Worse conference: 1980's West or 2000's East

[Akhenaten]

It's based on the very simple fact that we're comparing East vs West top to bottom, so all those top-8 vs top-8 don't make much sense in the grander scheme. As much as competition is enhanced by great teams, it's deflated by bad ones, so why pretend bad teams don't play a role?

ok fine, numbers hash out to

from 80-81 to 89-90

1529-1259 in favour of the 80's East, 55%
2495-1885 in favour of the 2000's West, 57%

Considering we're talking about 600 more games played in the 2000's, 2% is negligible. So equal disparity wise.

But even going by your criterion, your numbers are way off, according to what Shaq posted: Top-8 West teams lost 54% of their games vs East's top-8 in 1980-89, so, they still fare significantly better than the 2000's Eastern ones.

Correct, miscalculation on my part, but as you said above top 8 isn't as important as top to bottom and top to bottom both conferences were equally as bad.

West had 2 such teams, and each one won at least as many rings as all the Eastern teams combined.

I'm going by when the season starts, so 80-81 thru 89-90 I guess you're squeezing the 79-80 Sonics in...ok. The Eastern teams won 3 rings, so are you saying that both Lakers and Sonics won at least three rings?

I think perhaps you mean those two teams combined won twice as many rings as the 2000's East (6 rings to 3 rings)?

If so, it's besides the point I was making by saying that 3 different teams won in 00's. That point being, TOP to BOTTOM the East in the 2000's had easily more teams that either won or were LEGITIMATELY capable of winning a ring/s than the 80's West.


In the 80's West (80-81 thru-89-90), NO TEAM had a shot besides the Lakers and the Rockets for couple seasons THAT'S IT. In the 2000's we had the Pacers, Pistons, Heat, Magic, Celtics (left off the Cavs, Nets and Sixers cause they had no shot of actually winning), even those Cavs and Sixer teams were still 50+ win teams.

As for the number of Eastern vs Western teams that got to the Finals, the format of the playoffs is the worst possible to judge competition based on it. It's always East's #1 vs West's #1, not Top-2 NBA vs Top-2 NBA.

Doesn't matter we are talking top to bottom competitiveness intra-conference, both conferences sucked relative to their counterpart conference so your point is an inane one.

I can't remember of a single Eastern team that has been a consistent NBA power throughout most of the decade (Detroit has been crap during much of the 2000's, so has Cleveland, N.J, Philadelphia, Boston, etc)

Ok 80's West had ONE consistent power we ALL know this, so if your argument for the 80's West being top to bottom more competitive than the 2000's East is that the 80's West had one consistent power while the East had none then that's fine.

I thought the argument was top to bottom who was least crappy lol, while not consistent there were at least a slew of 2000 East teams that would have a LEGIT shot at beating those 80's Lakers. 04 and 05 Pistons, 2000 and 2003 Pacers, 05 and 06 Heat, 08 Celtics and 2010 Celtics, 09 Magic.

Name the 80's West teams that had a legit shot at beating those Lakers outside of the 81 and 86 Rockets? I'll wait.

[QUOTE=Psileas]My point is that, since the 80's West's record was not very dissimilar to the early-mid 90's East that people don't make any fuss about, I don't see how people put it in the same sentence with the significantly lesser 2000's East.


Again this is based on WHAT? We have the head 2 head numbers for both, 2% difference with 600 less games played, less championship contenders in a 10 year span, less 50+ win teams.

How does that distill to the 80's West being SIGNIFICANTLY better than the 2000's East?

I won't put comparing East vs West records to the same level of sophistication with advanced stats.

Huh? FG% in a specific situation is not an "advanced stat"....that's besides the point any way.

The point is your argument that "people" in general were not saying the sky is falling when talking about the 80's West like they do today when talking about the East is asinine because people in those days didn't micro-analyze every little thing like they do now.

In the 80's people cared about Bird vs Magic, nobody called for the 15 win Mavs, or 17 win Clippers (happened twice), or 14 win Rockets, or 22 win Warriors, or 12 win Clippers.

I'm sure you don't remember widespread cries for the Clippers to be contracted out the league either. People nowadays make a big deal out of EVERY LITTLE THING.

Nobody tried minimizing Magic's championship run's because of shitty competition like they do Lebron now. People are FUSSY in 2014, it's the INFORMATION age, so consequently more people have LOUDER opinions on EVERYTHING.

That's the point, just cause people were making a big fuss means that those teams weren't as bad?

No it means people just cared less and were less informed.

I'd been calculating East vs West records once in a while for mere fun many years before starting caring about advanced stats and I strongly doubt many have taken the opposite route. It's not as if it was a well hidden secret among fans even in the 80's that the East was stronger than the West.

You were calculating (I doubt you cared about that crap in 1984), nowadays virtually everybody has access to that information and they don't have to calculate we have websites that do all that.

Yes people knew in general the 80's East was better but they weren't KEENLY aware of just HOW bad. They didn't have ESPN and a million media outlets CONSTANTLY pushing the narrative and highlighting PRECISE statistical data of just EXACTLY HOW BAD the West was.

Different time, you're well aware, stop trying to be slick.

I say we always tend to romanticize the years that shaped the most our character, feelings and opinions, and usually these are our pre-teen/teen/early 20's years. Past vs present? Judging by this board, there are many fans who love or dislike both periods.
Since I admit that today's (or 2000's) West is more competitive that the 80's West (and probably any version of it), I don't see me belonging to the "romantics" category.

Again, you don't REMEMBER how bad the 80's West was because the mind tends to remember in narratives, you remember the general narrative that the East was better but you don't remember just how bad it was, the Clippers perennially winning less than 20 games, multiple teams winning under 20 games, The Laker never facing a 45 win team on their way to the Finals in 87.

All that information has been CONDENSED into "The East was better than the West", the details have been naturally eschewed particularly to most distasteful details.

We're all naturally biased you're not above it.

[Psileas]

ok fine, numbers hash out to

from 80-81 to 89-90

1529-1259 in favour of the 80's East, 55%
2495-1885 in favour of the 2000's West, 57%

Considering we're talking about 600 more games played in the 2000's, 2% is negligible. So equal disparity wise.

Correct, miscalculation on my part, but as you said above top 8 isn't as important as top to bottom and top to bottom both conferences were equally as bad.

You know what, you're right in that we're all biased, because you still post wrong numbers for the 80's West. The actual overall record between '81 and '90 was 1497-1291, and the difference between this and the respective 2000's record is a whooping 998-594 (62.7% vs 37.3%), not neglegible at all.

I'm going by when the season starts, so 80-81 thru 89-90 I guess you're squeezing the 79-80 Sonics in...ok. The Eastern teams won 3 rings, so are you saying that both Lakers and Sonics won at least three rings?

I think perhaps you mean those two teams combined won twice as many rings as the 2000's East (6 rings to 3 rings)?

Sorry, I had the 2000's West in mind. Scratch this.
By the way, for cases like this, it's more correct to count decades by using the "1 up to 10" logic than the "0 up to 9".

If so, it's besides the point I was making by saying that 3 different teams won in 00's. That point being, TOP to BOTTOM the East in the 2000's had easily more teams that either won or were LEGITIMATELY capable of winning a ring/s than the 80's West.

In the 80's West (80-81 thru-89-90), NO TEAM had a shot besides the Lakers and the Rockets for couple seasons THAT'S IT. In the 2000's we had the Pacers, Pistons, Heat, Magic, Celtics (left off the Cavs, Nets and Sixers cause they had no shot of actually winning), even those Cavs and Sixer teams were still 50+ win teams.

This goes back to what I've already wrote. We compare decades, so we combined their overall respective seasons. The problem lies in that none of the 2000's teams that you mention were a legit power throughout the whole decade - pretty much never in the 2000's were all these teams title contenders at the same time and, knowing that the whole 2000's East was significantly weaker than the West, this can't be attributed to high levels of competition, but to bad team management. To put it another way: How many title contenders did the 2000's East have compared to 1980 West year by year? And that's still while only talking about elite teams - to which you're too generous to include the Magic, but not enough to include the '88 Mavs that sent the eventual champions to 7 games.

Doesn't matter we are talking top to bottom competitiveness intra-conference, both conferences sucked relative to their counterpart conference so your point is an inane one.

The whole question is: Which sucked more? And all things point out that the 2000's East is on a worse level.

Ok 80's West had ONE consistent power we ALL know this, so if your argument for the 80's West being top to bottom more competitive than the 2000's East is that the 80's West had one consistent power while the East had none then that's fine.

I thought the argument was top to bottom who was least crappy lol, while not consistent there were at least a slew of 2000 East teams that would have a LEGIT shot at beating those 80's Lakers. 04 and 05 Pistons, 2000 and 2003 Pacers, 05 and 06 Heat, 08 Celtics and 2010 Celtics, 09 Magic.

Name the 80's West teams that had a legit shot at beating those Lakers outside of the 81 and 86 Rockets? I'll wait.

See, however you cut it, things don't look better for the East: Top to bottom, I've already posted their numbers, the difference is not negligible. Top teams, the 80's West had the Lakers and once in a while someone more, while the 00's East had some team and once in a while nobody.
Second, I don't see many of the teams you posted posing a serious threat to the Lakers. The Celtics and the Pistons are the ones who'd have a shot. The rest, I don't think so.
Third, what other Western team could beat the Lakers? The Mavs sent them to 7 games and so did the Jazz. Plus, the Suns beat them in 1990.

Again this is based on WHAT? We have the head 2 head numbers for both, 2% difference with 600 less games played, less championship contenders in a 10 year span, less 50+ win teams.

How does that distill to the 80's West being SIGNIFICANTLY better than the 2000's East?

See above.

Huh? FG% in a specific situation is not an "advanced stat"....that's besides the point any way.

I wan't talking about FG%'s in general, but FG%'s in specific situations like the ones you had mentioned in your previous posts. It's not a composite stat like PER (if that's what you mean by "advanced stat"), but it's not something many had in mind in previous decades. Name it "specialized stat" if you don't like the word "advanced" - not many "advanced" stats are really advanced to be honest.

The point is your argument that "people" in general were not saying the sky is falling when talking about the 80's West like they do today when talking about the East is asinine because people in those days didn't micro-analyze every little thing like they do now.

In the 80's people cared about Bird vs Magic, nobody called for the 15 win Mavs, or 17 win Clippers (happened twice), or 14 win Rockets, or 22 win Warriors, or 12 win Clippers.

I'm sure you don't remember widespread cries for the Clippers to be contracted out the league either. People nowadays make a big deal out of EVERY LITTLE THING.

Nobody tried minimizing Magic's championship run's because of shitty competition like they do Lebron now. People are FUSSY in 2014, it's the INFORMATION age, so consequently more people have LOUDER opinions on EVERYTHING.

That's the point, just cause people were making a big fuss means that those teams weren't as bad?

No it means people just cared less and were less informed.

I don't know what you're trying to argue here. My whole point is that the general East vs West debate is not exactly a matter of micro-analysis. People had less info on their hands, but they weren't blind. Not on a matter as basic as "East vs West", so it can't be put in the same category with stuff like "who has the most points per possession/the better FG%'s when the game enters its final 5 minutes and the margin is 5 points or less".
People in the 80's knew the Lakers were going to contend year after year and this fact by itself gave some prestige to the West. In today's East, you have teams going from great to garbage in single seasons and you're expecting that people would need micro-analysis to realize this?

You were calculating (I doubt you cared about that crap in 1984), nowadays virtually everybody has access to that information and they don't have to calculate we have websites that do all that.

Yes people knew in general the 80's East was better but they weren't KEENLY aware of just HOW bad. They didn't have ESPN and a million media outlets CONSTANTLY pushing the narrative and highlighting PRECISE statistical data of just EXACTLY HOW BAD the West was.

Different time, you're well aware, stop trying to be slick.

Of course many wouldn't care how bad the West was, since it almost consistently included one of the GOAT teams and, the Western teams record vs the ones of the East, as I've shown, isn't that bad. A ratio of 57/43 over a whole decade is a lot less negligible than 53.7/46.3. The first means that the 2000's West wins 32% more games vs the East, the second means that the 80's East was winning 16% more games vs the West. Not the same thing, deal with it.

EDIT: Forgot this:

Again, you don't REMEMBER how bad the 80's West was because the mind tends to remember in narratives, you remember the general narrative that the East was better but you don't remember just how bad it was, the Clippers perennially winning less than 20 games, multiple teams winning under 20 games, The Laker never facing a 45 win team on their way to the Finals in 87.

All that information has been CONDENSED into "The East was better than the West", the details have been naturally eschewed particularly to most distasteful details.

Do I have to post percentages once again? Do you think it's going to change anything significant to go year by year? I cared equally about the 80's Clippers with the 00's Bobcats. And when I calculate overall stats, they both enter, so it's not as if I'm excluding what doesn't serve me. After all, I did claim that I'm talking top to bottom, right?