Mark Cuban Wants NBA to Move Texas Teams to Eastern Conference

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has a plan to fix the growing chasm in quality between the NBA's Eastern and Western Conferences.

According to Tim MacMahon of ESPNDallas.com, Cuban would shift the Mavericks, Houston Rockets, San Antonio Spurs and New Orleans Pelicans to the East. To balance things out, the Chicago Bulls, Indiana Pacers, Detroit Pistons and Milwaukee Bucks would head West.

"It's not like it'd be the first time we've ever realigned," Cuban said. "It's happened many times before, so there's precedent and I just think it shakes things up and makes things interesting."

It would be easy to criticize Cuban's scheme as being self-serving. Of course he'd like his Mavs to swap conferences. The East is softer than ever. With Chicago battling injuries and the Cleveland Cavaliers struggling to jell, there's not a superpower in sight. Plus, his proposed swap would remove the Bulls from the East entirely.

The Mavs' road to the NBA Finals would be far easier than in the meat-grinder West.

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But if Cuban were only looking for a way to get the Mavs a free ride, he certainly wouldn't suggest traveling east with the Spurs and their systemic dominance. And he definitely wouldn't want James Harden, Dwight Howard and Anthony Davis to tag along either.

Then again, there's still room for some criticism:

The unlucky clubs from the East would likely protest the realignment, but the geographical moves are close enough to be of no real consequence to travel and fatigue. And putting aside smaller concerns like those, Cuban's idea addresses the biggest issue of all: Something has to change.

The West has had a winning record against the East in 14 of the past 15 seasons, according to John Schuhmann of NBA.com, and the most recent indicators don't point to change on the horizon. "After an 18-3 week, the West is an incredible 45-19 against the East this season," Schuhmann wrote on Nov. 24.

The Mavericks play six of their next seven games against the East, which will keep Cuban happy in the short term—even if the league doesn't seriously consider his plan. Nothing eases the pain of a good idea being ignored like a tidy seven-game winning streak.