Last week, Kevin Pelton looked at early front-runners in the West through the prism of point differential. Today we're going to do the same thing for the East, where the top of the standings look nothing like what we thought they would. OK, that's not exactly true. We thought there would be a runaway juggernaut in the East, and there is. We were just wrong about the team.

To reiterate what Pelton wrote: At this early juncture of the season, a team's point differential, when evaluated in the context of schedule factors, is a better indicator than won-loss record of what a team will do going forward. Wins and losses generate the buzz. Margin of victory generates the wisdom.