For the longest time, the East was looked down upon as clearly the weaker of the two Conferences. The West was always loaded with talent from top to nearly bottom, while the East was extremely top-heavy, with a couple of good teams and a lot of mediocrity after them.
We saw LeBron James run through the East with ease from 2011 to 2018 as he made it to 8 NBA Finals in a row and while that had a lot to do with his own greatness, the level of competition wasn’t particularly great for the most part. The East remained top-heavy after LeBron’s departure as well, but things might be changing at last.
The Eastern Conference Is Now Loaded With Talent
Donovan Mitchell recently became the second All-Star to be traded to the East from the West in a couple of months, with Dejounte Murray having gone to Atlanta from San Antonio earlier this offseason. Mitchell’s arrival in Cleveland makes them another formidable team in the East and Hoop Central pointed out on Twitter just how stacked the Conference is now.
The East is stacked. 🔥
(via @TheLeadSM) pic.twitter.com/1nRQCx2dQs
— Hoop Central (@TheHoopCentral) September 2, 2022
NBA fans were hyped as they looked forward to what should be an exciting battle for supremacy in the East and they felt a few more teams are in with a shot as well.
“Most loaded conference in the past decade tbh”
“Oh how times have changed, I remember the West was the topic of conversation every season. The East is truly stacked with talent.”
“I been watching nba for long time I have never seen such a stacked teams in both conference”
“There’s a Rookie of the year, All-star and All-NBA trio you’ve missed who made the play offs ahead of some of these guys”
“Both conferences are stacked this year, this season could be a movie as long as not many players get hurt”
“Just when i hoped my wizards might have a chance to go to the playoffs”
“the whole league is stacked af. great times to be a nba fan”
“It’s crazy that some people actually think the NBA isn’t at an all time high in terms of talent. NO other era can compete with the amount of talent today.”
“You forgot Beal, Porzingis, and Kuzma”
“8 teams will have a great battle to reach the Eastern Conference Finals”
“Such a talented group of men in this photo! We are all lucky to be watching the NBA today!”
“You could just always expand the graph and add the 4th place team in the East in it. Not that hard. East has 9 solid teams. Mitchell with Garland and Evans is going to be a fun team to watch.”
“Going to be the best basketball season in a decade”
“The East the new West.”
“Forgot Raptors and Wizards Siakam, Van Fleet, Barnes we saw how they fought back against 76ers Wizards are deep with a healthy Beal coming back 1 out of those teams are going to make the playoffs”
“This will be as even the NBA has been in a long time. Let’s see what the best players of all time do to take the chip. I’m going warriors. But it won’t be a cake walk for anyone.”
“It’s crazy how just a year ago people were tripping over the KAI, KD, Harden big three and now more than half of the East has a solid three.”
“Better than the west”
“this is bout to be one of the best seasons of all time”
It is really great to be an NBA fan at this time, as some of them pointed out. There are just so many skilled and talented players in the league at the moment and the game is in the best shape that it has been in a while.
The Celtics, Bucks, and Heat are the last 3 teams to make it to the NBA Finals from the East and while the three of them will be among the favorites to do so again in 2022-23, it wouldn’t be too surprising if we get a new Eastern Conference champion next season.
