NBA East vs NBA West

Last year in the NBA the Western conference was clearly the more powerful conference. Not only did the West have the best team, the eventual champion the Golden State Warriors, but they had 9 teams that had positive records (which meant the Thunder missed the playoffs even though they were 45-37), as opposed to the Eastern conference, who only had 5 positive teams. This year though,so far the situation seems to have almost flipped, the Eastern conference has 10 positive teams, for now, and the Western conference only has 6. I still think that the West might have more powerful teams  at the top, San Antonio, Oklahoma City, and Golden State are all legitimate championship contenders. Whereas in the East the only teams that I could see actually making a run would be Cleveland, other than that Atlanta, Indiana, Toronto and Chicago all seem to be one good player away from being championship contenders.

The weirdest thing is the regression of some of the Western conference teams and the emergence of other Eastern conference teams. The most surprising would probably be the Houston Rockets, who are 16-17 this year, last year they finished 56-26 last year. It doesn't really make sense, the Rockets still have James Harden, and they have enough parts on the rest of their team to be good. If I had to guess it's probably due to the firing of their coach Kevin McHale and maybe internal issues with the team. Another Western team that isn't as good as last year would be the New Orleans Pelicans, they are 10-21 and have been affected a lot by injuries. The Trail Blazers have regressed but that was to be expected after everyone they lost during the offseason.  

It is hard to pick out one team in the East that has improved the most, but the one team with the most upside would probably be the Pacers. The Pacers have a pretty good backcourt, especially with the addition of Monta Ellis, and now that Paul George is back at full strength. I think they should try to add another center or power forward during the season to make a run at a championship. The Celtics, Magic, Knicks, Pistons, and Hornets have all been more impressive than last year. The Magic have a very good young core, led by Victor Oladipo, Elfrid Payton, Nikola Vucevic and Aaron Gordon. The Celtics have also quietly built an impressive line-up, with Isaiah Thomas, Avery Bradley, Jared Sullinger, Marcus Smart, and Amir Johnson. One team that has disappointed me this season is the Bulls, they have the talent, but I believe they need to move on from the Derrick Rose era. The Bulls need to embrace Jimmy Butler as their leader and trade some of their frontcourt players. I will always like Joakim Noah because of the effort he plays with, but he isn't giving much to the team. This will hopefully create more playing time for talented rookie Bobby Portis. They could also use an upgrade at small forward, maybe trade a couple players like Nikola Mirotic and Mike Dunleavy to try to get an impact player.