Look. the WC teams play each other more than they do EC teams and vice-versa. 5 teams in the WC have 17 wins or less. This naturally inflates the WC records of the remaining teams in the conference. The EC elite beats up on everyone, but gets to play the weak teams in the WC only twice, whereas they get 4 cracks at the weak teams in the East. The teams in the West play those weak teams there twice as often!
Comparing records between the conference as the final arbiter of their relative strength makes little sense. You are comparing apples and oranges,because the schedules aren't the same, and because of the difference in the records and numbers of teams in the two conferences.
You can use head to head competition, or records against common opponents to get a better idea. Even the stats are corrupted by the extreme weakness of the bottom 5 in the West. The Lakers have a much better point differential against those teams than it does against the rest of the conference and league. It makes them look better than they actually are, statistically.
Looking at the stats Lurker posted, the best conference in the West is the Southwest, with a .564 winning percentage, the best in the league. But what about their collective record against the East? They have loosing records vs. the Atlantic and Central and a big lead over the Southest conference, the home of the weakest teams in the East.
SO the weak teams in the West benefit the leaders of the WC more than the weak teams in the East benefit their Elite teams. I will agree that there is more parity in the West than the East, but it's pretty clear by now that the East has 3 really good teams, and the West only 1.
Rick, you are the one arguing that the EC is stronger because of their record vs the west. So let's break that down:
East vs top 9 teams in the west: 68-106
East vs bottom 6 in the west: 87-29
So Rick the same bad teams that inflate the west records have INFLATED the eastern conference records also. Heck the entire 20 game advantage that the EC has over the WC can be laid at the door of the Kings who are 0-21 against the East. Remove 1 WC team and the two conferences are playing .500 ball.
So want to look at another measure...let's remove the EC top 3 and see what the interconference record are:
EC vs WC 155-135 .534
Top 3 vs WC 47-12 .797 (overall winning % .801)
Rest of EC vs WC 108-123 .467
I'll do the same for the top 3 in the west (LA, SA, Denver)
WC vs EC 135-155 .466
Top 3 vs EC 35-18 .660
Rest of WC vs EC 100-137 .421
So the next step is to break down the "rest" of each conference...using the #4-9 seeds as of today:
EC 4-9 vs WC 59-56 .513
WC 4-9 vs EC 70-48 .593
Your argument that the WC teams inflate their records vs the bottom dwellers by playing them 4 times has a correlation. They also have to play the other top 8 teams 4 times each also. Meanwhile the top 3 in the EC are padding their records by playing the weaker 4-9 seeds 4 times each. Overall the EC has the top 3 teams then the next 9 are in the west.
