The Eastern Conference Is Currently Shaping Up To Be An Absolute Bloodbath This Season

For a while, when people debated which conference was better/had more talent between the East and the West, it felt like the West dominated that argument for a long time. Slowly but surely though we're started to see the East make a comeback, and I would now argue that as we enter the 2022-23 NBA season that it is the Eastern Conference that not only has the better collection of overall talent, but it also has a much better collection of teams. Part of that is for sure tanking, with the West now the owners of potentially 4 teams that are going to actively tank (UTA/SA/OKC/HOU). In the East, you have what, maybe just IND/ORL? I'm not sure I feel comfortable putting DET in that group again this year, but I don't think it's crazy to suggest the majority of the tanking should be expected to come from the West. 

Last season, I would say that while the West may have had the better top end teams in PHX/GS/MEM, the East was for sure the deeper conference. Just look at the win totals/standings

You had a team 10 games under .500 and a team 14 games under .500 make the play in tournament in the West. Even the lottery teams from the East like the Knicks/Wizards won more games than some of the play in teams in the West. 

When it comes to individual talent, things are starting to get more even in terms of the All NBA rosters. This year of the 15 spots for the three teams, 7 were from the East. That improved from 6 players in 2020-21, and 5 players in 2019-20. When you look at the first 2 teams, so arguably the top 10 players in the league that season, 5 of them were from the East (Giannis, Tatum, DeMar, Durant, Embiid). That's up from 3 in 2020-21.

If you wanted to go even more granular and look at MVP candidates, there's obviously the back to back winner in Giannis who is in the conversation every year. Embiid has come close the last few years, KD was in the conversation when healthy, and now you have a guy like Tatum who is coming into that conversation the same way another young guy like Luka is in the West. The point is, everywhere you look you can see that the East is certainly on the come up.

Now enter this offseason. We've seen even more talent get inserted into this conference. All Star Dejounte Murray went from the Spurs to the Hawks. All Star (and potentially fringe All NBA guy) Donovan Mitchell just went from the Jazz to the Cavs. Jalen Brunson who is a legit starting point guard went from the Mavs to the Knicks. That's on top of all the natural progression you should expect to see from the players who were already in the East. There wasn't anywhere close to the same type of movement of players from East to West, so now when you look at everyone's roster really within the top 9-11 seeds in the East, it's a bloodbath.

For example, it's tough to really gauge teams like BKN/CHI/CLE because they are absolutely better than their final seeding showed. BKN didn't have their 3 best players for the majority of the season, and both the Bulls and Cavs were decimated by injuries. Remember, the Nets were a 1 seed before KD got hurt. Then the Bulls were a 1 seed for a long stretch before they lost Lonzo/Caruso. The Cavs were a top 4 seed pretty much through the All Star break despite losing Rubio and then Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley for stretches. My assumption is now that those teams are healthy and the Nets didn't blow their team up, those teams will be even better this year. Considering those three teams were the 7, 8 and 9 seeds last year when you factor in the summer that all three have had you could make the case that all 3 could absolutely end up in the top 6, so who gets bumped out? 

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If you look at the top 8 teams in terms of NBA title odds, 5 of them are in the East including 2 of the top 3. The Celts are the overall betting favorites at the moment. In the West, I think we have a pretty good idea of how the top of that conference is going to shake out. In the East? Things are way more wide open to me. You could make a legit case for 5-6 teams to end up being the best in the conference when things are all said and done.

So what does this mean for my favorite team? The one who many expect to win a shit ton of games and the NBA title? I say bring it on. I love the competition and that things won't be easy. I'll just let Jaylen take it from here