It's weird, I've been on a couple other sites and nowhere obsesses over conference quality as much as Niketalk.
The West has been better than the East for awhile now.. that much is clear. But the constant complaining over it just confuses me. We get it.. the West is stronger, let's just give it a rest already. Like I just read that Cleveland couldn't beat Utah in a 7 game series..
stop it.
It always seems like it's a combination of crappy team' fans who complain about conference quality like their squad would be title contenders if they played in the East.. or fringe contenders who wish they had a slightly easier path. Then there's the whole "Lebron hasn't beaten enough 50 win teams" which is such an arbitrary complaint and number to constantly bring up. Lebron has flaws and criticisms, but he can't control the quality of his conference. And no, he isn't "scared to go West" like it's a rite of passage or some nonsense
This is the format, this will likely be the format for awhile. The issue isn't East vs West, it's that we play 82 damn games and then we let half the league in the playoffs, then add 7 game series, TV scheduling, etc.. We get basketball fatigue.
The only glaring thing about the conference disparity is there were 3 contenders in the West this year compared to 1 in the East. That's it. And considering we have 2 of those contenders squaring off right now, we're hardly missing out . The "best case" scenario is SAS plays against Cleveland, so we're 1 team away. The problem in the playoffs hasn't been the East being so much weaker, it's just been an odd mix of blowouts, injuries, and boring matchups.