Why Do We Need Western Conferences?

For as long as I can remember, the Western Conference has been a more competitive than the Eastern Conference by a landslide. This imbalance has jeopardized the integrity of the NBA championship to fans across the world because the playoff path to the final series gets skewed. So many of the NBA’s great all-time teams have been located in the Western Conference. Recent examples include the Los Angeles Lakers,San Antonio Spurs, Dallas Mavericks, and most recently the super team Golden State Warriors. Although some people believe abandoning conferences would be bad for the NBA given increased travel and other challenges, it would provide far more entertaining matchups and fairness in playoff seeding. One reason the NBA should abandon conferences is because only the top 16 teams make the playoffs. Instead of taking the top 8 teams from each conference, the top 16 teams in the league would then be taken depending on their records. Last year some teams in the Western Conference, such as the Dallas Mavericks, missed out on the playoffs even though they had a better record than some playoff teams in the Eastern Conference. Another reason the top 16 teams should be taken is that the games will be more entertaining. With the current conference structure in place,
While more travel would cost NBA teams more. I believe this is a weak argument given the NBA is a billion dollar industry where owners and players are typically millionaires. Another reason the NBA has not abandoned conferences is for concerns over player health. The NBA believes if travel is increased then their players will not get enough rest and be able to perform at their best. I counter this argument by reminding them that they have charter planes with sofas and recliners. The players have plenty of time to rest on the plane whether its a two hour flight or a four hour