How Many Wins Do We Finish With?

[ArgoZ]

Have you seen the NBA lately, Ron? The Western Conference has been much, much stronger than the Eastern Conference the past few years. The Raptors would be lucky to make the playoffs in the Western Conference but I don't hear many in Toronto complaining about that.

Not true, but I get the point your trying to make. The Raptors have finished near the top of their conference the last few years, but their problem is they can't compete with Cleveland in the playoffs and if they ever do, there is likely Golden State in the final. This makes the regular season a long, been there, done that grind until the playoffs, where everyone is expecting them to lose. Raptor hype has subsided lately directly because of this.

Maybe true. But you don't see a set of standings in any other pro sport that has an entire division/conference ahead of the first place team in the other. All for an east/west discrimination (are Canadian truly still that petty?) that was proven false in 2007.

9 franchises is the only reason. The probability is mathematically higher. I remember some years where one NFL division would all have better or similar records than another division, but it didn't matter much because usually only the division winner moved on, and there is 32 teams!