Dan Beyer and Monse Balanos discuss how weak the Eastern Conference is and how a new playoff format could help the league. Cooper Flagg and Victor Wembanyama, the last two first-overall picks are in the Western Conference plus most of the best teams in the NBA. Meanwhile the Eastern Conference has very little competition due to the Jayson Tatum and Tyrese Haliburton injuries, among other factors.
Dan Beyer:
"LeBron understands where his path to an NBA Finals would be and that is through the Eastern Conference. Right now if you're looking at it, If you were to try to get back to the NBA Finals, going to the Eastern Conference wherever you go is probably a better option than staying with the Lakers and trying to navigate what is the Western Conference in that gauntlet. When you see how difficult the West is right now and by the way here's the scary thing for the future of the NBA. Cooper Flagg's now in Dallas first overall pick, we expect Victor Wembanyama to be an absolute star and maybe the face of the league at some point, he's in the Western Conference. Anthony Edwards doesn't want to be the face of the league but he's darn good and he's in the Western Conference. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is now getting $71 Million dollars a year to play basketball in the Western Conference and I could go on about the Rockets and Kevin Durant and we could talk about your Clippers and Kawhi Leonard. This has gone on for way too long of having the West be as good as it is. I'm usually against this, but right now East and West is not a fair fight its not interesting basketball. I think Adam Silver and the NBA need to revisit doing away with conferences for how loaded the West is right now."
Monse Balanos:
"Sports talk is usually a discussion because people don't agree, but everyone would agree with this statement that the East is wide open and that all of the competition is in the Western Conference. Going into the playoffs for this year nobody wanted to play whoever was going to win the play-in tournament. When it came to the East, the Celtics weren't worried about that, Cavs weren't worried about that. Like who's it going to be Miami we don't care, Chicago? It doesn't matter. There is very little competition out of the Eastern Conference and if you're not going to do this now then when? This the perfect opportunity to do it. I don't think people would fight or be upset about it."