Clippers set a franchise record with their 50th win the other night. What's most striking about the 50 wins is that they join OKC, Denver, San Antonio, and Memphis as western conference teams with that many wins. In the east, Miami has the best record with 58 wins so far. No other team has 50 though. Looking at the teams with 40 wins in the east, it's the Knicks, Nets, Pacers, and Hawks. Seems to me this is a sort of turning the division upside down, no? The Knicks, for example, have won 40+ games 3 times (including this year) this century. The Nets last won 40 in 2006-2007. The Hawks are the one team in the group that has been a playoff team (even into the 2nd round 3 times) in the past few seasons. Indy has made a remarkable turnaround under their current coach, Frank Vogel. But even they hadn't won 40+ (before last season) since 2005-06.
Congrats to Vinnie and the Clips. They were a joke franchise for a very long time. Good for the league. In the West, Denver has also been a surprise. No big-time stars, but they play really well as a team. Memphis took a gamble trading Gay, but they've won over 70% of their games since the trade. Indiana is "out-Bulling" the Bulls this season...#1 in team defense and also the top rebounding team. They're for real.
I forgot to mention that the current 8th seed, Milwaukee, isn't a .500 team. Boston at #7 is 3 games over. This speaks to the Eastern Conference teams seeming to be weaker as a group than the Western Conference teams.
FWIW, I agree that the West is the stronger conference this season. The West has two elite teams to the East's one (hope the Bulls will even this up next season). Any of the Nuggets, Clips or Grizz would be the 2nd-best team in the East. The West's 8th best team features the best center in the game, a sure-fire HOFer and a 4-time All Star. C. Anthony, A. Stoudemire, T. Chandler and D. Williams have all recently moved from the West to the East and it's certainly improved the fortunes of the two NYC teams, but it really hasn't changed the overall balance much.
