[TakaraJinRoh]

Originally Posted by The Enigma

Other then the Spurs (who actually play an eastern conference type style) no team in the west has proven a thing in terms of being able to win it all. Other then the Spurs, both western teams that made it to the finals proceeded to lose to an eastern team with a worse regular season record.

No other team in the West can prove anything, simply because there's only one team in the West that can represent that conference and the Spurs are the best team in the West. Its no coincidence that everytime they reach the Finals, no EC team can take the title from them. One can make case why Miami won the title over Dallas, but lets not go there. If the officiating is a tad bit more balanced then Dallas would've had a title under its belt in this decade.

[Pioneer10]

Originally Posted by The Enigma

That seems like a great deal of guesswork to me.

The facts are that the team with the best record in the league hailed from the eastern conference that season (Detroit), as did the eventual NBA champions (Miami). I agree that the west is and has been the overall better conference but the disparity in competition was not as wide as you make it out to be. All NBA teams play all NBA teams at least twice a season; it is not as though the Cavaliers benefited from playing the Bobcats 10 plus times.

A ten game swing in favor of the west in adjusted conference disparity seems like reaching to me. Such things simply cannot be quantified as fact to back an individual’s case.

In addition, the Cavs that year I believe had a better record against the West then they did the East.

A part of the reason is probably when the Cavs had injuries (Hughes missed a huge chunk of that year for example) versus when they were healthy. A plain look at record without other factors seems also kind of strange in this MVP argument. People throw out conference record right and left and don't seem to take into account other factors. This year for example the Cavs starters Gibson will have missed more then a month, AV close to two months btw holdout/injuries, Sasha two months btw holdouts/injuries, Hughes before the trade 3 weeks with injuries, Z will miss 2 weeks and then the big trade happened. Thus at first glance the Cavs record in the East doesn't look all that remarkable but where they are is pretty remarkable.

[Pioneer10]

Originally Posted by TakaraJinRoh

The competition is as wide as people make it to be, no way to sugarcoat the disparity there. Simply the WC is far more superior that the East. So with that being said, if you're a WC squad, you would play the Lakers,Suns,Dallas,Golden State,Spurs,NOH,Denver,Houston and Utah x 4 each time.



You play in the mighty East and you face who? Other than Orlando,Boston and Detroit who are the top 3 in that conference, you'll have an easier way collecting W's facing teams like Miami,Milwaukee,New York,Charlotte,Chicago,New Jersey. The 4 other teams are not even good enough to make the playoff spot in the West. Seed #4-8 like Cleveland,Washington,Toronto,Philadelpia would have to fight the # 9 and 10th spot with Denver and Portland and at the end of the day, they barely sniff a playoff seed just to be in contention. Imagine that.

It works in converse though as well. Part of the reason that the West has such good records is that 4 of the 6 worst teams are out West. The Clips, Minnesota, Memphis, and Seattle have been gunning for the ping pong balls since close to the beginning of the year. The East has NY and Miami in this class but after that the rest of the teams at least put up a fight

[The Enigma]

Originally Posted by 23AJ

Again wininng it all has nothing to do with the huge drop off in the East vs. the Western conference. I already tried to explain that in a previous post up above ^

More appealing style of basketball out West ? seems like a clever way in making a disconnect from a fun brand of basketball to the immense talent their is on the teams in the West.

Also Houston Rockets, New Orleans Hornets, Utah Jazz, LA Lakers, and San Antonio Spurs are considered fan friendly style teams ?

Again, there is no way to quantify what you term an immense disparity in team quality and talent.

One would assume that if such were the case one way in which it would manifest itself would be in western teams dominating eastern teams in the finals.

Over the past few season that has not been the case.

The Spurs dominated the Cavs but took the Pistons to a hard fought seven games two seasons prior. Other then the Spurs the rest of the west has proven nothing of the sort.

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I agree that the west is overall better however your claims of it being so much better to support your case for Bryant is a bit shaky. Teams play the schedules they are given and on any given night can lose to anyone. Just because the Lakers won 45 in the west it cannot automatically be assumed that that would translate to 55 wins in the east.

- In the vein of shaky conclusions lacking solid foundations it could be argued that Lebron’s numbers could actually benefit from playing against more uptempo teams and playing on a faster paced team like the Lakers of the past few seasons.

- In response to the arbitrary use of numbers (45 being the eastern 55) 32, 7and 6 on the Cavaliers (one of the slower paced teams in the league) is probably 34, 9 and 8 in LA.

What ifs are magical things you see, when it comes to comparing, predicting and ascribing numbers?

[TakaraJinRoh]

Originally Posted by Pioneer10

It works in converse though as well. Part of the reason that the West has such good records is that 4 of the 6 worst teams are out West. The Clips, Minnesota, Memphis, and Seattle have been gunning for the ping pong balls since close to the beginning of the year. The East has NY and Miami in this class but after that the rest of the teams at least put up a fight

True, but the East will have more teams representing the lottery if we just take overall records into considerationn.

[The Enigma]

Originally Posted by TakaraJinRoh

No other team in the West can prove anything, simply because there's only one team in the West that can represent that conference and the Spurs are the best team in the West. Its no coincidence that everytime they reach the Finals, no EC team can take the title from them. One can make case why Miami won the title over Dallas, but lets not go there. If the officiating is a tad bit more balanced then Dallas would've had a title under its belt in this decade.

The argument should probably be the greatness of the Spurs as opposed to the dominance of the western conference. Two times they represented the west and both times they prevailed, however the two times others represented the west they ended up losing to a lower seeded eastern team.

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Over the last few years that western dominance in the regular season (the Mavs, Rockets, Suns and Lakers of the world) has amounted to nothing when all was said and done.

[S2theONIC]

Originally Posted by The Enigma

The argument should probably be the greatness of the Spurs as opposed to the dominance of the western conference. Two times they represented the west and both times they prevailed, however the two times others represented the west they ended up losing to a lower seeded eastern team.

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Over the last few years that western dominance in the regular season (the Mavs, Rockets, Suns and Lakers of the world) has amounted to nothing when all was said and done.

What are you talking about, there is no question that the WC has been far superior then the East the past couple of seasons. And it doesn't matter how well the Cavs fared against the West in the regular season because it is not the playoffs. The EC playoffs where a joke last season until the Cavs met Detroit pulled the upset then got destroyed by the Spurs, which by the way Cavs had fared well during the regular season.

[S2theONIC]

Originally Posted by Pioneer10

In addition, the Cavs that year I believe had a better record against the West then they did the East.

A part of the reason is probably when the Cavs had injuries (Hughes missed a huge chunk of that year for example) versus when they were healthy. A plain look at record without other factors seems also kind of strange in this MVP argument. People throw out conference record right and left and don't seem to take into account other factors. This year for example the Cavs starters Gibson will have missed more then a month, AV close to two months btw holdout/injuries, Sasha two months btw holdouts/injuries, Hughes before the trade 3 weeks with injuries, Z will miss 2 weeks and then the big trade happened. Thus at first glance the Cavs record in the East doesn't look all that remarkable but where they are is pretty remarkable.

Yes and the Lakers have been healthy all season.