East ist still least, West is still best - Dallas-Mavs.com Forums

mavErika · 01-26-2011, 12:07 PM

After seeing a lot of games go overtime last week, including three games on the day the Mavs played their 41th game of the 2010/11 campaign in a losing-streak busting win over the Lakers, I was wondering if my memory served me correctly, that the Mavs didn't have a single OT-game at the halfway mark through the regular season. To determine if that's true and as remarkable as I figured it to be, I clicked the "expanded standings" tab for probably the first time this season and learned:

A) Yes, I remembered that right of the top of my head, but no, that's not that amazing. While there have been, as of today, 81 overtime-games played this season, there are three other teams who haven't had one.

and B) Against the impression I got (probably from listening to Espn-type talking heads too much) and Melo would get if he'd be listening to JKiddo, the East sucks. Mightily. So much so, that I figured I should rather make a post about that (btw, sorry for tricking you into reading non-newsworthy stuff about the lack of Mavs overtime games in the all-nba section - what can I say, the "research" was already done). But then I was, as usually, to lazy to do it immediately and soon after worried, if the stats would still read as amazing a week after checking. But they do, and now, here I am. And just to save me from the boring task of adding up a lot of numbers, I decided John Schuhmanns overall East-vs-West-stats from Monday's Power Rankings (which I also had not checked for while) would be good enough, just to see that this exact theme was the keynote of this week's edition. So here you go, first some copy-and-pasting from nba.com, afterwards some additional thoughts from looking at espn's expanded standings:

Quote:

When marquee free agents like Carlos Boozer and Amar'e Stoudemire went from the Western Conference to the East last summer, we thought it might bring more balance to the NBA landscape.

So far, the East looks to be just as shallow as ever, with fewer teams above .500 (six) than it had last season (seven). The Philadelphia 76ers, for example, are on pace to earn the No. 7 seed with a 34-48 record.

Further, the West is currently 148-107 in games against the East, which is the most lopsided it's been since the 2003-04 season. Eight West teams are above .500 overall, but 11 of them have winning records against the East.

The East still has five strong teams at the top, but with the recent struggles of the New York Knicks, those are the only five that would make the playoffs in the West.
[...]
East vs. West: The West is 148-107 (.580) against the East in inter-conference games this season, and was 17-10 last week.

One fact I found to be utterly amazing is (kind of) mentioned above. There are 11 teams in the West that have overall winning records against the East, to just 5 Eastern teams with +.500 records vs. the West respectively (now it's six- damn you Phoenix and Utah for losing to Philly!!) - (not) coincidentally the five teams Schuhmann speaks of when evaluating the East as a top-heavy conference: BOS, CHI, MIA, ORL and ATL.
Is it really fair to call the East a top-heavy conference that is dominated by five really good teams, though (I'm aware of the fact that J.S. has not explicitly wrote that here)? Just how top-heavy is the East? Well, very much so:

In the East, there is 1 (in words: one) team with an above .500 record against above .500 competition. The Boston Celtics. After them, the closest to .500 in that column are the Bulls at 8-9 and the Heat at 8-10(we did our part to help get the former over the top, and also to keep the ladder from accomplishing that feat). In contrast, five Western teams currently have winning records against that sort of competition.

To wrap it up, in my book, there is exactly one Eastern team that has impressed thus far, while others are tweeners who look like world-beaters by beating up the inferior teams their conference consists of a lot. I know that's not totally fair to teams that had injuries and a hard time coming together (Mia, Chi) or made a trade with results that are skewed by full-season numbers(Orl), but who am I to make excuses for them.

As you can probably tell by now, unlike heat index writers and Hollinger Johns, who see these games as a better indicator for play-off success than close W's over "good" opponents, I don't put too much stock in blow-out victories against "bad" teams.

Now you tell me, am I onto something or is it absurd grant just one Eastern team the "elite"-tag?
And if you think it's crazy, I dare you to come up with a better way to disrespect the Miami cHeat! (And no, actually not talking about them doesn't count.

)

mavErika · 01-26-2011, 12:39 PM

Btw, the poll allows multiple choices and results are public. And sorry for not accounting for the possibility that there are no elite teams in the East at all.

Dtownsfinest · 01-26-2011, 02:42 PM

Yea but I think the top 5 teams in the West and the top 5 teams are of all the same skill level. Anything after five for the East is just terrible.

Texinwa · 02-06-2011, 01:23 AM

Hello folks, 1st post. The West is stacked as usual. Boston imo is easily the class of the east, Miami can contend, but their thin front line will do them in imo. The team that would concern me, not as a contender, but as a spoiler, would be Chicago. Their a scoring wing player away from contending. They got a great pg, a tough front line once Noah returns from injury, and they are a tough defensive team. Would watch out for them in the future.

xrobx · 02-06-2011, 09:14 AM

i read the poll and decided to throw a vote to the wizards to support john wall, then to my surprise, they are leading the poll 3-2, with the 2 being "what is this thread about again." i think this confirms the upcoming wizards dynasty

mavErika · 02-07-2011, 08:45 PM

Quote:

East vs. West: The West is 172-123 (.583) against the East in inter-conference games this season, and was 13-7 last week.

http://www.nba.com/2011/news/powerra...k15/index.html

Quote:

Originally Posted by xrobx

i read the poll and decided to throw a vote to the wizards to support john wall, then to my surprise, they are leading the poll 3-2, with the 2 being "what is this thread about again." i think this confirms the upcoming wizards dynasty

There are still some doubters on the board though, "w.i.t.t.a.a.?" has taken a narrow lead - which is probably a strong indication for the rightness of my original posting policy of not writing long posts (or threads for that matter) whenever I'm too damn tired to think straight.
When nearly finished I was thinking even less clearly and my wobbly mind was an easy target for the temptations of the poll feature and got carried away. That's how you end up with a crazy poll that is only slightly related to the thread it is created in.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Texinwa

Hello folks, 1st post. The West is stacked as usual. Boston imo is easily the class of the east, Miami can contend, but their thin front line will do them in imo. The team that would concern me, not as a contender, but as a spoiler, would be Chicago. Their a scoring wing player away from contending. They got a great pg, a tough front line once Noah returns from injury, and they are a tough defensive team. Would watch out for them in the future.

Welcome! Good first post! Chicago is an intriguing team with the success they already have right now, I wonder what they'll look like when (if ever) they have all hands on deck. For Miami, other Eastern team fans have to hope that Haslem takes his time recovering and that a fresh-legged Damp still isn't able to do much damage. I'm just glad we have our two wins in the pocket and hope some team bounces them from the playoffs.

mavs777 · 02-08-2011, 02:20 AM

Chicago is a good SG away from being a scary good team and a title contender

mavErika · 02-16-2011, 05:26 PM

two well-founded, although a little bit outdated articles with tables and analysis regarding the importance of elite-vs-elite records, that reach differing conclusions: