Historical East vs West Records Added to Basketball Reference

Here at Basketball Reference we take our frivolities very seriously. So seriously that we have made a new addition to our Frivolities section: season-by-season breakdowns of how the Eastern and Western Conferences have fared against each other.

You can see, for instance, that the West has the upper hand thus far in 2023-24 after the East won the series for each of the last two seasons. Before those two seasons, the West won the series in 12 straight seasons and 21 of the previous 22. You can also see how dominant the East was from mid-50s through the 60s, and also for all of the 1980s.

One technical point to bear in mind with this data is that before the 1970-71 season, the NBA was split into Eastern and Western 'divisions' instead of 'conferences.'