Wide-open Eastern Conference is the ultimate reflection of NBA's parity era

New York Times

08-07-2025

As the NBA enters a new year in which injuries will take multiple All-Stars out of the picture for most, if not the whole season, the efficacy of the parity era will be tested more than ever before. For the first time since the immediate aftermath of Michael Jordan's initial retirement more than a quarter century ago, there's a lack of clarity about the true contenders in an entire conference.
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The East has faced grim days before. There have been so many years when the morass of the conference could barely compete with teams in similar positions out west.
But there was always a clear hierarchy at the top, a team or two that could check some of the boxes for legitimate contention. In past rough periods for the conference, at least LeBron James was lurking in there, ready for the inevitable NBA Finals run. There was always this understanding that even if teams like the Joe Johnson Hawks or Dwight Howard Magic were the top seed, they still had to get through LeBron.
Today, there's no team founded on a top-five player in his prime that will for certain be in the mix, depending on one's feelings about Giannis Antetokounmpo's retooled Bucks. Unless the Pistons have another massive leap in store, there isn't a team rising through the ranks that inspires unmitigated confidence in their postseason chops. Each team that can make a convincing argument about why they should be the favorite has a significant caveat to their championship credentials.
Next season's Eastern Conference will be ground zero of the NBA's parity gambit, molded into the shape of competition the league set in motion over the past half-decade.
A big part of that vacuum has been created at the top. Achilles tears and the CBA have left the Indiana Pacers and Boston Celtics as shells of themselves, missing their stars for the next season and carrying on with a compromised supporting cast.
The latter was already poised to threaten the Celtics' reign even before Jayson Tatum's Achilles injury in the Celtics' second-round loss to the Knicks. Tatum's injury accelerated the inevitable, as the Celtics offloaded Kristaps Porziņģis and Jrue Holiday in an attempt to drop out of the dreaded second apron.
The Pacers, last season's surprise East champions, must now take a gap year because of Tyrese Haliburton's torn Achilles, their situation exacerbated by the departure of center Myles Turner to their rival, the Milwaukee Bucks. The Bucks themselves are in a similar conundrum, having waived Damian Lillard after he suffered the same injury as Haliburton in the same postseason.
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While injuries and the recent implementation of the second apron have received the most attention, there have been several structural changes to the league that have changed the path of least resistance for roster building. The Pacers developed a distinct identity and steadily molded their roster to fit it. Their trade for Pascal Siakam at the trade deadline two seasons ago was opportunistic and fit within their established foundation. They did not sacrifice their entire process to get a superstar like so many conference champions had.
Indiana's run to Game 7 of the NBA Finals last season proved that teams just needed to improve enough to be in the mix, rather than going all out to be the top dog. Attrition is taking down teams at random in the postseason. Remaining healthy and holding onto your identity has been the key to NBA Finals runs in recent memory.
The NBA shifted out of its Big 3 era through the implementation of the Play-In Tournament, flatter draft lottery odds and, of course, the first and second aprons. These reforms helped bridge the gaps between the tiers of the league and made acquiring multiple max-contract players more challenging.
The 76ers and Suns are the only teams left in the NBA that deployed a synthetic Big 3-centric roster strategy, with Philadelphia top-loading its cap sheet when it signed All-Star Paul George before trying to cobble together scraps of depth around him, Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey. Their implosion last season, like the Suns', fortified that this roster-building approach is dying out.
The new reality is that teams are trying to steadily nurture a broader core of valued rotation players, even as the East seems wide open. The top of the East is full of teams that have drafted well over the years and brought in a missing piece to potentially put them over the top, with the Knicks being the lone exception. Orlando's trade for Desmond Bane and Atlanta's deals for Kristaps Porziņģis and Nickeil Alexander-Walker show how wide-open the East is. These are not the kinds of blockbusters that used to reshape a conference, but those aren't as necessary or feasible as they were half a decade ago.
So now we are left with a top tier in the East consisting of Cleveland, New York, Orlando and Atlanta. They all project to be on similar tiers for various reasons, but they are the favorites for home-court advantage as things stand.
Examining each of the top contenders' resumes will reveal holes. Cleveland had a tremendous start to the regular season with a revamped system but tapered off as the regular season went on and then hit the Pacers wall hard in the second round, with Darius Garland struggling to play through turf toe. The Knicks can challenge them, but are they that classic team that is ready to clear that last hurdle, or does their coaching change and uneven 2024-25 regular season signal that last season was the furthest they could reach?
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Then, you have Orlando and Atlanta, two franchises who made crucial trades to solve their biggest weaknesses. In particular, the Bane trade, much like the Knicks' Mikal Bridges deal a year ago and the Siakam deal before that, exemplifies how East teams are now willing to pay significant assets for complementary pieces that will accentuate an established core.
The state of the East will help us understand how the NBA balances equity in competition with compelling a greater audience. The Finals had relatively low ratings for the most part, but then Game 7 was the highest-rated Finals game since Game 5 between the Golden State Warriors and Toronto Raptors in 2019. Parity ideally brings more Game 7s and builds interest in the game through more consistent competition.
The upside to seven different champions in seven consecutive seasons has been a unique journey every year. The drawback is that there are no dynasties creating familiarity for casual fans at the moment. Maybe the Thunder or Victor Wembanyama will fill that void, but the league is missing that long-term story driven by names that are instantly recognizable outside of households with jerseys in the closet.
The East, meanwhile, hasn't been this up for grabs since the turn of the century, when Michael Jordan's initial retirement opened the floodgates. The Knicks made the 1999 Finals without Patrick Ewing before aging out. The Nets traded for Jason Kidd and immediately shot to the top of the conference. As the decade went on, teams like the mid-2000s Pistons, the Shaquille O'Neal-Dwyane Wade Heat, and the Big 3 Celtics rose and fell before James and Steph Curry took over the 2010s.
As the NBA waits to see if Wembanyama can fulfill his limitless potential, there is no singular presence controlling the league right now. But the balance of power has dramatically shifted west, and teams like the Hawks and Magic have shown they aren't afraid to seize the moment.
We had no idea who was going to win the East 25 years ago. We have no idea now. Just as the league intended.