![]() Since the MVP Award was implemented in 1956, it’s been awarded 32 times to a player from the Eastern Conference, while the West only claimed 24. The 1990s, again, saw the NBA being dominated by two Eastern teams, first the Detroit Pistons, during their infamous Bad Boy Era, and then Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls who garnered six titles in eight years.įew players play with the same team or even within the same conference their whole career through so it is often abusive to label players as exclusively “Eastern Conference players” but some of them, like Michael Jordan, Moses Malone, Larry Bird or Wilt Chamberlain, through the special bond they developed with one team or the role they played in helping their organization win titles have earned that distinction. The Boston Celtics claimed 11 of them, the Syracuse Nationals/Philadelphia 76ers, 2 and the New York Knicks and Philadelphia Warriors, one each. The last Eastern Conference team to be crowned NBA champions were the Boston Celtics in 2008.įrom 1955 to 1970, the East put together an amazing streak of victory, winning all NBA titles but one. Out of the 62 official NBA Finals played since 1949, the Eastern Division/Conference won 32, while the West only triumphed 28 times. They are well ahead of any other team in the Conference, the Syracuse Nationals/Philadelphia 76ers having been champions only 9 times, the New York Knicks, 8 times and the Chicago Bulls, 6 times. The most titled franchise of the East, and of NBA as it turns out, are the legendary Boston Celtics, who hold a record 17 NBA championships and 21 Eastern Conference championship titles. Over the course of its 70+ year long history, the Eastern division/conference has seen many teams, players and coaches leave their marks on the game. As a result, the league realigned the Conferences, sub-dividing each of them into 5-team divisions. In the East, the Bullets and Capitols folded, leaving only 4 teams to compete for pretty much the whole of the 1950s.įinally, in 2004, the Charlotte Bobcats were the 30th and latest expansion franchise to join the NBA, (the Hornets having relocated to New Orleans two years before). The following season, the number of NBA teams dropped to eleven and the Central Division disappeared altogether. Six of the original teams were assigned to it: the New York Knicks, Boston Celtics, Syracuse Nationals (now Philadelphia 76ers), Washington Capitols (1946-51), Philadelphia Warriors (now Golden State Warriors) and Baltimore Bullets (1944-54). The ancestor of the Eastern Conference was born. The League therefore decided to divide the seventeen teams into three divisions: Eastern, Central and Western Divisions. When in 1949 the BAA (Basketball Association of America) absorbed the rival NBL (National Basketball League) to officially become the NBA, incorporating the new teams called for some realignment. On the other hand, the best team record of the season belonged to the Chicago Bulls, with 62 wins, surpassing the West’s San Antonio Spurs by one game. It has also recently been an overall less competitive conference, with only 7 out of 15 teams finishing the 2010-11 Season above. The East is often viewed as an overall more defense-oriented conference than its Western counterpart, with a tougher, hard-nosed kind of image, best impersonated by the 1960s Boston Celtics and the Detroit Pistons from the famous 1980s Bad Boys era. Here is a look at how the Eastern Conference is currently organized: Since the 2003-04 Season, the fifteen teams have been further divided into three 5-team partitions: the Atlantic, Central and Southeast Divisions. The Eastern conference is currently made up of 15 teams, roughly based east of the Mississippi – essentially on the East Coast – and include the only team located outside of U.S territory, in Toronto, Canada. Even though geographical factors came into play when organizing the League, making sure the teams would primarily play within a certain geographical area and thus avoid having to make too many long trips too often, we’ll see that, in spite of their names, the Eastern and Western Conferences have not always been organized strictly on a geographical basis. In similar fashion, since its official creation in 1949, the NBA has been divided in two, divisions at first, and then conferences. The finals traditionally see the champions of each conference compete against each other to decide who should be crowned league Champions. ![]() The Major League baseball has its National League and American League, the National Football Association, its NFC and AFC, the National Hockey League its Eastern and Western conferences. ![]() The NBA Conferences are a deeply-rooted tradition in American sports that major pro and college leagues be divided into conferences and other sub-divisions. Eastern conference – NBA teams through history
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