Yahoo Sports AM: The NBA’s conference imbalance

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🚨 Headlines

🏀 Down goes Cleveland: The Celtics beat the Cavaliers, 120-117, in NBA Cup action to hand the Cavs their first loss and halt their historic 15-0 start. Only the 2015-16 Warriors (24-0) won more consecutive games to start a season.

👋 Coaching departures: The Bruins fired Jim Montgomery amid an underwhelming 8-9-3 start; Gerardo “Tata” Martino is leaving Inter Miami for personal reasons following the club’s record-breaking campaign.

🏀 Tuesday triple-doubles: Russell Westbrook (12-10-14) became the first NBA player with 200 triple-doubles; Marquette’s Kam Jones (17-13-10) did it all for the Golden Eagles in an upset win over No. 6 Purdue. Get to know the name.

⚾️ Managers of the Year: Cleveland’s Stephen Vogt (age 40) won AL Manager of the Year just two years after retiring as a player; Milwaukee’s Pat Murphy (age 65) won the NL award in his first season as an MLB skipper.

📺 Comcast spinoff: Comcast is expected to announce today that it will spin off its cable networks (MSNBC, USA, CNBC, etc) into a separate company. The NBC broadcast network and Peacock will remain with Comcast, as will Bravo.

🏀 NBA imbalance: West is best, again

The NBA has two conferences. So far this century, one has been far superior to the other.

Decades of dominance: Western Conference teams are 37-18 against Eastern Conference teams this season, putting the West on pace to finish with the better head-to-head record — and thus the better overall record — for the 23rd time in the past 26 seasons.

Yes, you read that right: The East has had a better winning percentage than the West just three times this century: 2008-09 (.505), 2021-22 (.501) and 2022-23 (.509). During that time, Western Conference teams have also won nearly twice as many championships (16 of 25).

• The disparity is on full display in the current NBA standings: The East has four teams with winning records (Cavaliers, Celtics, Magic, Knicks), while the West has 11 (Warriors, Thunder, Lakers, Rockets, Nuggets, Suns, Timberwolves, Clippers, Mavericks, Grizzlies, Kings).

• If the NBA didn’t have a salary cap and the West had more big-spenders, that might explain their consistent superiority. But there are actually more small market teams in the West, notes Sportico’s Lev Akabas, and the median East and West team valuation is virtually identical.

So what’s behind this imbalance? I discussed some theories with two of Yahoo Sports’ NBA experts, Kevin O’Connor and Tom Haberstroh. A few of my favorites…

1. The East has had more consistently bad teams, which has hurt the conference’s overall performance. The data supports this theory: Of the 10 teams with the worst record this century, eight are in the East, including the bottom three (Wizards, Hornets/Bobcats, Knicks).

2. The West has better weather, which attracts better players. There’s probably some truth to this, and the data once again backs it up: The West has produced more All-NBA players than the East every single year since 1999.

3. The West has better decision-makers. “It’s all about upstairs,” says Haberstroh. “Historically, the best GMs and decision-makers have been in the West — Sam Presti in OKC, R.C. Buford in San Antonio — and while players come and go, they’re a constant.”

Bottom line: Conference/league imbalance isn’t unique to the NBA. The NFC won 13 straight Super Bowls from 1984-96; the AL has won 28 of the last 36 MLB All-Star Games. Theories can help diagnose these anomalies (i.e. the AL has had a larger concentration of power hitters, which translates well to the ASG), but there’s still an element of flukiness that can’t be explained.

Good read… Time is running out for the 76ers and Bucks, who look more like pretenders than contenders (Vincent Goodwill, Yahoo Sports)

🎾 Nadal says goodbye

Rafael Nadal lost to Botic van de Zandschulp on Tuesday in the final professional match of his career, and the tennis icon went out exactly the way he should: fighting.

From Yahoo Sports’ Liz Roscher:

The scoreboard read 6-4, 6-4 in van de Zandschulp’s favor, but those numbers don’t tell the story of all the small battles and tiny wars that make up a tennis match — this one especially.

There were moments of brilliance where we got to see Nadal make gorgeous shots that only he could attempt. But those moments were surrounded by reminders that Rafa is 38 and his body simply cannot keep up anymore.

That’s not a secret, or something shameful no one should talk about. For professional athletes, this day always comes. Accepting that means there’s no shame in losing; it’s simply time to move on. And Rafa will move on as one of the most beloved tennis players of his generation, or any generation.

End of an era: Professional sports have been around for centuries. At no point have three athletes defined their sport quite like Nadal, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic defined men’s tennis for the better part of this century. Two of the “Big Three” have now bowed out, and it makes me sad. But mostly, I feel fortunate to have witnessed it.

The last word: “The titles, numbers, they’re there,” Rafa said during his farewell speech. “The way I’d like to be remembered more is like a good person from a small village in Mallorca.”

🍿 Mini movie: A story of resilience, passion, and unmatched greatness. Rafa’s career, as narrated by Carlos Moya (21 minutes)

🏈 CFP rankings: Boise jumps BYU

Boise State leapfrogged BYU in this week’s CFP rankings, meaning the Broncos are the provisional No. 4 seed in the playoff with two weeks to go in the regular season.

First-round byes:

1. Oregon

2. Texas

3. Miami

4. Boise State

First-round matchups: Based on the current projections, three SEC at-large teams would be traveling north to play in the cold.

• No. 12 BYU at No. 5 Ohio State

• No. 11 Georgia at No. 6 Penn State

• No. 10 Ole Miss at No. 7 Indiana

• No. 9 Alabama at No. 8 Notre Dame

Looking ahead: BYU will vault back over Boise State in next week’s rankings if they beat No. 18 Arizona State on Saturday.

⛳️ Could Trump bridge the PGA-LIV divide at last?

President-elect Donald Trump has much bigger concerns than the fate of professional golf, but the schism at the heart of the men’s game could be resolved during — and potentially even because of — a new Trump administration, writes Yahoo Sports’ Jay Busbee.

Driving the news: Trump met separately over the weekend with PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan and LIV Golf chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan, and he has declared in the past that it would take him “15 minutes” to help the two parties get a deal done.

• The PGA Tour and LIV Golf have run on separate tracks since 2022, when LIV poached a significant portion of the Tour’s notable players and began operating as its own tour.

• The two entities announced a cessation of legal hostilities in June 2023, but have not yet been able to craft any kind of workable operating agreement going forward. Their self-imposed deadline of Dec. 31, 2023, is now almost a year in the past.

Bottom line: It’s unclear how much influence Trump would be able to exert on the negotiations, but a key component of any PGA Tour/LIV alignment is whether it would pass Department of Justice scrutiny. On a high-level scale, Trump’s Justice Department would likely be more amenable to corporate realignments of this kind.

In related news … The PGA Tour approved sweeping changes on Monday that include reducing the number of members from 125 to 100, decreasing the field sizes at nearly every Tour event and eliminating most of the Monday qualifiers.

📆 Nov. 20, 1960: “The Hit”

64 years ago today, Eagles linebacker Chuck Bednarik* made one of the most famous tackles in NFL history, leveling Giants halfback Frank Gifford with “The Hit.”

Conference rivalry: The future Hall of Famers’ collision came in the closing minutes of a critical game at Yankee Stadium, with the winner set to take first place in the East.

• Trailing 17-10, Giants QB George Shaw found Gifford across the middle. Moments later, he was met by the much larger Bednarik, who decked him and forced a fumble, which the Eagles recovered to clinch the win.

• Gifford lay unconscious before being stretchered off the field. He was hospitalized for 10 days with a concussion, missed the rest of the season and retired three months later (though he’d return in 1962 to play three more years).

What they’re saying: Some took issue with Bednarik’s hit — which was legal and drew no penalty — but Gifford bore no ill will: “Chuck hit me exactly the way I would have hit him. With his shoulder, a clean shot. That’s football.”

The big picture: On the tackle’s 50th anniversary in 2010, the New York Times called it “professional football’s most notorious concussion,” and many still consider it one of the most violent hits ever. But are they remembering “The Hit” correctly?

You be the judge… A quick look at the footage shows that Bednarik’s tackle wasn’t quite as vicious as history suggests. And Gifford himself said he was knocked out not by the hit, but by the frozen turf in the Bronx.

*The last of his kind: Bednarik, who played both center and linebacker, is widely recognized as the NFL’s last full-time two-way player, or “Sixty-Minute Man” as they used to be called.

📺 Watchlist: Hump Day hoops

Tonight’s NBA doubleheader on ESPN — Bulls at Bucks (7:30pm ET) followed by Knicks at Suns (10pm) — features five* of the league’s top 20 scorers.

Getting buckets: Giannis Antetokounmpo (31.4 ppg) leads the NBA in scoring, Karl-Anthony Towns (26.2) is 10th, Damian Lillard (25.3) is 11th, Jalen Brunson (24.4) is 15th and Devin Booker (23.5) is 18th.

More to watch:

• 🏒 NHL: Hurricanes at Flyers (7:30pm, TNT); Predators at Kraken (10pm, TNT)

• 🏀 NCAAM: No. 25 Illinois at No. 8 Alabama (9pm, SEC)

• 🏀 NCAAW: No. 1 South Carolina at Clemson (5pm, ESPN2)

• 🏈 NCAAF: Buffalo at Eastern Michigan (7pm, ESPNU); Ohio at Toledo (7pm, ESPN2) … Wednesday night MACtion.

• 🎾 Billie Jean King Cup: Italy vs. Slovakia (11am, Tennis) … Finals.

• 🎾 Davis Cup: Germany vs. Canada (6am, Tennis) … Quarterfinals.

*The missing sixth: Kevin Durant (27.6 ppg) would be the sixth top-20 scorer featured in tonight’s doubleheader, but he’s sidelined with a calf strain. The Suns desperately need him back: After starting 8-1, they’re 1-5 in six games without KD.

🏈 NFL trivia

26 of 32 NFL teams have cities in their names (e.g. New York Jets, Los Angeles Rams, Washington Commanders). Can you name the six teams that don’t?

Answer at the bottom.

🧠 Random thought

The Orioles moved back the left-field wall at Camden Yards in 2022, creating the “Great Wall of Baltimore.” Three years later, they’re moving it back in and lowering the height.

Which got me thinking: What if it became the norm for MLB teams to customize their ballpark dimensions each season to best fit their rosters (and best defend against their rivals)? Part of why the O’s moved the wall back was to limit homers by AL East righties. Now they’re moving it back, in part, because they have better pitching and more righty sluggers of their own.

To be clear, I don’t see this actually happening. It’s just fun to imagine. Food for thought: What’s one change you’d make to your favorite team’s ballpark?

Trivia answer: Arizona Cardinals, Carolina Panthers, Minnesota Vikings, New England Patriots, Tampa Bay* Buccaneers, Tennessee Titans

*Tampa Bay is a body of water near Tampa and St. Petersburg, Florida. It’s not the name of a city.

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