5 reasons why the East has been worse than the West since 1998

#2 Drafts and Trades: Part III

Kawhi Leonard was traded by the Indiana Pacers on draft day

As we move closer to today's NBA, the disparity between the two conferences becomes even clearer. As players' careers have played out, it can simply be stated that the West has way better players than the East. Even the ones who weren't drafted originally by a Western conference team ended up there anyway. The best example of that is 2-time Defensive Player of the Year, Kawhi Leonard. In the 2011 draft, he was drafted 15th overall by the Indiana Pacers.

On the same day, the San Antonio Spurs traded their starting point guard George Hill for Leonard and he has gone on to become the face of the Post-Duncan Spurs. More instances of such front office incompetence have been on display recently. Stars such as Jimmy Butler, Paul George and Carmelo Anthony have been traded to Western Conference teams, weakening the East even further.

For the 2017-2018 NBA season, these are the top 10 players as per their Player Efficiency Rating (PER), the stat which takes all of a player's stats into account and then boils it down to a single number.

1. James Harden, HOU
2. Giannis Antetokounmpo, MIL
3. LeBron James, CLE
4. Stephen Curry, GSW
5. Anthony Davis, NOP
6. Clint Capela, HOU
7. Chris Paul, HOU
8. Kevin Durant, GSW
9. Hassan Whiteside, MIA
10. Russell Westbrook, OKC

As you can see, 7 out of the top 10 players play for teams in the Western Conference. When there is such a big gap in the quality of players, the quality of teams will automatically drop. For almost 8 years now, the Western Conference playoffs have been tightly contested, while the East has mostly been a cakewalk for a LeBron James led team, which brings us to our next reason as to why the East is worse than the West.