long time guy wrote:
ZephMarshack wrote:
NME wrote:
As for LBJ.. I’m glad we got that 1 year of him being in the best conference on a non super team finally to dent the ‘he makes everyone better’ fallacy. Dude couldn’t even get into the fucking playoffs under those circumstances. Him making everyone around him so much better is a myth, and this is what the majority of his career would have looked like had he spent it in the Western conference to begin with without absolute stars around him.
Meanwhile.. MJ lead teams were in the playoffs almost every year and win 6 out of 6 in the strongest conference. 3 of those with only one other perennial all-star and future HoF’er with him..
I know this forum has always gone over the top with the Jordan hagiography, but the idea that the East was the stronger conference while he was playing is simply too ridiculous.
The East was the better Conf throughout the 80's. 2 of the top 3 teams were always in the the East. First Philly/Boston. then Boston/Detroit. Throughout the 80's the Lakers only faced 2 real challengers. Houston and Dallas. There was only one year where they missed the Finals as I remember. 86 when Houston beat them.
East was much tougher.
The Bulls never really faced any real challenges in the East during the 90's.
Those Knicks teams weren't all that talented. Neither was Indiana.
1st off.. apologies for the semi hi-jack of this thread. I didn't think anyone would really pay much attention to my observation earlier.
2nd..
The both of your responses don't tell the whole story, and are inaccurate at best on both your parts. I think context matters (as always) and I also think there is a part of peoples memory on this topic that is equal parts not old enough to have watched the 90's in their total to begin with, or old enough to have seen it, but jaded by the fact that the disparity between the East and the West from the early 2000's forward has been so lopsided for the better part of a couple decades that 'better' means dominant and obvious.
This is where my comment about 'inaccurate at best' comes into play. Why? Because the dominance of 1 conference over the other wasn't as clear cut and obvious as it has been over the last 20 odd years or so. let me explain..
From 90-91 to 97-98 (the Jordan dominant years) the East had more teams finish at .500 or above in that 8 year span 5-3 with the largest disparity for the East (96-97) having 9 teams finish over .500 while the West produced just 5 that year. In being fair, (91-92) was flip flopped with the West producing 9 teams over .500 to the Easts 5 teams. The most .500 or above teams in a single season during that period goes to the East in (97-98) when they had 10 teams finish at .500 or better.
So in that span, the East was the better conference in that department. That said, the West still produced some really good years and really good teams.
I will also add that in that 8 year span the West produced the NBA's worst team every year. Every. Single. Year.
90-91: Denver 20-62
91-92: Minnesota 15-67
92-93: Dallas 11-71
93-94: Dallas 13-69
94-95: LAC 17-65
95-96: Vancouver 15-67
96-97: Vancouver 14-68
97-98: Denver 11-71
Lets look a little deeper into divisions tho..
Michael Jordan lead teams played in, or tied for the best division in basketball 5 of those 8 years in terms of sending teams to the playoffs. 3 of those years tying with the Wests Midwest conference sending 5 teams apiece, and 2 of those years (94-95 and 97-98) flat out being the best division in the NBA sending 5 teams each of those years. I'll note that in the season Jordan didn't play (93-94) there was a 4 way tie between each division at 4 playoff teams apiece. So 5 out of Jordans 7 years in that span were spent in the best division in Basketball, 2 of those flat out the best in terms of playoff bound teams.
Who had the worst division in Basketball during that span? Its a tie between the Midwest Division in the West and the Atlantic in the East with both finishing with the lowest amount of playoff teams or tying for the lowest amount 5 times apiece, and 2 times each finishing dead last. I will however point out that the worst season between either of them was the Midwest Division in (96-97) when they produced just 2 .500 teams that year.. and in one of its years (97-98) when the Atlantic was the worst in terms of sending teams to the playoffs they had 5 teams finish at .500 or above but the Central was just dominant that year producing teams with better records.
I'll close this post by pointing out that the West was top heavy most years and was not always as balanced as the Eastern conference was. Heres a good way of summing up the differences between both conferences in the 90's.. the West was like a 3rd world country with teams at the very top, and teams at the very bottom with almost Zero middle class. The East was like America, some really good teams at the top, a solid middle class, and a lower class to go along with all of it. And even if for some reason you still want to be stubborn and claim the West was better, the 90's Jordan lead Bulls were 6-0 against their very best teams and never went 7 games against any of them.
Its also nothing more than lazy generalization to claim things like 'those Knicks teams and Pacers teams weren't very talented'. Not when one of those Knicks teams took a very talented Houston team to 7 games in the finals, and right before that the 'not very talented' Pacers took that Knicks team to 7 games. Anyone can simply waive off teams from either conference by claiming things like that. Doesn't make it accurate at all tho. Again, context matters. Besides, its not always the most talented teams that make up the
best teams. It displays either a total lack of understanding, or simple disregard of how teams work to become very good to claim otherwise.
Anyway.. the few of you acting like its ridiculous revisionist history to suggest the East was better in the 90's are wrong. Its close, I'll give it that, but it isn't ridiculous to have this opinion or remember it this way at all.
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