Sometimes, no amount of East Coast bias can prevent one from accepting the obvious truth: So far this season it’s been all about the Western Conference. While the Eastern Conference is giving us “Win Now” teams that can’t win and tanking teams that can’t tank, the Western Conference feels so overstuffed with talent that the Portland Trail Blazers can start the season on a 9-2 run and still be considered unlikely to make the playoffs. Consider this week’s edition as “Five things we’ve learned when we really should have been sleeping”.

New York’s basketball renaissance is on hold

Most of the news coming out of the Eastern Conference is coming from New York, which, as recent NBA history tell us, is very rarely the source of good news (at least in this century). Both the New York Knicks and the Brooklyn Nets entered the 2013-14 season with rosters stripped bare of future assets and overstuffed with veterans with rapidly decreasing upsides. These were two teams given a clear “win now” mandate and, so far, those wins have proven elusive, as the two New York teams have combined for exactly six wins, only one more win than a Philadelphia 76ers team that was put together to win as few games as possible.

As far as the New York Knicks go, it’s hard enough just to keep track of all the things that have gone wrong for them over the last few months, let alone attempt to try to find any answers. Tyson Chandler is hurt. Carmelo Anthony has grown weary of carrying the offense. Andrea Bargnani has failed to not be Andrea Bargnani. JR Smith thinks he’s capable of being a team leader and James Dolan still thinks he’s capable of being a competent team owner. The team has no draft picks in the near future, have a payroll already well over the salary cap and don’t even have room on the roster to add anybody.

The 2013-14 New York Knicks: No Hope, No Jobs, No Cash.

The Knicks only have one true trade chip at this moment, promising young guard Iman Shumpert, whom the Knicks (read: owner James Dolan) is dedicated to shipping out after he did not tell the organization that he had knee surgery over the offseason. The issue with having only one tradeable commodity is that, well, there’s nothing the Knicks can really package with him. Not even a great front office could turn 21 Shump Street, a broken-beyond-repair Amar’e Stoudemire and a handful of magic beans into a Rajon Rondo. The Knicks very much do not have a great front office.

It gets dumber. The Knicks continue to waste a roster spot on Chris “J.R.’s Brother” Smith. The Knicks are apparently keeping Chris on the roster as a favor to his brother, despite concerns he might not even be good enough to last in the D-League where he will spend most of the season. Because the team is over the salary cap, keeping Basketball Zeppo will cost the Knicks an estimated $2.1 million. This might just be the most Knicks thing of all time.

The Brooklyn Nets might even be in worse shape. While everybody expected it would take time for the new look Nets to find their identity after the offseason’s acquisition of approximately half of the Boston Celtics lineup, that alone does not explain away their dreadful 3-7 start of the season, good for last place in the Atlantic Division. Paul Pierce and Joe Johnson have been underwhelming, Deron Williams has been injured and Kevin Garnett is going through another one of his regular stretches where he looks like he’s auditioning for a “Walking Dead” cameo. At least the Knicks are entertaining when they struggle and fail, these Nets inspire more yawns than boos.

Of the two teams, barring major injuries, this Nets team will only get better, and hopefully more watchable, the longer they play together, but considering the age of the major players they don’t have much of a window. Until that “win now” mentality actually leads to them, you know, winning, the more people will question the Nets decision to hire Jason Kidd as head coach just weeks after he retired as a player. Hiring Kidd to coach a team full of veterans, many barely younger than himself, was always something of a high risk-high reward gambit. So far that decision has yet to pay off, but what has paid off in New York yet?

The Warriors and Thunder gave us the best game of the year

There’s usually no better way to ensure a game won’t be memorable than to hype it up as a potential playoff preview. More often than not, regular series meetings between the NBA’s best teams, no matter how well the teams should match up on paper, always seem to be one-sided blowouts or forgettable, foul-heavy affairs. Once in a while, we luck out and get a game like Thursday night’s high-scoring, fast paced matchup between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Golden State Warriors.

In the first half of the game it didn’t look like either team had an advantage, nearly every basket was quickly answered on the other end of the court. It was the exact type of game you would expect with Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook on one end and Steph Curry and Klay Thompson on the other. Halftime saw the two teams knotted up at 62-62

The Warriors took over the game in the second half, leading the Thunder by as many as 14 points halfway through the fourth quarter. Which is exactly where Oklahoma City wanted them. Fulfilling a pattern seen all too often last season, particularly in their memorable playoff series against the San Antonio Spurs, the Warriors weren’t able to put the Thunder away, not that this is something ever particularly easy when playing a team with Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, clinging on to a tenuous two point lead heading into the game’s final minute.

With 2.3 seconds left, Russell Westbrook made a three-pointer to give the Thunder a one point lead that looked like it was going to seal the game, but before anyone could put his clutch three into any perspective, offseason acquisition Andre Iguodala coldly hit a buzzer-beater to shock a Thunder team that shocked the Warriors mere moments before. Unbelievably the Warriors avoided a potentially devastating collapse and somehow managed to end the evening with a 116-115 win. It was everything anybody could want from a basketball game, unless of course you happen to be a Thunder fan.

So, how about seven more games like this in the playoffs, Basketball Gods?

Portland Trail Blazers go on a seven game win streak

It’s officially that time of the season where everyone in the media rushes to write about an early surprise team as quickly as possible. Normally a great thing for a team and their fanbase, especially those toiling away in far from the national spotlight, until they realize that they’re acting so quickly because they expect them to fade away. This season the Portland Trail Blazers have been on the receiving end of this somewhat condescending attention.

Monday night the Portland Trail Blazers beat the Brooklyn Nets to win their seventh straight game, raising their record to 9-2, good for the third best record in the NBA, behind just the Indiana Pacers and the San Antonio Spurs. The day before, the Blazers showed some poise by defeating the Toronto Raptors 118-110 in overtime after allowing Toronto’s Rudy Gay to tie the game at the end of regulation.

It’s been a successful start but, of course, this isn’t the first time the the Trail Blazers have had early success before fizzling out. Portland looked good in the 2011-12 season, right around the same time into the season, but were sellers by the time the Trade Deadline came around and, if anything, the Western Conference is even more competitive now than it was before. Still, they now have the reigning Rookie of the Year in Damian Lillard and All-Star caliber forward LaMarcus Aldridge playing at his peak. If the Blazers can get any defense to go along with their three-point shooting, this team might just be relevant for a full season and have a shot at being something more than a November novelty.

Lamar Odom plots a return to the NBA

Once one of the most well-liked players in the league, Lamar Odom’s professional reputation took a hit recently. In the span of a year he burnt bridges with both the Los Angeles Lakers and the Dallas Mavericks, while becoming something of a nonentity on the court. Many blamed this transformation on his high-profile marriage to Khloe Kardashian and all of the toxic baggage that comes with being part of America’s Most Overexposed Family.

As it turns out, Odom’s struggles may have been far more serious than those of us knew. During the summer TMZ reported that Odom has been struggling with serious substance abuse issues for the last few years, jeopardizing his health, marriage and career. While we may never know the exact truth behind those tabloid headlines filled with talk about disappearances, interventions and rehab stints, quite frankly those details are none of our business. It’s obvious enough, just from what Odom’s own camp has said on the record, that Odom spent his offseason dealing with problems far more serious than his NBA future.

Understandably, there had been very little talk about Lamar Odom in the last few months, at least in basketball circles. That changed this weekend when reports surfaced that he had been talking with the Los Angeles Clippers, his most recent team, about a possible NBA return. These rumors were confirmed by newly hired Clippers head coach Doc Rivers, who apparently had a lengthy conversation with Odom.

From a pure basketball perspective, Odom’s theoretical return to the Clippers probably will not have much of an impact. Odom’s still a NBA caliber player but his days as a Sixth Man of the Year candidate have long passed. Sometimes though, basketball isn’t really about basketball. It’s less about what Odom has left to offer basketball, it’s more about what the game could possibly give back to him. Here’s hoping it helps.