That the East rhymes with least has been an unfortunate coincidence during the past decade of basketball, in which the N.B.A.’s Eastern Conference has struggled to keep up with its more glamorous Western rivals. But as the current season winds down, a look at the standings reveals the tables may have turned ever so slightly.

Make no mistake, the league is still being dominated by two Western Conference titans in the Golden State Warriors and the San Antonio Spurs, but in the East, the eight teams currently in line for a playoff spot all have winning records, while in the West, there are two teams with records below .500 that are on pace for a postseason berth. So despite having perhaps the game’s three best teams (including the Oklahoma City Thunder), the West no longer has a monopoly on depth among contenders for the postseason.

That there is some variation in the standings of a league in which more than half of the franchises make the playoffs may not seem that exceptional. In the case of the East, though, the past 10 years have included 10 teams with losing records making the playoffs and not one with a winning record being eliminated in the regular season.

With a loss on Saturday night, the Chicago Bulls dropped to 36-36, and they were immediately hounded with questions about whether they were quitting on their playoff push in a difficult season, but if they or the 35-37 Washington Wizards were to finish the season with a winning record and not make the playoffs, they would be the first Eastern Conference team to do so since the 2004-5 Cleveland Cavaliers, who had nothing to show for a 42-40 record in LeBron James’s second season. James had a triple-double in a desperate push for a playoff spot on the final day of the season, but the win was not enough as the Nets also won and took the final spot in the East over the Cavaliers because of a tiebreaker.