Issue date: 3/26/09 Section: Sports

Media Credit: Abby Harvey

For the past decade, the National Basketball Association has been dominated by the Western Conference. The Los Angeles Lakers and the San Antonio Spurs have combined to win seven of the last 10 NBA Championships. That is all about to change.

In the three major sports, conferences tend to have runs of approximately a decade in which they win more titles. In Major League Baseball, the American League has won seven of the last 11 World Series titles. In the National Football League, the AFC has won nine of the last 12 Super Bowls - before that, the NFC had won 13 consecutive Super Bowls. In the NBA, the power is shifting from the Western Conference to the Eastern Conference.

Western Conference teams continually posted higher win totals than Eastern Conference teams and therefore had later draft picks. As the Eastern Conference teams received earlier draft picks, they accumulated many of the young stars that are the future of the NBA.

Young players such as LeBron James, Dwight Howard, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh all play in the East and are blossoming into superstars while traditional Western Conference standouts such as Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan, Steve Nash and Dirk Nowitzki are either at the apex of their careers or on the downside.

Recent trades have helped the Eastern Conference gain some power too. When Rasheed Wallace was traded to the Detroit Pistons, he helped transform the team from mediocre to dominant, even bringing back a championship title. The acquisition of Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett by the Boston Celtics paid off with 66 wins and a championship the same year, while the Seattle Supersonics - now the Oklahoma City Thunder - and the Minnesota Timberwolves have struggled to win at least 25 games a season ever since. The free agent acquisition of Rashard Lewis by the Orlando Magic as well as trades within the conferences has helped create the other dominant teams in the Eastern Conference.

The teams that once boasted the best records in the west - the Sacramento Kings, Dallas Mavericks, Phoenix Suns, Timberwolves and Portland Trailblazers - are no longer as dominant as they once were, and, in some cases, are consistently missing the playoffs. Only the Los Angeles Lakers have seemingly avoided the decline other teams have or will face. Smart draft picks, trades bringing in Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom, and Bryant still remain among the NBA's elite have all helped.

Unless Western Conference teams start making moves to prevent a decline in performance, the power will shift to the Eastern Conference where most of the young stars play.

Gourdoux is a sophomore print journalism major and sports editor of The Spectator.

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