the argument that the east is weak doesn't really parse for me; so what the magic and the nets are sub .500, are we really pretending that the west's current 8th seed isn't a team who traded their two best players last year and was left for dead (and is also currently sub .500, just for the record). for me it's less that the west is a better conference and more that there's just more talented players there - on a holistic assessment the pistons are probably about as well-run as the suns or the wolves except the wolves have kat and the suns have dbook and the pistons have...an injured blake griffin. it's not the east's fault that talent has historically gravitated to la nor should the conference as a whole be blamed for the incompetence of teams like the cavs, bulls and knicks (and before you try and hold the west up as some shining example, suns, wolves, kings, and let's not pretend that the lakers weren't nearing outright collapse maybe a year ago).
maybe less relevant to the argument but in comparison to the west the east is certainly top heavy - the west's 3rd best team is either the young and unproven nuggets, the jazz who have no superstar and some noticeable holes, and the rockets who've spend the last five years inventing new ways to choke elimination games (and I'm not 100% sure that the clippers aren't somewhere in this category as opposed to being a top 2 team). this against the east who has a rapidly blossoming miami, a consistently excellent boston, a toronto team that's somehow looking to pull off a title defense despite kawhi leaving and a milwaukee thats gunning for a 70 win season (which you can't get to solely by beating up weak teams and that kinda nulls the 'the bucks are only doing well bc hurr the east is bad' as if they haven't kicked the shit out of virtually every good team in the west as well).
