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The contrast in quality between the might of the Western Conference and the continued weakness of the Eastern Conference has sparked more murmurs of reform in the NBA.
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has an idea to solve the problem, but his solution may be a little self-serving.
During the second half of what turned into a surprisingly exciting match between New York and Dallas, Cuban joined the ESPN commentary team. While renowned for his outbursts against NBA’s City Hall, Cuban floated a reasonable and intriguing idea to solve the disparity between the two conferences.
Cuban’s idea is to take four teams out of the Southwest Division and swap them with four teams from the Central Division. The four teams Cuban mentioned are the Houston Rockets, New Orleans Pelicans, San Antonio Spurs and Cuban’s Dallas Mavericks.
Houston, San Antonio and Dallas are all based in Texas. Last season the three Texas teams made the playoffs – with the Spurs taking the title – while the Pelicans are building a solid team around Anthony Davis, the man who appears set to dominate the league for the next decade.
If these four teams and their records were to be put straight into the Eastern Conference at the time of writing, they would all hold a playoff seed.
The four teams that would go the other way in Cuban’s proposal are the Chicago Bulls, Detroit Pistons, Indiana Pacers and Milwaukee Bucks. At the time of writing – the close of games for Friday, November 28 – the Bulls and Bucks hold the third and fourth seed respectively, the Pacers are in ninth, while the Pistons are only being kept off the bottom by the hapless 76ers.
If put in the west with their current record, Chicago would be level with Phoenix for the eighth seed, with Milwaukee settling into tenth.
This speaks of the difference between the two conferences, even though they have played extra games against the struggling east, the fourth ranked team wouldn’t crack the playoffs in the Western Conference. In head-to-head matches this season, the Western Conference leads the East 45-19. Reform needs to be made, as Tom Ziller pointed out for SBNation.
The Western Conference has ruled over the East for 12 out of the last 13 seasons, with 2009 the only season the East has come out on top in inter-conference match-ups.
Cuban’s proposal has merit. The four teams that would depart the West would be playoff teams and would certainly create more depth in the East, while Chicago and Indiana are the only teams leaving the East that have had sustained success within the last five seasons.
The teams entering the East would be set for a period of dominance though, which undoubtedly suits Cuban and his Mavericks. The bottom of the East will continue to be dominated, Philadelphia won’t expect to climb up the ladder if they have to face San Antonio instead of Detroit.
Texas is bordering the Eastern Conference, so this wouldn’t increase travelling in the playoffs, which is the biggest opposition to abandoning conferences all-together and just having the top 16 in the playoffs.
However, Minnesota and Memphis are both further East than the Texas three, and why Cuban would take four teams out of a five-team division seems a little picky. Cuban obviously wants his Mavericks in the easier conference, but this option creates a stronger eastern playoffs. The teams leaving the east would undeniably try to fight being shifted to leaner pastures, so this proposal most likely won’t even be considered by head office.
Some kind of shake up is required between the conferences and this proposal makes more sense logistically than removing the conferences. While travel is easier than ever before, if the playoffs began today, Miami would be travelling across the entire nation to meet Golden State in a seven-game series, a difficult task.
The NBA will probably hold their breath and wait for the conferences to even up, but the Western Conference has been a Goliath for nearly a decade and a half now and doesn’t look like slowing down.
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