In all three major team sports that are currently playing, the western conference or west divisions are better than the east, if not dominating them. The National Football League (NFL) is more competitive between the east and west then the National Basketball Association (NBA) or the National Hockey League (NHL).
In the NFL 6 teams from each conference qualifies for the playoffs. Division winners account for 4 of the playoff teams in each conference, along with the 2 best records among non-division winners, known as wild cards. The 2 conferences are the National Football Conference (NFC) and the American Football Conference (AFC), with each having a North, South, East and West division.
Guess which division in each conference has the team with the best record, and top seed, with 2 weeks left in the regular season. The Seattle Seahawks have the best record in football, and lead the NFC West with a 12-2 record. Not only that, but the San Francisco 49ers currently have a wild card spot, and the Arizona Cardinals are only one game behind them, and both teams are also in the NFC West.
In the AFC, the best record also belongs to the leader of the West division, the Denver Broncos. However, the Broncos only lead their division because of a tie breaker, by beating the Kansas City Chiefs twice, and both teams have an 11-3 record. So the AFC West has the 2 best records in the conference, and the San Diego Chargers, also in the West, are still barely alive for the last wild card spot at 7-7.
The NBA has a dramatic difference between the Western and Eastern Conferences in number of quality teams. The two-time defending champion Miami Heat are in the East, as well as the Indiana Pacers, who lead that conference with a 21-5 record. But only one other team in the entire conference even has a winning record, the Atlanta Hawks at 15-12. In fact the Boston Celtics lead the Atlantic Division with a 12-15 record. All 5 teams in the division have losing records. If the playoffs started now, 5 teams would make the postseason with losing records in the Eastern Conference.
The Western Conference is a much different story. 9 teams have winning records in the west, led by the Oklahoma City Thunder with a 21-4 record. Since 8 teams in each conference make the playoffs, that means a winning team wouldn’t make it, if the playoffs started now. If you took the Atlanta Hawks, who have the 3rd best record in the east, and put them in the west, they would miss the playoffs. If the rest of the year remains this way, some pretty good teams in the west will miss the playoffs, and some bad teams in the east will be sacrificial lambs to the Heat and Pacers.
The NHL is in the middle of the 3 sports when it comes to differences between the conferences. It’s not as dramatic as the NBA, but worse than the NFL. The only team in the Eastern Conference that is even close to the top teams in the Western Conference in team points is the Pittsburgh Penguins. Like the NBA, the NHL also has 8 teams in each conference qualify for the playoffs. Right now, the 8th team in the west, the Minnesota Wild, would be tied for 3rd place in the east.
In the Eastern Conference only 5 of the 16 teams have winning records, if you add overtime and shootout losses to regulation losses, which is what they are, losses. The Western Conference has 9 teams out of 14 with winning records, if you add all the losses together, and one other team with the same number of wins and losses. Once again, if the rest of the season continues this way, some good teams in the west will miss the playoffs, and some losing teams in the east will slip into the postseason.
I know those of you in the east will not like to see this post, but it’s all true. I never remember such a disparity between the east and west in professional sports, especially to the extent of the NBA, other than the Heat and Pacers. This will create quite a ruckus at the end of the NBA and NHL seasons when some good teams sit at home watching bad teams playing in the postseason. This isn’t the first time that has happened, but never to this degree.
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