NBA: Grading would-be playoff teams in the Eastern Conference

With the NBA season on standby, let’s take a look back at how the would-be Eastern Conference playoff teams have performed this season

For years, the Eastern Conference has been known as the “Leastern Conference”, in comparison to the gauntlet that is the Western Conference and rightfully so.

While the East may not be at the level of the West as an overall conference, the top teams in the East are still good enough to compete with the top teams in the West.

With that being said, the stoppage in the season may not give us a chance to see how the East would have played out. We’ll likely miss out on a chance to see if Giannis can fair better in the playoffs this year compared to last, taking that next step to superstardom.

We may not get to see a potential Boston Celtics and Brooklyn Nets matchup which would be must-see television. Or we may have gotten the Celtics facing off against the Philadelphia 76ers which would no doubt be the best matchup in the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs. We’ll likely miss out on a chance to see a surprising Miami Heat team try to make a playoff run in which they’d face the Indiana Pacers, a matchup where there is history from earlier this year.

Regardless of the current situation, that does not stop us from seeing how those teams have faired up until now. While the Eastern Conference is not as exciting as the Western Conference, there are still individual seasons to be dissected and assessed. The grades the teams receive are not to be compared to each other, but to be compared to the expectations and performance so far from the individual team itself.