The NBA Has a Top-Heavy Eastern Conference for First Time in Years

To start 2020, the East will have six teams with winning percentages of .600 or better

The NBA Finally Has a Top-Heavy Eastern Conference
Giannis Antetokounmpo attempts a basket against Joel Embiid. (Sarah Stier/Getty)
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From the San Antonio Spurs and the Golden State Warriors to the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Houston Rockets, the majority of the consistently good teams in the NBA have resided in the league’s Western Conference over the past decade.

Finally, with a new decade about to dawn, that appears to have changed.

For the first time since 1998, the NBA’s Eastern Conference will have six teams with winning percentages of .600 or better on New Year’s Day.

Based on their records up to this point, those six teams — the Milwaukee Bucks, Miami Heat, Boston Celtics, Toronto Raptors, Philadelphia 76ers and Indiana Pacers — appear pretty evenly matched with their equivalents in the West.

In first place in the East, the Bucks have broken away from the pack in nearly the same way the Los Angeles Lakers have out West. Behind Milwaukee, the following five teams are bunched up and jockeying for position, similar to the way the Denver Nuggets, Los Angeles Clippers, Houston Rockets, Dallas Mavericks and Utah Jazz are in the West.

“It’s really competitive and you have to like this,” Miami coach Erik Spoelstra told The AP. “You have to enjoy it as a competitor. People have been disparaging the Eastern Conference for so long. You have some really good teams here in the East and the teams are proving it.”

It’s a good way to go into a new decade as the last one saw four Western Conference teams (San Antonio, Oklahoma City, Golden State and Houston) lead the league in regular-season victories.

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