By Zach Kram | ESPN, 2026-03-04 20:00:00
本赛季NBA盛行这样一种说法：东部联盟由于伤病满营且天赋匮乏而陷入混乱，而西部联盟则凭借众多劲旅和精彩对决正处于鼎盛时期。
的确，西部的季后赛形势充满了引人入胜的剧情，从俄克拉荷马城雷霆队力争卫冕，到维克托·文班亚马 (Victor Wembanyama) 带领进度超前的圣安东尼奥马刺队崛起，再到丹佛、明尼苏达、休斯顿和洛杉矶那些阵容老练的争冠球队在稳定性方面苦苦挣扎。
但凭借四支强队以及一系列引人注目的后起之秀，东部也有自己的看点，反驳了所谓“东弱西强”的陈词滥调。
让我们来探究这一说法，分析为何本赛季东部联盟的实力被低估，以及这一意外的发展将如何塑造即将到来的季后赛。
传统的西部统治地位
在20世纪的大部分时间里，东部在跨联盟比赛中占据主导地位，但到了21世纪，西部改写了剧本。从1999-00赛季到2024-25赛季，东部在26个赛季中仅有3个赛季的胜率占优，且这三次胜利都微乎其微，而西部则经常以巨大优势赢得跨联盟对决。
本世纪两大联盟之间极度失衡的例子不胜枚举。在2002-03赛季，底特律活塞队以50胜32负的战绩荣登东部榜首，而西部则有六支球队赢得了至少50场比赛。在2003-04赛季，东部只有四支球队胜率超过五成。在2006-07赛季，最佳阵容第一阵容的五名球员全部来自西部。在2013-14赛季，菲尼克斯太阳队48胜34负的战绩本可与东部第三持平，但在附加赛时代之前的西部，他们仅排在第九位，无缘季后赛。
这种不平衡不仅体现在球队层面，也体现在NBA顶尖的个人天赋上。在21世纪，63%的最佳阵容球员来自西部。事实上，2024-25赛季是本世纪首个东部最佳阵容人数（8人）多于西部（7人）的赛季。
多年来，西部球队甚至在乐透抽签中也享有更好的运气，精英新秀库珀·弗拉格 (Cooper Flagg) 和文班亚马都落户西部球队。21世纪职业生涯“球员正负值 (Box Plus/Minus)”表现最差的五位状元秀均由东部球队选中：安东尼·本内特 (Anthony Bennett)、扎卡里·里萨谢 (Zaccharie Risacher)、夸梅·布朗 (Kwame Brown)、安德里亚·巴尼亚尼 (Andrea Bargnani) 以及马克尔·富尔茨 (Markelle Fultz)。
这种长期存在的趋势在本赛季似乎注定会延续，甚至进一步扩大，尤其是东部最强的两支球队（波士顿凯尔特人队和印第安纳步行者队）的核心球员都因跟腱断裂而报销。根据 Basketball-Reference 对季前预期的分析，拉斯维加斯原本预计西部球队将在跨联盟比赛中赢得54%的胜利，这与近年来的历史一致；而且在季前夺冠赔率排名前七的球队中，有五支来自西部。
2025-26赛季的剧本反转
与预期相反，东部在本赛季的联盟竞争中跟上了步伐。截至周一的比赛，西部球队对阵东部球队的战绩仅为161胜157负，胜率为50.6%。这证明了两权相持，而非一边倒的统治。
这种平衡在排名顶端尤为显著：在净效率值 (Net Rating) 方面，东部球队占据了第二（凯尔特人）、第三（活塞）、第五（纽约尼克斯）和第八（克利夫兰骑士），而西部球队则占据了第一、第四、第六和第七。根据 ESPN 的篮球指数 (BPI) 预测，东部将有四支球队赢得50场以上的比赛，而西部有五支。
一个自然的假设是，东部顶级球队是在鱼腩球队身上刷出来的胜场。但西部的底部球队和东部一样糟糕，甚至更差；东部第11至15名的球队平均胜场预期为26.3场，而西部平均仅为25.6场。根据 Basketball-Reference 的简单评分系统（SRS，根据分差和赛程强度排名），东部球队总体排名第二（活塞）、第三（凯尔特人）、第五（尼克斯）和第七（骑士）。
此外，我们可以观察球队在仅对阵西部对手时的表现，以消除赛程强度的差异。按照这一标准，有10支球队的净效率值高于+3：西部5支（排名前五的球队），东部5支（排名前四的球队加上夏洛特黄蜂队）。
这种隐藏的联盟均势不仅体现在对目前表现的评估上，也体现在对本赛季剩余时间的预测中。根据季后赛版本的BPI，排名前六的球队中有四支出自东部。在分析网站 Dunks & Threes 的全员版“预估正负值 (Estimated Plus-Minus)”指标中，所谓的“弱势联盟”看起来甚至更强，在前五名中占据了四席。
前六号种子的季后赛BPI
每一支东部冠军竞争者都有明显的弱点，可能会粉碎其决赛梦想。活塞队的三分球排在第28位，而且自乔治·W·布什政府时期以来从未赢过一轮系列赛。骑士队正在将受过伤的詹姆斯·哈登 (James Harden) 融入轮换，在连续两个赛季季后赛折戟后，他们可能看起来只是“纸老虎”。凯尔特人队则处于某种不确定状态，等待着杰森·塔图姆 (Jayson Tatum) 从跟腱断裂中归来。而尼克斯队本赛季尚未产生良好的化学反应，一支由杰伦·布伦森 (Jalen Brunson) 和卡尔-安东尼·唐斯 (Karl-Anthony Towns) 领衔的球队，在季后赛将面临巨大的防守考验。
然而，对于所有追逐卫冕冠军雷霆队的西部竞争者来说，情况也是如此。圣安东尼奥马刺队缺乏经验。深受重大伤病困扰的丹佛掘金队防守效率仅排在第21位。休斯顿火箭队自史蒂文·亚当斯 (Steven Adams) 因左脚踝伤势赛季报销后，进攻效率排在第18位，而明尼苏达森林狼队是联盟中最缺乏稳定性的球队之一。洛杉矶湖人队的防守在所有胜率过半的球队中垫底，同时其胜场数超出了净分差预期，超出的幅度居联盟之首。
季后赛影响
尽管有联盟平衡的证据，但进入四月后，西部仍应保持一些优势。首先，更多顶尖超级巨星效力于西部。随着塔图姆仍在恢复中，且扬尼斯·阿德托昆博 (Giannis Antetokounmpo) 所在的密尔沃基雄鹿队不太可能晋级季后赛，2025-26赛季季后赛最顶尖的五名球员可以说都将在西部展开角逐：尼古拉·约基奇 (Nikola Jokic)、谢伊·吉尔杰斯-亚历山大 (Shai Gilgeous-Alexander)、卢卡·东契奇 (Luka Doncic)、文班亚马和安东尼·爱德华兹 (Anthony Edwards)。
其次，西部拥有一支没有任何明显弱点的超强球队。即使在伤病导致状态相对下滑后，雷霆队在衡量球队实力的各项高级指标中依然占据统治地位。BPI 认为他们大约有 50% 的机会夺冠，并成为自 2017-18 赛季勇士队以来首支卫冕的球队；如果雷霆队杀出西部重围进入总决赛，BPI 预测他们击败东部对手的概率为 78%。（不过，除了面对俄克拉荷马城以外，东部的主要竞争者对阵任何其他总决赛对手都有五成或更高的胜算。）
第三，西部在排名前四之后的深度更佳，这应该会产生更引人注目的首轮对决。西部第五、第六和第七名的战绩优于东部，且湖人、金州勇士（前提是史蒂芬·库里 (Stephen Curry) 保持健康）和洛杉矶快船所拥有的球星光环，意味着这些球队比东部同行更具季后赛“搅局者”的潜质。
相比之下，东部首轮可能缺乏冷门——尽管健康版的费城76人队和状态火热的夏洛特黄蜂队如果继续冲击季后赛，可能会给高排位种子带来不小的惊吓。在上个月的冲突之后，黄蜂与活塞的首轮对决将是必看的节目。
底特律、波士顿、纽约和克利夫兰很可能以某种顺序包揽东部前四；根据 BPI 的数据，其中任何一支球队掉出前四的概率仅为 5%。然而，这种格局可能会产生两组与西部同样诱人的半决赛对决。
根据 BPI，两赛区最可能的次轮对决分别是活塞对骑士以及凯尔特人对尼克斯。季后赛 BPI 对这四支球队的评分几乎完全相同，均高出平均水平 5 到 6 分。根据 BPI 的推算，这四支球队都有至少 20% 的机会进入总决赛。
但竞争激烈并不意味着水平低下。这场四方缠斗引人遐想，其中既有寻求打破季后赛低迷叙事的年轻球星和老将，也有渴望在季后赛取得成功的昔日冠军和老牌劲旅。
这种高水平的竞争意味着，不会再像过去几年东部远落后于西部时那样，出现轻松通往总决赛的坦途。除非出现无法预见的冷门，否则无论哪支球队脱颖而出成为东部冠军，都必须在晋级过程中击败两个高水准的对手。无论哪支东部球队获得总决赛席位，都必须是实至名归。
由生成式人工智能翻译，译文内容可能不准确或不完整，以原文为准。
点击查看原文：How NBA's conference gap has shrunk this season, playoff impact
How NBA’s conference gap has shrunk this season, playoff impact
A narrative has taken hold of the NBA this season: the injury-depleted and talent-poor Eastern Conference is a mess, while the West is thriving with great teams and excitement.
Indeed, the Western playoff picture is full of intriguing storylines, from the Oklahoma City Thunder’s quest to repeat as champions, to Victor Wembanyama’s rise for the ahead-of-schedule San Antonio Spurs, to veteran-laden contenders struggling for consistency in Denver, Minnesota, Houston and Los Angeles.
But with four strong teams, as well as a set of intriguing up-and-comers, the East has its own narrative hooks, contradicting the adage that the East is least, West is best.
Let’s explore this narrative, why the Eastern Conference has underrated strength this season and how that surprising development could shape the upcoming playoffs.
Traditional Western dominance
After the East dominated interconference play for most of the 20th century, the West has flipped the script for most of the 21st. From 1999-00 through 2024-25, the East had a better record in just three out of 26 seasons, and those three victories were narrow, while the West frequently won the interconference battle by wide margins.
There are plenty of illustrative examples of the extreme imbalance between the two conferences this century. In the 2002-03 season, the Detroit Pistons landed the East’s No. 1 seed with a 50-32 record, while six Western teams won at least 50 games. In 2003-04, only four Eastern teams had winning records. In 2006-07, all five players on the All-NBA first team came from the West. In 2013-14, the Phoenix Suns’ 48-34 record would have tied the Suns for third place in the East, but in the West, they were ninth and missed the playoffs in the pre-play-in era.
That imbalance held not only for teams, but also for the NBA’s top individual talents. In the 21st century, 63% of All-NBA players have come from the West. In fact, the 2024-25 season was the first this century with more All-NBA players from the East (eight) than West (seven).
Western teams have even enjoyed more lottery luck across the years, with elite prospects Cooper Flagg and Victor Wembanyama landing with Western squads. The five No. 1 picks in the 21st century with the worst career box plus/minus ratings were all drafted by Eastern Conference teams: Anthony Bennett, Zaccharie Risacher, Kwame Brown, Andrea Bargnani and Markelle Fultz.
This long-standing trend seemed set to continue, if not grow, this season, especially with two of the best teams in the East (the Boston Celtics and Indiana Pacers) losing their best players to Achilles tears. An analysis of preseason over-unders from Basketball-Reference suggests that Vegas expected Western teams to win 54% of their interconference games, in line with recent history, and five of the top-seven teams in preseason championship odds came from the West.
A flipped script in 2025-26
Contrary to expectations, the East has kept pace in the conference race this season. Through Monday’s games, Western teams are just 161-157 against their Eastern counterparts, for a 50.6% win rate. That’s evidence of parity, not lopsided dominance.
That balance is especially relevant at the top of the standings: Eastern Conference teams rank second (Celtics), third (Pistons), fifth (New York Knicks) and eighth (Cleveland Cavaliers) in net rating, while Western Conference teams take the first, fourth, sixth and seventh spots. Four teams from the East are projected to win 50-plus games, versus five from the West, according to ESPN’s Basketball Power Index (BPI).
A natural counterargument might be that the best Eastern teams are fattening up against worse opponents. But the bottom of the West is just as bad as the bottom of the East, if not worse; the teams 11 through 15 in the East standings are on a 26.3-win average pace, versus an average 25.6-win pace in the West. And by Basketball-Reference’s Simple Rating System, which ranks teams by point differential and strength of schedule, Eastern teams are second (Pistons), third (Celtics), fifth (Knicks) and seventh (Cavaliers) overall.
Moreover, we can examine how teams have performed exclusively against Western Conference opponents, to adjust for strength-of-schedule differences. By this metric, 10 teams have a net rating higher than plus-3: five in the West (the top five teams in the standings) and five in the East (the top four plus the Charlotte Hornets).
This hidden conference parity appears not just when assessing how teams have performed thus far, but also when projecting how they’ll perform for the rest of the season. By the playoff version of BPI, four of the top six teams play in the East. The so-called lesser conference looks even better by the full-strength version of estimated plus-minus, from analytical site Dunks & Threes, boasting four of the top five teams.
Playoff BPI for Top-Six Seeds
Every Eastern Conference contender has an obvious weakness that could thwart its Finals hopes. The Pistons rank 28th in 3-pointers and haven’t won a playoff series since the George W. Bush administration. The Cavaliers are incorporating an injured James Harden into their rotation and might look like paper tigers after consecutive playoff flameouts. The Celtics are in a sort of limbo as they await Jayson Tatum’s return from an Achilles tear. And the Knicks haven’t jelled this season. A team led by Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns will face big defensive questions in the postseason.
Yet, the same could be said about all the Western Conference contenders chasing the Thunder, who are the defending champions. San Antonio is inexperienced. The Denver Nuggets, weighed down by major injury concerns, rank 21st in defensive rating. The Houston Rockets are 18th in offensive rating since Steven Adams’ season-ending left ankle injury, while the Minnesota Timberwolves are one of the least consistent teams in the league. And the Los Angeles Lakers have the worst defense for any team with a winning record, while overperforming its point differential by the widest margin of any team in the league.
Playoff implications
Despite that evidence of conference balance, the West should still hold a few advantages heading into April. First, more top-tier superstars play in the West. With Tatum still recovering and Giannis Antetokounmpo’s Milwaukee Bucks unlikely to qualify for the playoffs, arguably the top five players in the 2025-26 postseason will all battle it out in the West: Nikola Jokic, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Luka Doncic, Wembanyama and Anthony Edwards.
Second, the West has one overwhelmingly great team without any obvious weaknesses. Even after an injury-induced relative slump, the Thunder still dominate every advanced metric of team strength. BPI gives them about a 50-50 chance to win the title and become the first repeat champions since the 2017-18 Warriors; if the Thunder navigate the Western playoff bracket to reach the Finals, BPI projects they’ll beat their Eastern Conference opponent 78% of the time. (However, the main Eastern Conference contenders would have a coin flip’s chance or better against any Finals opponent other than Oklahoma City.)
And third, the West has better depth beyond its top four teams, which should produce more compelling first-round matchups. The fifth-, sixth- and seventh-ranked teams have better records in the West than the East, and the star power for the Lakers, Golden State Warriors (granted a healthy Stephen Curry) and LA Clippers means those teams profile as more dangerous playoff spoilers than their Eastern counterparts.
In contrast, the East’s first round could lack many upsets – although a healthy version of the Philadelphia 76ers and the red-hot Charlotte Hornets could give a top seed quite a scare, if they continue pushing into the playoffs. A Hornets-Pistons first-round series after last month’s brawl would be must-watch TV.
Detroit, Boston, New York and Cleveland will likely finish in the top four in the East in some order; according to BPI, there’s only a 5% chance that any of them falls. However, that structure could produce a pair of conference semifinal matchups just as enticing as what’s on offer in the West.
The most likely second-round matchups in either conference, per BPI, are Pistons-Cavaliers and Celtics-Knicks. Playoff BPI rates all four teams nearly identically, at between five and six points above average. All four teams have at least a 20% chance to reach the Finals, per BPI’s reckoning.
But a wide-open race doesn’t mean an inferior one. This four-way tussle tantalizes, featuring young stars and veterans seeking to erase dour playoff narratives, and former champions and proud franchises starved for postseason success.
And this high-level competition means there won’t be any easy paths to the Finals, as was the case in several previous years when the East lagged far behind the West. Barring unforeseen playoff upsets, whichever team emerges as the Eastern Conference champion will have had to defeat two high-caliber opponents en route. Whichever Eastern team claims a Finals berth will have to truly earn it.
By Zach Kram | ESPN, via ESPN