With all that’s gone on this offseason, both in Boston and around the NBA, it’s good to take a step back and look at how much the landscape has changed around the league. And one of the things that immediately jumps out is that for the first time in a long time, the East is pretty clearly the superior conference.
The West still boasts the two title favorites, and likely best teams with the Spurs and Thunder, but the Eastern Conference has more teams contending to win the conference, more teams vying to make the playoffs, and fewer clearly bad teams than ever before.
Eastern Conference is going to be loaded next season
Let’s just go through the East to appreciate how truly deep it is. Up top, you’ve got the defending champs, the Knicks, clearly one of, if not the best, teams. They’ve brought almost everyone back and, until further notice, should be the favorites to win the conference.
Then you’ve got newly established contenders in the 76ers, adding Jaylen Brown and LeBron James, the Raptors, adding Kawhi Leonard, and the Heat, adding Giannis Antetokounmpo. Aside from them, you’ve got your established contenders with three top-four seeds, in the Celtics, Pistons, and Cavaliers, who all expect to be as good or better than last season.
That’s already seven teams. Now you’ve got the Pacers, who made the Finals in 2025, and with Tyrese Haliburton back, they expect to be right back in the mix. The Hawks were the hottest team in the league after trading Trae Young and figure to take another step. The Magic have lofty ambitions and the pressure that comes with the highest payroll in the conference.
The Hornets were the darlings of the league last season and hope to keep the momentum going. Even the Wizards have some excitement with Trae Young and Anthony Davis healthy, around a solid young core.Â
East has 12 teams with playoff expectations
That’s 12 teams out of 15 in the conference that expect to, at least, make the playoffs. And even the Nets, Bulls, and Bucks have competent rotations of solid NBA players and prospects. With the new lottery reform, nobody is going to be tanking, and there’s no motivation to lose games. Teams will obviously gravitate to the bottom, but all 15 teams in the East should be competitive on a nightly basis.
In the West, you’ve got far more teams that are clearly in the beginning stages of a rebuild. You’ve also got aging teams that didn’t seem to take a step forward this offseason, like the Nuggets, Lakers, and Rockets. Again, the top two are great, but it’s unclear if anyone beyond that is really a threat to win the conference, as things stand today.
A lot can change. Perception and reality are often quite different. This may seem like a silly take in a few months. But with most of the heavy lifting done for the offseason, it sure looks like the Celtics are in the tougher conference, and that has become a very unfamiliar sight.
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