With the acquisitions of Carmelo Anthony and Deron Williams in the past week to the East Coast, there have been rumors about the demise of the West and it may be happening before our eyes.
For the last decade on the backs of the San Antonio Spurs and Los Angeles Lakers the Western Conference have had a stranglehold on the top spots in the NBA and now the league is seeing a major shift in talent to the other coast.
The eyes have been on the New York Knicks and the New Jersey Nets in terms of where the NBA is going and it truly is heading in the direction of East Coast superiority because of the major markets that line the Atlantic.
The Boston Celtics notwithstanding with their odd decision to trade Kendrick Perkins to the Oklahoma City Thunder, it seems for the most part that the best teams are now sitting in the Eastern Conference, where for years the opposite was always true.
When you look at the top of the West, it's the names that have held true as I said earlier, the Spurs and the Lakers, but when you look at the other major contenders from the West, are they true championship contenders?
The Oklahoma City Thunder are absolutely a title contender now with Perkins because the one flaw they did have before the trade was the lack of an aggressive big and they added two of them in Perkins and Mohammed.
The Dallas Mavericks are always that really pretty window dressing, but there's never any more to it than them having a really good regular season without the great playoff run to match, they're a pretender. The Denver Nuggets are a team in transition and a team without a true leader right now and even though they definitely have the talent to win some games, there's a huge question of who's the finisher on that team and no disrespect to JR Smith, but I don't think it's him.
As you look up and down the playoff seeding, there are three contenders in the West and in the East, there are at least five dangerous teams that could contend for a Finals bid and four teams that could easily win it all.
The Boston Celtics are a given, the Miami Heat have proven how dangerous they can be when the big three shows up in important match ups, the Orlando Magic have gotten the the Finals before and will always be able to make noise with Dwight Howard in the playoffs if he plays aggressive, the Chicago Bulls are a team that can and have beaten all the top teams in the NBA and the sky is the limit for them. And while the New York Knicks aren't going to contend for a title, they're fun to look at and I wouldn't be surprised if they won a playoff round.
Times are changing in the NBA, the Western Conference doesn't draw the same fear from its opponents as it use to, and it may be up to the two old faithful Western goats to knock some respect back into the East come playoff time.
Photo Courtesy TSN
The eyes have been on the New York Knicks and the New Jersey Nets in terms of where the NBA is going and it truly is heading in the direction of East Coast superiority because of the major markets that line the Atlantic.
The Boston Celtics notwithstanding with their odd decision to trade Kendrick Perkins to the Oklahoma City Thunder, it seems for the most part that the best teams are now sitting in the Eastern Conference, where for years the opposite was always true.
When you look at the top of the West, it's the names that have held true as I said earlier, the Spurs and the Lakers, but when you look at the other major contenders from the West, are they true championship contenders?
The Oklahoma City Thunder are absolutely a title contender now with Perkins because the one flaw they did have before the trade was the lack of an aggressive big and they added two of them in Perkins and Mohammed.
The Dallas Mavericks are always that really pretty window dressing, but there's never any more to it than them having a really good regular season without the great playoff run to match, they're a pretender. The Denver Nuggets are a team in transition and a team without a true leader right now and even though they definitely have the talent to win some games, there's a huge question of who's the finisher on that team and no disrespect to JR Smith, but I don't think it's him.
As you look up and down the playoff seeding, there are three contenders in the West and in the East, there are at least five dangerous teams that could contend for a Finals bid and four teams that could easily win it all.
The Boston Celtics are a given, the Miami Heat have proven how dangerous they can be when the big three shows up in important match ups, the Orlando Magic have gotten the the Finals before and will always be able to make noise with Dwight Howard in the playoffs if he plays aggressive, the Chicago Bulls are a team that can and have beaten all the top teams in the NBA and the sky is the limit for them. And while the New York Knicks aren't going to contend for a title, they're fun to look at and I wouldn't be surprised if they won a playoff round.
Times are changing in the NBA, the Western Conference doesn't draw the same fear from its opponents as it use to, and it may be up to the two old faithful Western goats to knock some respect back into the East come playoff time.
Photo Courtesy TSN
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