Quite the opposite, the East regular season was tougher last year with all the above average/good teams fighting for playoff berths. The four team West does mean two tough playoff rounds, but a much easier regular season and an easy opening round.That still leaves two really tough playoff rounds in which you're almost certainly facing both the Spurs and Warriors. And you have to exert yourself in the regular season to get home-court advantage against even one of those teams. Also, teams like Portland are potential first round opponents if you're the 4 seed.
EDIT: I just noticed that I forgot to add that the fifth place WC team, that the four seed needed to dread, would have been fighting for the 8th seed in the East.
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