Do you believe this is the strongest conference in NBA history? Also - thank you SNHU's sports management program for sponsoring this video! Check them out here: snhu.edu/andyhoops

2010 west was tough but this is crazy hard conference now. The talent pool is so much more now, props to Kobe for winning that year.

It was kinda funny when he said “you can tell they’re hungry” and a Zion clip was playing 😂😂

Great vid, but could you consider keeping the old background music. Just goes with the vids better

As a Timberwolves fan i'd say this season Nickiel Alexander-Walker has been our secret weapon defender. he's a bit older than Jaden, has a calmer head, and is a lockdown defender who played all 82 games this year. McDaniels is a great defender, but after four years his offense has yet to improve. NAW has been a consistent scorer since the Jazz traded him in 2023

I've been watching the NBA for 33 years. I've never seen a conference this dominant. The scary thing is that Memphis wasn't even a factor due to injuries and Ja Morrant's suspension. I don't think that the balance of power is going to change much next year either. The Warriors might break up during the off season but everyone else looks like they're going to run it back. If the Jazz move Lauri Markennen, and he goes to a team in the west, that could also shake things up. Markennen to the Thunder for some of their draft assets could be huge. He could go to San Antonio or Houston and now those teams are fighting to get into the playoffs. Someone is going to want to go to the Spurs in the off season. Wembanyama is Kevin Durant performing a fusion with Rudy Gobert.

2010 was Absolutely tough The Kobe Pau Gasol era in Los Angeles The young and rising OKC Thunder The lasting of the Phoenix suns Steve Nash Amare Stoudemire era

If the stars ever align, Mark Daigneault has a chance to be an all-time great NBA coach.

One thing not mentioned by Andy Hoops: the West generally has better *team owners,* and everyone knows teams can’t overcome bad ownership. _Let’s think of it this way:_ Do you think the conference with Joe Tsai, James Dolan and Jerry Reinsdorf is better than the conference with Mark Cuban, Joe Lacob, and Stan Kronke?

I could argue that the 2013-14 western conference was a really competitive conference. The 9 seed, the phoenix suns, were 14 wins above .500 and missed the playoffs. Also, the 1-8, 2-7, and 3-6 matchups in the first round all went to 7 games.

This year's western conference is stupidly strong.

Only time the East was actually good was from the 1970s-1990s. Ever since 2000, the Eastern conference deteriorated

2003 west should be at the top! spurs 60 duncan, parker, jinobli, bowen, robinson kings 59 webber, peja, bibby, christie, divac mavs 60 dirk, nash, finley, van exel wolves 51 garnet, czerbiak lakers 50 shaq, kobe blazers 50 wallace, randolph, wells jazz 47 kirilenko, harpring suns 44 marbury, stoudemire, marion

Just imagine if either Kobe or Duncan played in the East. We probably would've had Kobe vs Duncan almost every year in 2000's From 2000-2010 Kobe was in 7 finals & won 5 which is why Kobe is highly underrated because the media won't tell you EVERYTHING Kobe did in his career

Celtics now or never. Giannis butler embiid hobbled. Denver has most brutal path in nba history.

This is the only time where the 1st to 3rd seed in Western conference would not want to face the 6th to 8th if Warriors won the 8th seed lmao. No one wants to face Suns, Warriors, and Lakers in the first round. Although, a healthy Pelicans team is still a great matchup as well against OKC

Great video Andy!!! Let’s get this playoffs underway!!!

Most of the players Andy mentioned moving to the west are originally drafted by the west. Durant, Harden, Kawhi. If we look at the overall No. 1 picks, the East won most of the lotteries since 2000. And of course it produced, Kwame Brown, Andrea Bargnani, Markelle Fultz, Anthony Bennet. And then good but injury prone Derrick Rose, Andrew Bogut, John Wall. Plus good players but not very motivated like Ben Simmons and Andrew Wiggins. Almost every draft, the East always won the top 3 picks but still failed.

In the 2000s? The West was the Lakers/Spurs Invitational for a decade save for a blip in 06 2008 ended up yet another Lakers/Spurs rerun. That 50 win 8 seed Denver team was a fraud 2010? At no point that entire season did anyone think LA would get toppled The West for a generation was basically a bunch of paper tigers that LA/San Antonio cakewalked through Those two seasons were WEAK conferences where LA basically had it on cruise control

The west has been better then the East since the 2000's imagine if LeBron played in the west most of his career

honestly if i was an nba player and my goal was to win championships, id play in in the east

In the late 90's- throughout the 2000's the western conference always been dominant

The post season always EXPOSES team that were just racking up wins in the regular season........ watch & see 👀👁️!!

The west has significantly been the better conference for a while now. With the talent like KD, Steph, LeBron, Jokic, and other talented players. Seeing the emergence of OKC and Minnesota this year has been great to see. With SGA leading the way, the thunder have been the most consistent team this year. On the other hand it’s been the stellar play of Anthony Edwards and the T Wolves defense that has gotten the wolves where they are.

Probably since the 19-20 season the conferences has been balanced bc there was no dominate team that won the chip back to back bc the players have moved around a lot like Harden from the rocket to the nets to the 76ers to now the Clips

background music meeses up the video plz change it

That Lebron/JJ clip is funny

"They got KD, but we got Jaden Mcdaniels" 8:24

Its not surprising because all the good players want to live in warmer climates as opposed to snowy east coast😅

The quality of talent is even more than the 2000’s, add most of the talent is in small markets, and stories/ career lighting is gonna be altered. Really something.

whats with the background music andy? louder than the commentary at times

it's absolutely true and i'll prove why with an example for the Pelicans. a few weeks back, they were the 4th seed for a day, playing really well. then, they started losing a little bit and went i'd say neutral for the rest of the season. they finished as the 7th seed and were very close to missing the playoffs completely. a 49 win team missing the playoffs is unheard of. that would get them the 3 seed in the East. that's how crazy the west is this season.

Anyone think jordans bulls still win 6 rings in this era ?

This video is peak

2014 western conference

the NBA should balance this out, maybe instead of Eastern and Western conference playoffs the teams that would get into the playoffs should be on the top 16 1 vs 16 2 vs 15 and so on, and the ties should be determined by quotient system to make every NBA game more competitive since every points matter at the end. The play-in tournament is a bit ridiculous since if you work your asses to be atleast top 7 or 8 it's not enough because that ridiculous play in tournament

I agree that most of the Western Conference teams have been stronger,not just this and last season,but majority of the previous seasons due to their respective stronger squads with enough depths among themselves which the some of the respective Eastern Conference teams are slightly lacked in but I hope they would improve and show their extra strengths when it matters the most,good friends!!!👍🏾

If this year is tough then wait until next year...3 teams looking outside which have a strong chance of making at least the play in next year are the grizzlies, rockets and spurs

One thing I'm really surprised you didn't bring up is the Play-in Tournament (you mentioned it during the video, but not as a reason as to why the records are different) Before the Play-in Tournament was a thing, if you noticed that it wasn't likely for your team to reach the 8th Seed, your team would immediately just start tanking to get higher draft pick odds. You mentioned at the end of the video that the Rockets at 41-41 is the highest 11th Seed in NBA History, and they actually had a chance to make the Play-offs in the last 2 weeks of the season... Yeah, that didn't exist before, lol. 11th Seed teams have a chance to make the Play-offs by pushing for the 10th Spot, and for the entirety of NBA History before the Play-ins, they didn't - it's literally as simple as that, lol. I'm 27, so don't call me an old-head; I just hate how everyone in the modern sports media tries to make it sound like everything is better & stronger today, and everyone in the past was weaker. It's just not the case. Rules change, incentives changes, the money's changed - everything is DIFFERENT now - but different doesn't always mean better, and the numbers can be misleading.

Giving you a like on my birthday

start 2:18

The play-in is one of the greatest things to happen

2013-2015 Western conference was better imo no play in u shouldn't need extra chances to make playoffs 82 games should be enough

What’s 7:00 about ?

Lakers with Shaq & Kobe fully healthy were unbeatable! Only team’s challenging them during those times were the Spurs, Jazz, Mavs and T-Wolves !

The background music is crazyy lmaoo

I disagree on this being the Best Conference Playoffs in the West. Pelicans suck. Lakers will lose in 5 or less & Suns Wolves will go 5 or 6. Only 1 that is a great Playoffs game is Mavs vs Clippers

I’d say this is the best West in my lifetime (around since 2001)

Harden and Kd already played most of their careers in the West, before 2019 the west was already stacked w HOFers and Mvps. The east had Bron

Andy plz go back to the normal background music😭

To give an idea from Andy's opinion about the eastern conference . It doesnt looked stronger than the west , since the bottom seeded teams just wanted to tank to get the jackpot lottery.

lakers should have gotten mcdaniels instead of vando in the dlo trade. better offense, younger. same defensive effort.

And it's so crazy that whole League and so called-self proclaimed analysts overlook Aaron Gordon and MPJ. That's crazy!

If Julius Randle wasn’t hurt then The Knicks would have a record identical to OKC. And the same could be said for Donnavan Mitchell and Embid

the needs to get rid of confrences & do the best 16 teams

46-36 is not 10 games above .500, it's 5

_As impressive as the Thunder record is, they also feel like one of the weakest 1 seeds ever._

the play in tournament allows for the west to be stronger than it already is

Jaden is a way better deffender than OG boys

The West is simply loaded with talents which is why they have been a superior conference for a long time even though the East has been showing signs of getting better in recent years.

Westeren Conference is the wild west .

The East is so funny 😭 the Hawks were 10 games under .500 and were competing for a playoff spot

The thing with this playoffs I feel like, is that ALL teams could make the finals in the west: The Nuggets are the favourite OKC has the best record The Wolves are the best Defensive team If the Clippers are healthy and beat the Mavs, their talent is crazy and has been on a crazy run since Harden The Mavs have arguably the best duo, and potentially the MVP A healthy Suns...KD, Book and Beal? 140PPG The Lakers have dominated. The king and Davis are fully healthy, they could beat anyone If Zion is back, they dominate the Thunder on the glass. This is too stacked. If the Knicks are in the West, they might not make the playoffs. Nerf the west Edit: The leauge should add more teams.

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Oddly more weirder , my comments never got a love from andy

Twolves and Pelicans should be in the East

Rockets would have been in the playing this year if they were in the east

Andy never fails to say some dumb shit

2000’s Lakers, Kings, Spurs, Mavericks, Suns would beat every one of these west teams. Other Denver maybe. The NBA is weak right now. There’s no true dominant team relative to some of the truly great teams we have seen in the past.

If anyone takes the SNHU degree and gets a job they're happy with i will buy you anything

all props to OKC!!! Unfortunatelly their youth will cost them in Playoffs. Because of lacking of experience.

Strongest? No, not even close. You can argue that's it's the most consistent from like the 1 seed to the 10th but there's no world beaters beyond Denver. There's no Shaq and Kobe Lakers or the Duncan led Spurs and the Warriors are on the downslide. You might get a tougher 1st round matchup than you normally would see but that doesn't make it the strongest.

Whish gives even worse shame on self proclaimed MVP Joel.

Spurs giveh other conf teams more wins 12: wins

Still WEST STACKED

There shouldnt be divisions in the NBA anymore.

I wouldnt be surprised if the change the line up of each conference. Travel isnt as big of a deal now days. Even do something like soccer does. The bestbteams deserve to be in the playoffs. Not the cheating lebum btw.

Definitely not the strongest you’ll see. Look back in history you used to have 50 win teams as 8 seeds. The we believe warriors didn’t even make the playoffs the next year with 46 wins

The Eastern Conference hasn’t dominated the NBA since the 1998 Chicago Bulls ended their dynasty of the 1990’s !

1st

Sports management is the equivalent of a sociology/liberal arts degree....useless.

Jokic is already my goat but if he can make it out the West then go on to beat that ridiculous Celtics team. He probably enters the top 10 all time

Wait till the Celtics take care the business

There was a 3-way tire for the 1 seed bro. It would be more astonishing if they did it like the 67 spurs team or 2012 okc. Not relying on other teama

Who here after the wolves swept the suns and are about to sweep the nuggets

West have LEgoat thats all u needa know

I mean, let’s be real the Western Conference has been the superior conference in the NBA for such a long time that’s why they have won the most NBA finals than the eastern conference has but LeBron has been to those NBA finals for most of that 2010 decade

You're just wrong, Andy. This era of the NBA is soft and weak compared to anything early 2010's and back. You get carried away too easily by today's overinflated stats. Back in the day, 20-30-point leads were insurmountable when good, hard defense was actually played. Now teams come back from them every week and you just saw how soft the Suns actually are as they crumbled in the first round along with the Lakers. New Orleans is a joke and so are the Clippers and Mavs. The Nuggets aren't deep either and barely win.

p.s. and mark these words--> Luka will go from Mavs if they dont reach Finals next season. PERIOD.

I would really like the NBA to implement a top 16 playoffs regardless of the conference. Logistical problems will arise but we'll see the best match ups possible. New rivalries will also start