NBA Caucus: How can the NBA fix conference disparity?

USA TODAY Sports Network

Every week, USA TODAY Sports NBA experts weigh in on one of the league's hottest topics. This week's subject is the massive disparity between the Eastern and Western conferences, as detailed in a USA TODAY Sports feature Tuesday by Sam Amick and Jeff Zillgitt.

Has the disparity between conferences ever been so great?

Sam Amick, USA TODAY Sports: This isn't a new narrative. It's just the latest awful version of the same old story. And as bad as this disparity is, it could be worse. How, you ask? If the West was as good as the East is bad. The West is phenomenal thus far, to be sure, but the winning percentage of the eighth and final playoff team at the moment (the Golden State Warriors, .579) would – if the season ended today — be merely the fourth-best mark for a Western Conference eighth seed in the last seven seasons.

Still, the Elias Sports Bureau is spitting out all sorts of mind-blowing statistics that tell us just how bad the Leastern Conference is thus far: Not since 1972 had just two teams in the Least had winning records as late as Dec. 1; in 67 seasons, neither conference has had more than three below-.500 teams in the playoffs (as currently constructed, the Least would have five); last but not least, the Boston Celtics' 8-12 record ties an NBA all-time worst at the 20-game mark for a division leader (they're in the Bad-lantic Division, as one reader informed me). Hat-tip to Bleacher Report and ESPN on some of those stats.

Ian Levy, Hickory High: I can't remember a time when the conferences appeared this unbalanced, but memories can be misleading. Early in a season things may have been this skewed before, evening out by the time the playoffs roll around. We are a little more than a month into the season and a lot can change by April.

One point that's been largely ignored in all the gleeful finger-pointing at the bottom of the East is that things are tilted the other direction at the very top. The San Anotnio Spurs have the best point differential in the league but after them come the Miami Heat and Indiana Pacers, both nearly three points better per 100 possessions than the fourth-place Houston Rockets. The Pacers' point differential is better than the that of the Los Angeles Clippers, Warriors and Dallas Mavericks combined. The bottom of the East has been a disaster, but the top two are both in the tiny handful of teams in either conference with legitimate championship aspirations.

Sean Highkin, USA TODAY Sports: There's never been a conference this bad, not just in the NBA but in any sport. All five teams in the Atlantic Division are below .500, and if their percentages hold, it would be the losingest division of all time. Only three teams in the entire East (the Heat, Pacers and Washington Wizards) have records of winning percentages of .500 or better. No conference in NBA history has ever had five teams with losing records make the playoffs. In other words: It's ugly.

Alex Kennedy, HoopsWorld: I don't remember a time when there was such a great disparity between the two conferences. That's mainly because this year's East is about as bad as it gets. The West is varsity, and the East is junior varsity.

Which East teams other than the Pacers and Heat could make the playoffs in the West?

Amick: The 2012-13 New York Knicks could. And the Brooklyn Nets of that same season. Without question. Geesh, what kind of question is this? Oh, you mean Eastern Conference teams from this season?! Yeah, there are none. Or, as Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov might say, nyet. Better yet, the words of the Knicks' Carmelo Anthony, who said on Wednesday that his team is the "laughingstock" of the league.

Obviously, the Bulls' candidacy took a huge hit when Derrick Rose went down again, and you get the sense that their group just doesn't have another yeoman's effort in them after all the heavy lifting they did without him last season. (They've lost six of their last seven.) Other than them at their best, no one else in the East comes close to the caliber of what they have going out West.

Levy: With current levels of performance, none.

Highkin: The Hawks probably have the most talent of any non-Miami/Indiana East team, but the Bulls have proven that they can play shorthanded and fight with anybody on any given night. They're without Derrick Rose and Jimmy Butler, but the West hasn't been immune to injuries either, with Andre Iguodala and Marc Gasol missing significant time so far. Taj Gibson, Luol Deng and Joakim Noah are terrific defenders who could cause problems for some of the high-powered offenses in the West.

Kennedy: If the Bulls were healthy, they would make the playoffs in the West. But with Rose sidelined once again, no other Eastern Conference team would have a shot, in my opinion. The next best teams are the Wizards and Hawks, but they're mediocre teams that wouldn't compete for a playoff spot. If they played out West, they'd be seeded 12th and 13th right now. The West is just too competitive.

What should the NBA do to make the conferences more even?

Amick: I'm on board with Jeff Van Gundy's idea that he shared in our discussion the other day: Run the playoffs like a no-losers-allowed league and simply swap out any team that finishes the season with a sub-.500 record with a winning team, regardless of conference. I promise not to complain about whatever travel challenges that may pose when it comes time to cover said playoff matchups (like the back-and-forth between Oakland and Indianapolis in the Warriors-Pacers first-round matchup that might happen in such a system). There's just no need to keep rewarding teams that aren't as deserving of playoff appearances year in and year out.

Levy: I can sympathize with the frustration of West fans, knowing their team might miss out on the playoffs simply because of geographic orientation. The NBA is supposed to be a meritocracy and when that fundamental principle is overruled it feels like a gross miscarriage of justice. But this might be one of those problems where the solutions instill more chaos than the problem itself. Although this season looks like it may be an extreme tilt, the balance between conferences is always undergoing cyclical changes. Reallocating talent, realigning conferences or changing playoff formats would all be drastic overreactions with impacts that will last far longer than the memories of this miserable East.

Highkin: The most straightforward solution would be to kill off divisions. It makes no sense that the Boston Celtics, who have the eighth-best record in the East, would be guaranteed the No. 4 seed because they have the best record in a division full of mediocre (or worse) teams. Just go back to two 15-team conferences, and playoff matchups get a little less skewed.

Kennedy: One idea that has been tossed around is to eliminate the conference seeding altogether and, come playoff time, just seed the teams one through 16 based on their record. For example, if the season ended Tuesday, the Pacers would be the first seed, the Portland Trail Blazers would be the second seed, the Spurs would be the third seed, the Heat would be the fourth seed and so on. Sure, this would lead to fewer East teams making the playoffs, but at least the top 16 teams would be included in the postseason.