The NBA’s Eastern Conference has again descended into loserdom
The NBA Eastern Conference was supposed to be better this season. It’s not.
This was supposed to be the season the NBA’s Eastern Conference grew up and joined the big leagues. The East has essentially operated like basketball’s junior varsity from the moment Michael Jordan finished pushing off Bryon Russell, but the moves made this summer indicated that the conference was finally about to get serious.
The Boston Celtics were the clear-cut Best Team in Basketball coming off a dominant championship run and returning virtually every player in their rotation. The New York Knicks wagered their future to improve their present, swinging big trades for Mikal Bridges and Karl-Anthony Towns in an attempt to enter the championship picture. The Philadelphia 76ers appeared to put the right pieces around Joel Embiid with the free agent signing of Paul George and the ascent of Tyrese Maxey. The Milwaukee Bucks made their big swings a year earlier, but the second season of Giannis Antetokounmpo’s pairing with Damian Lillard promised better results now with a full year under head coach Doc Rivers.
The middle class of the East looked better, too. The Indiana Pacers were coming off a conference finals run led by a young star in Tyrese Haliburton, the Orlando Magic finally added some shooting around their young cornerstones Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner, and the Cleveland Cavaliers made a smart coaching hire while re-signing Donovan Mitchell.
The East looked like it was going to be highly competitive this season, perhaps even moreso than the West. Just two weeks into the season, that idea already looks like a big miss.
The East has been a disaster to start the 2024-25 season. Only two teams (the Celtics and Cavs) in the conference are above .500 after two weeks. Nine of the top-11 teams in the league by record reside in the West. In head-to-head matchups, the East has lost 70 percent of its games to the West so far.
It’s probably going to get better for the East this season with 70+ games remaining on the schedule. Someone has to win when an Eastern Conference team plays an Eastern Conference team. The more pressing issue is that every one of the East’s supposed contenders outside of Boston and Cleveland are coming up way short of meeting the hype.
The Bucks and Sixers currently own two of the three worst records in the NBA. Milwaukee has no depth, a terrible defense, and the Antetokounmpo/Lillard pairing just isn’t nearly as dangerous as it should have been. The Bucks feel like a team with no moves left to make. Giannis trade rumors will be one of the biggest storylines in the league until either he or Lillard is dealt. The Sixers’ problem is more obvious but just as scary: Embiid hasn’t played this season because of an injured left knee, and Philly can’t win without him. Embiid is 30 years old and has been plagued by back and knee injuries since he entered the league. The Sixers are doing their best to make sure he’s healthy for when the games really count in the playoffs, but it’s going to be hard for Philly just to get there if he isn’t back playing at an All-NBA level soon.
The Magic’s season feels doomed with Banchero out indefinitely. Haliburton has regressed for the Pacers and neutered their high-octane offense. The Knicks are probably going to be very good eventually, but newly constructed teams often take a year to find their stride. The Knicks seem to fit that bill because they very much look like a work in progress at the moment.
Right now, the No. 3 seed in the conference standings is the Brooklyn Nets, a team everyone thought would win like 20 games as they chased their Cooper Flagg dreams. For as good as the Celtics and Cavs look, there are a lot of Eastern Conference playoff spots that need to be filled by teams who are barely even competing.
The bottom half of the East playoff picture sure seems like it’s going to be bleak this year. Just finding two teams at the No. 9 and No. 10 seeds to fill out the play-in tournament is going to be rough as more franchises prioritize their lottery position in lost seasons.
Why is the East always so much worse than the West? For one, that’s where the stars land: Tim Duncan, Kobe Bryant, and Stephen Curry have now given way to Nikola Jokic, Luka Doncic, and Victor Wembanyama. There are also a lot of really bad owners in the East. Jerry Reinsdorf runs the Chicago Bulls like a small market team. James Dolan has never been able to get out of his own way with the Knicks. The Nets’ big plan to pair Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, and James Harden immediately went bust. The Raptors’ front office lost its magic touch after the 2019 title run, and the Pistons, Hornets, and Wizards seem eternally hopeless.
The East looked better on paper this year, but instead the conference’s doom spiral has continued in full force. As has been the case for 25 years at this point, the best basketball is still being played in the West.