Wednesday Windmill: The Eastern Conference needs to wake up

   
     The Eastern Conference needs to wake up. Ever since Michael Jordan retired, the entire conference has gone into a coma and it hasn't yet woken up. The 2004 Pistons, 2006 Heat, 2008 Celtics, 2012 Heat, and 2013 Heat didn't wake up the conference. These teams merely won titles while competing in a pathetic conference.

     What's sad is that year after year, all we talk about is how exciting the Western Conference is going to be and how boring the Eastern Conference is going to be. It's the same chatter every season. The Western Conference has 6-8 teams every year that could win the NBA championship and the Eastern Conference has one or two teams in the mix. It's pathetic.

     As a matter of fact, we already know that the Cleveland Cavaliers will win the Eastern Conference in 2016 so long as the team doesn't die in a plane crash or get infected with bird flu. Everybody wants to argue a case for why the Bulls and Hawks can come out of the Eastern Conference, but in all reality, neither of these two teams has what it takes to actually take out the Cavaliers. It's sad, but true.

     What's even sadder is the drop off from the Bulls and Hawks. The Wizards and Raptors are nice little teams, but they don't pack the punch needed to give the Cavaliers a real scare. As for the remaining teams in the conference, they are all trash.

     So, doesn't this all mean the NBA should eliminate conferences and just send the top 16 teams to the playoffs? In my opinion, the answer is no. The NBA needs to preserve conferences for television ratings and travel purposes. As a matter of fact, I'm all for giving division winners a top three seed in the playoffs with home court advantage. I'm old school that way.

     What I want to see instead is the teams in the Eastern Conference to simply get better. I want to see teams like the Hornets, Bucks, 76ers, Pacers, and Celtics rise up and no longer let teams like the Jazz, Timberwolves, and Pelicans be the up and coming teams of the league. Even though all the teams I root for play in the Western Conference, as one who blogs about the NBA in its entirety, I would love to see the Eastern Conference wake up and create a buzz similar to what's been happening out West.

---Ben Parker: follow me on twitter @nba_lord to keep up with the NBA