The Eastern Conference Woke Up

After years of being decried as the weaker conference in basketball, the East seemed to have had another rough year set for this season of basketball. With multiple teams dealing with serious injuries, such as Jayson Tatum on the Celtics and Tyrese Haliburton on the Pacers, many predicted that the Eastern Conference this year would field mediocre-to-bad playoff teams across the board. However, at the moment, the Conference looks competent for the first time in a couple of years.

The five teams currently out of the playoff picture are the Washington Wizards, the Indiana Pacers, the Brooklyn Nets, the Charlotte Hornets, and, shockingly, the Chicago Bulls. While Indiana is the least surprising team at the bottom, given Haliburton's injury, Washington has given them a run for their money. The franchise has spent the last decade crashing and burning ever since the departure of John Wall, and the Wizards are overall the laughing stock of the NBA at the moment. The Nets have been self-destructing ever since their "Big-3" of James Harden, Kevin Durant, and Kyrie Irving was blown up, with all three players now playing for Western Conference teams. The Hornets, despite having the leading Rookie of the Year candidate in Kon Knueppel, have fallen out of the Play-In seeding they held at the start of the year. Finally, despite starting the year 5-0, the Chicago Bulls have fallen off a cliff. With damning losses to multiple of the bottom teams, the Bulls need to save their season fast with a 9-12 record at the moment. While the Bulls and Hornets are by far the most competitive of these bottom tiers, still be on the lookout for one of these teams to knock off a much stronger Eastern contender at some point this season.

Next, we have the Play-In teams, and this group is shocking, not for overperforming, but rather for seemingly underperforming. The Milwaukee Bucks sit at 10-13 and gatekeep the final Play-In slot from the Bulls. With Giannis still trying to will the team to a winning form despite multiple trade rumors, the Philadelphia 76ers, despite previously being as high as 2nd in the Conference, are just one spot ahead with an 11-9 record. Tyrese Maxey has been playing at an MVP level, and many fans had this team pegged as the year Embiid finally makes a Conference Finals (granted, when he's being carried by his teammates) after their early success. The next two teams are tied in their records, with the Atlanta Hawks and Cleveland Cavaliers. The Atlanta Hawks are headlined by Jalen Johnson in a breakout year as the Hawks still try to will their Trae Young core to a victory. And the Cavaliers, after being exposed by the Pacers last postseason, are trying to pick up where they left off despite taking a few steps back. Donovan Mitchell is still one of the shining stars of the East, but with heightened competition, this league will be harder to win than last year.

Now, for the currently locked-in teams this early in the season. The Boston Celtics, despite Tatum's injury, have been in form thanks to excellent play from Jaylen Brown. Their 12-9 record locks up the 6th seed in the East, and one spot ahead is the Orlando Magic. With the Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner core leading the team to an undefeated Group Stage in the NBA Cup, Orlando looks to end the years of suffering in their newly rebranded team as they keep their postseason hopes alive. Next is the 2nd most-surprising team in the Conference. The Miami Heat, despite losing Jimmy Butler and many fans deeming this as the year the Heat miss the playoffs and finally are forced to rebuild, are 2nd in points-per-game and 2nd in assists-per-game in the NBA. After a slow start, their offense has woken up and delivered them to the 4th seed. Next is last year's Eastern Conference Finals team, the New York Knicks. The Brunson-Towns duo has continued to lead the team to much success, alongside a great supporting cast. Knicks fans are hopeful that this is the year that this team returns to being playoff-dominant. And speaking of returning, nobody had the Toronto Raptors as a pick to take the biggest leap forward this year. 2nd in the East, Darko Rajakovic has put his hat in the ring for Coach of the Year as RJ Barrett, Scottie Barnes, Grady Dick, and Immanuel Quickley have had this defense cooking teams. Lastly, at the top of the picking order, the Detroit Pistons have turned a lot of heads this year. After finally breaking through into the playoffs last season, Cade Cunningham is putting together a strong case for MVP as the Pistons are back to their winning ways from the late 80s and early 2000s. With a suffocating defense and an explosive attack, this Pistons team could very easily make the NBA Finals, and they have a decent shot to win it all this year.

While they have been lacking in recent years, this isn't the year to sleep on the Eastern Conference. The Thunder are still the favorite to win the title, and the Nuggets are my personal pick to win it all, but don't be surprised if the Eastern Conference gets the better of their competitor. The East is deadly this year, and it gives you an even better reason to watch some exciting basketball this winter.