ESPN invokes Robert Merton to attempt to figure out 20 years of Western Conference dominance over the East.
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West is best, but stars hold the keys to the future[/h]It naturally follows that an outsized share of the league's best teams play in the Western Conference. The West has beaten the East head-to-head in 16 of the past 17 seasons. In adjusted net rating, which weights a team's overall efficiency for strength of opponent, the top five teams in the league last season
all reside in the West. Of the top five teams in adjusted net rating over each of the past five seasons,
only four of those 25 hail from the Eastern Conference. For all the dominance the West has displayed over the East, it's most pronounced at the very top.
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Call it the Soft Drudgery of Low Expectations or even the Broken Conference Theory, whereby a conference that falls into disrepair is more likely to continue its slide into oblivion. In an environment in which a sub-.500 record could net a team two home playoff dates, and a 45-win season practically pencils a team into the conference semis, it's not surprising to see a whole bunch of teams behave like the regular season is a pass-fail course. This effect leads the East to function as a warehouse store for treadmills of mediocrity, where a .500 record buys you a bargain.
Perhaps there's an evolutionary component to this idea. College coaches routinely point to scheduling challenging out-of-conference games as a means to strengthen their teams for postseason play. For Western Conference squads that can hardly go a week without seeing a Warriors, Spurs, Rockets or another .600 West foe on the docket, their merciless schedule demands constant playoff-quality execution. All the while, Eastern Conference teams get to scheme against the confederation of the middling.
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"Today, for players where the money is equal between destinations, 'Which superstar am I playing with?' are Nos. 1, 2 and 3 in selection criteria," Morey says. "Only after that comes owners, management, coach and city."
If the brightest stars are magnets that attract other superstars, then the more talented conference will effectively compound its advantage. Kevin Durant joins Steph Curry in Oakland, while Chris Paul partners with James Harden in Houston. Paul George might not stay in Oklahoma City, but the presence of Russell Westbrook means that, if things work out this season, both guys can re-up for top deals and assure they'll be playing with a fellow superstar.
Try as the league might to declare the terms for competition, superstars are now running the show -- and they want to play in tandems and trios.