Dirk, and Deron Williams have had nothing of it. The 13-10 record is modest, but it represents a heck of an achievement under the circumstances. In the absence of a collapse, Dallas appears to be solidly in the playoff field this season. You would have had a hard time convincing longtime NBA watchers in October that the Mavs were going to be a playoff team this season.
Portland was the expected flameout in the West, but the unexpected crash-and-burn has unfolded in Houston, where the Rockets — despite a valuable win in Washington on Wednesday night — remain under .500 after more than one-fourth of the NBA season has been played. Overall inattentiveness at the defensive end of the floor, combined with a conspicuous lack of leadership skills from James Harden — exposed again as a player who doesn’t knit together the locker room or inspire his teammates the way the greatest players manage to do — has grounded Houston. The only reason the Rockets have a shot at the playoffs is that their conference has clearly declined.
Last season, 45 wins were needed to claim the No. 8 seed. The season before, 48 wins did not even guarantee the 8 seed, as the Phoenix Suns illustrated in the spring of 2014. This year, the Rockets — through 23 games — own the No. 8 spot despite their 11-12 mark. Sacramento, at 8-15 and 13th in the West, is only three games out of the eighth spot.
As we mentioned almost two weeks ago, the ninth through 12th spots in each conference show how the East and West have undergone a role reversal. The East is more likely to provide a 45-win eighth seed and feature a better competition for the final few playoff spots… at least when seen through today’s vantage point. (It could be very different by January 11.)
Here’s one more stat which lends some definition to the East-West comparison, relative to December 11, 2014: We noted in our overview of the East that only one team (injury-depleted Washington) had lost at least five more games at this point in the season.
In the West?
Try four (Houston, Memphis, Portland, and New Orleans).
It’s true that Utah and Minnesota have surged from the lower reaches of the conference a year ago to become a playoff placeholder (Jazz) and a playoff contender (T-Wolves). It’s also true that a less-injured Oklahoma City club has improved; however, that’s merely a consequence of fewer injuries, not necessarily a recalibrated way of playing or a discovery of the sweet spot for first-year head coach Billy Donovan.
The West has a lot of ground to make up. The severe declines of several teams represent the biggest stories, but the slight decline of the Phoenix Suns (under what should be favorable circumstances) could also turn out to be the difference between the No. 8 seed and another offseason as a lottery team.
We’ll see where we are when the 41-game mark arrives. Nevertheless, the new West bears little resemblance to the West of yesterday (if “yesterday” means December of 2014).
