Western Conference Executives Apparently Wanting To Eliminate Conferences Because It's Too Hard To Compete Is Some All Time Loser Shit

“Instead of dealing with that thorny competition, West executives told ESPN they believe both issues can be corrected by dropping conferences altogether and seeding teams 1 through 16 regardless of geography. The concept has been raised before. But expansion, the thinking goes, would create a reason to take a fresh look.” 

I am begging the NBA to stop embarrassing themselves. Please. Just give me one day without some sort of anonymous source is saying something that further embarrasses the league I love.

Sorry, this is some of the biggest loser shit I've ever heard. It's too tough to compete in the West because there are so many good teams so instead of sucking it up and getting better, these execs just want the easy way out? Grow up. Have some pride. Stop looking for handouts. 

Now, this isn't to say there isn't currently an imbalance between the two conferences. I mean, the records are the records

When an 11 seed would basically be in play for a Top 4 seed in the East, I'm not denying that there's a shit ton of suck in the Eastern Conerence right now compared to what's happening in the West. At the same time, nobody expected the Bucks, Pacers, and Sixers to be mostly dogshit. My guess is that over the course of 82, things will correct themselves the same way there will be some regression in the West. 

Also, full disclaimer, as someone who roots for a team that dominates the East and benefits from this type of playoff field, that obviously influences my stance here. Credit to me for being man enough to admit that.

The thing is, nobody cried for the Celts when they had to go through the playoff gauntlet in 2022 (Nets Big 3, Giannis, Playoff Jimmy, Steph etc) and you didn't hear Celts execs crying like this. Sometimes playoff runs are easy, sometimes they're hard. That's sports! If you don't like it and you want an easier path, win more games! 

Let's also not pretend like every Western Conference playoff run is nothing but world beaters. For example, the Nuggets didn't beat a single 50 win team on the way to their title. In 2022-23 the Conference balance was basically flipped

and I don't remember hearing all this crying from West teams during that season. The whole idea just reeks of teams that are scared and are more interested in running from the grind than figuring out how to improve enough to make deep playoff runs. Sort of sums up our current generation no?

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Is it "fair" that a really good team in the West might miss the playoffs or be subjected to the Play In when a team in the East will probably be a 6 seed while being under .500? I dunno, that's life. That's how the cookie crumbles and sometimes life isn't fair. Forget the fact that this would really only work if everyone from both conferences were playing the same teams the same amount of times, and don't even get me started on how the schedule for that would work.  

Knowing Adam Silver gets legitimately sexually aroused at the idea of drastically changing the NBA as we know it, you can't totally rule out something like this. The issue is as history has shown, these things change all the time. One year it might be West heavy, the next year it might be East heavy. The same people who are crying that things are too hard now will one day  be crying that they missed the cutoff.

The real answer is stop looking for shortcuts into contention and be a competent organization. It's harder, there's no guarantee it happens, but at least you're not crying like a baby because life isn't fair.