Is the NBA Eastern Conference the Worst Ever?

Below .500 records are commonplace in the NBA Eastern Conference. Over the past three seasons, NBA East teams who have lost more games than they've won have still found themselves with a chance to make the playoffs. The sub-par play of Eastern teams has led many fans and NBA analyst to ask, is the NBA Eastern Conference the worst conference to ever exist since the NBA birth?

It's difficult to pit generation against generation in basketball standards. For example, determining whether the players of the 60's were better than the players of the 90's generation is almost impossible. So how can we know? The truthful answer is that we can't know for sure. Many analysts have suggested that this group of Eastern Conference players is worse than any assembled group ever and haven't blinked twice to consider it further. When's records look poor, as they do currently, it's easy to sit back and proclaim that this group is a significant failure. But let's take the challenge of getting to the bottom of this issue.

First, we should consider the contrary of the popular analyst opinion. Could the NBA Western Conference be one of the best ever? This could quite possibly be the case. The number of dominant teams out west is growing. The Spurs, Mavericks, Suns, Jazz, Rockets, Lakers, Clippers, and Warriors all have great talent and each has developed into a force in its own right. The talent of each team is greater in the Western Conference than the Eastern. This fact alone is reason to suggest that the West is simply just outstanding. In comparison, the Eastern Conference simply looks dominated, which may be the reason for the false conclusions that the East is the worst conference ever.

Next, we examine the talented players in the Eastern Conference. The East features several stars worthy of mention. Players like LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, Paul Pierce, Dwight Howard, and Jermaine O'Neal all have All-Star talent of superior level. Each of these players and many more could easily match-up with players in the Western Conference. As for the question of "all-time" level, these players are the caliber that can cross-compare to other generations. The James' and Wade's of the East could certainly match-up with similar players of the 80's and 90's which were the good ole days of the NBA.

Finally, we as people are extremists. Fifteen games in the young season analysts were already ready shout to the heavens that this group is the worst. Why so extreme? Maybe they aren't great, but do we automatically have to award them the title of the Worst Ever? The hyperbolic nature of our analysts and fans in today's world is unfair to the players of our generation. As fans and analysts, we should let the season play out and focus our personal and professional analysis on comparing the teams of today and not the teams of different generations.