The NBA's top-heavy West looks very mediocre

Death, taxes, and the NBA's Western Conference being vastly superior to the East, or Leastern Conference: three things that have been certainties for most of the 21st century.

The divide between the NBA's version of varsity and junior was only expected to grow this season. The West looked poised to have 13 or 14 teams vying for postseason berths, while an already weak East was further depleted by injuries to Tyrese Haliburton (of the defending conference champion Pacers) and Jayson Tatum (of the Celtics, the East's most consistent winner).

The conference was widely expected to produce just two or three contenders - Cleveland, New York, and perhaps one of Orlando or Atlanta on the fringes - a pile of mediocre squads, and the usual tankers rounding things out at the bottom.

A month into the 2025-26 campaign, you could easily apply that description to the West.

Sure, the defending champion Thunder and Nikola Jokic's Nuggets are clearly the league's two best teams, with Houston looking like a worthy No. 3. But there's a significant drop-off after that. And the league's most shambolic franchises are dragging down the West, not the East.

A slew of injuries to Haliburton's Pacers and the usual tanking efforts in Brooklyn and Washington have buried those three clubs early, as was mostly expected. However, the incompetence of the Pelicans, Kings, Clippers, Mavericks, and Grizzlies has completely hollowed out the supposedly superior West.

The situation in New Orleans is downright depressing. Zion Williamson has (predictably) missed nine of 15 contests, and the 2-13 Pelicans owe their 2026 first-round draft pick to Atlanta.

Sacramento employs a bevy of ill-fitting offensive talent that collectively can't guard five pylons. Meanwhile, the Clippers, who owe their 2026 first-rounder to the juggernaut Thunder, are running on fumes with an old, banged-up roster that can't keep up.

In Dallas, the absence of Kyrie Irving and a lack of competent guard play have the Mavs running the least efficient offense the league has seen in four years. Following the termination of general manager Nico Harrison, Dallas now has every incentive to continue bottoming out, as the organization controls its own first-rounder in 2026 and then not again until 2031.

Finally, the Grizzlies are "led" by a seemingly disinterested malcontent in Ja Morant, who has lost his emotional spark and athletic burst. I'm not sure which is worse, but Memphis is going nowhere fast.

The disappointing quintet has left Utah and Portland - the West's most shameless tanker and a plucky yet overmatched Blazers club - occupying play-in spots about one-fifth of the way through the season, despite a combined 11-18 record. Out East, the Tatum-less Celtics have battled their way to an 8-7 mark. Their reward? A three-way tie for ninth. That's right, the East's 11th-place team boasts a winning record.

It's early, but we're officially in NBA bizarro world, with projection systems forecasting that East teams will need 40-plus wins to make the play-in tournament, while 32-35 victories could be enough to give West clubs a crack at the playoffs.

For years, the jokes have written themselves when it comes to East teams backing into the postseason while the West was brutally unforgiving. San Antonio facing a lengthy stretch without superstar Victor Wembanyama would usually spell disaster and potentially end its playoff hopes, even in November. This time around, the Spurs can rest somewhat easy, having already built a six-game cushion on the 11th-place Clippers. Imagine if someone had told you the Spurs would actually be lucky to play in the West.

Does that mean the East is better? Not necessarily, but it's suddenly deeper and more competitive, which is a fun surprise.

A 15-game sample doesn't make a season, but don't expect the bottom half of the West to turn it around any time soon, or for pleasantly surprising East teams like Detroit, Toronto, and Atlanta to randomly fall apart.

The East may not be a murderers' row, but it's no house of cards, either. Go west to find that facade.

Joseph Casciaro is theScore's lead NBA reporter.