Has the power shifted in the NBA? Last year the Eastern Conference was obviously behind the Western Conference in almost every possible aspect. The disparity was so bad, the East even picked up nicknames such as the Leastern Conference, the JV league, and the B-League, throughout the season.

The sad reality is that the critics were right, and the world witnessed it when it watched the Cleveland Cavaliers take a 4-0 drubbing from the San Antonio Spurs in the NBA Finals. Well, at least the few who watched it did anyways. With a new season only a few months away and the offseason action slowing down, the East appears to have made a few strides toward narrowing the talent gap. But that doesn’t mean much will have changed once the games get started again.

There have been many moves in the offseason benefiting the Eastern Conference either through the draft, trades, or free agency. The Orlando Magic signed Rashard Lewis to a massive new contract. The New York Knicks traded for Zach Randolph. The Chicago Bulls drafted Joakim Noah, and the Boston Celtics made the biggest splash by trading for former MVP Kevin Garnett. Outside of the Garnett deal, however, I wouldn’t think any of these moves will have an enormous effect on who might be the NBA champion.

The addition of Lewis to the Magic comes at the loss of Grant Hill and Darko Milicic, two players who had big roles in the team’s playoff run the past year. Randolph moving to the Knicks just adds another troublemaker to an already shaky locker room and pairs him up with another overweight low-post player who doesn’t understand the meaning of defense.

The past year’s top teams in the East: the Bulls, the Cleveland Cavaliers, and the Detroit Pistons, have been relatively quiet and have made very few changes. The Bulls drafted Noah and signed journeyman Joe Smith but still haven’t addressed their need for low-post scoring. The Cavs have done absolutely nothing, and the Pistons added a few nice rookies in the draft but that’s about it.

That leaves the Celtics. The Celtics probably made the biggest improvement of any team in the league by adding perennial All-Stars Ray Allen and Garnett to their own superstar Paul Pierce. The only problem with adding two big names to the mix is that they had to part with a big chunk of their roster, leaving them with scraps to put in place around the big three.

Expect the Celtics, the NBA’s second worst team the past year, to probably make the biggest leap in victories during the regular season, but come playoff time, a championship might be out of reach. It comes down to the supporting cast and bench, which are just too thin.

The fact of the matter remains that the Western Conference is still the dominant conference. One could argue that the NBA’s five best teams are in the West including the defending NBA champions, the Spurs. In addition to the Spurs, the Phoenix Suns and Dallas Mavericks are still loaded with talent, and the Houston Rockets and Utah Jazz have added more pieces to the puzzle.

Not to mention maybe the two most significant moves that occurred in the offseason. Greg Oden and Kevin Durant, the two most hyped rookies since LeBron James, were drafted out west by the Portland Trailblazers and the Seattle SuperSonics, respectively. It’s a classic case of the rich getting richer. The cherry on top is that the west still owns the NBA’s best individual player in Kobe Bryant. 

So before anyone gets their hopes up about a power shift in the NBA, take a closer look and you will see the West still remains the cream of the crop and will be for the foreseeable future. 

LeBron and Dwyane Wade might be the faces of the NBA, but the best teams still reside in the West. Shaq is getting old fast and LeBron might have less talent surrounding him than Lee Humphrey did the past year at Florida.

So if you’re an NBA fan who wants to see the two best teams in the NBA Finals each year, keep your fingers crossed that David Stern moves to a format where teams are seeded solely on record and their conference is meaningless. Then maybe the Suns and Spurs will meet in the Finals and people will actually watch.