Warriors, Sixers skewing strange reality that East is better than West

Call it Revenge of the East.

For two years conference disparity has been the elephant in the NBA, to the point that people started talking about changing the inherent structure of the playoffs just to try and get more West teams in and more East teams out. It was a running joke, a team would make the playoffs as a mid-tier team, but "in the East." The problem wasn't just funny, though, it was real. Not only were most of the West teams significantly better than their Eastern counterparts, but the West dominated the East in head-to-head record.

That may be changing this season.

Following a night where the top-tier Bulls beat the top-tier Spurs, the high-tier Hawks beat the high-tier Thunder, and the low-tier Bucks demolished the low-tier Nuggets, the Eastern Conference is now 45-40 on the season vs. the Western Conference. We can take this even further, though.

The Warriors basically play on a different level of existence than the rest of the league. So let's remove them. They are a conference unto themselves. The Sixers, on the other end of the spectrum, aren't really an NBA team because they don't really have many NBA players. So if we take those two out, and we just deal with the messy middle?

The Eastern Conference is then 45-29 vs. the West. Sixteen games over .500.

Now of course, you can't remove the Warriors or the Sixers from such an analysis, taking the best West team and the worst East team out of the mix, even if they are egregious outliers. But it does show how much better the East is... at least early. And there are other signs. Ten teams in the East are .500 or better, compared to just seven in the West. There are nine East teams in the top 15 of net points per 100 possessions (adjusted point differential) compared to just seven for the West.

The East has also seen a lot more improvement. Some of this is just natural regression. The West was so strong last year, there had to be an adjustment. The Pelicans (heavily impacted by injury), the Rockets, and the Blazers all took monstrous steps back and are languishing. Meanwhile Orlando, Charlotte, and Indiana are much improved.

Monday, though, showed the real balance we're seeing. The Hawks found themselves in a close game as Russell Westbrook helped storm the Thunder back in the fourth quarter. But Jeff Teague took over and made consecutive big buckets to help hold off OKC. Meanwhile, the Spurs' offense was never able to click. The Bulls have been maddeningly inconsistent, but are 4-2 vs. Western Conference teams and confounded the Spurs defensively.

This isn't to say we can close the book and say "the East is back, baby!" It's been a month, there are five months remaining in the season and things are often wonky in November before settling down the rest of the season. But with the Bulls having racked up wins over the Thunder and Spurs (and having hung with the Warriors), the Hawks getting wins over the Grizzlies and Thunder, with the Rockets looking absolutely horrible, and with the Knicks looking like a .500 team that happens to be in a rough spot in the schedule, it doesn't appear crazy anymore to suggest that maybe, just maybe, the East is finally back on par with the West.

But then, the Warriors play in the West and maybe that's all that matters.