First of all, when talking about the conference as a whole being tougher you can't just ignore that bad teams were better than the year before which makes it so there are less easy games. This is basic stuff man.
Second of all, my point was that teams like Houston and New Orleans having worse records wasn't necessarily because they were a less talented team than the year before. Those teams shouldn't have dropped off the way they did.
Third of all, regarding the Lakers, they were just 2.5 games out of 1st place after beating the Warriors on Christmas and had moved into one of the top 4 seeds in the West (which is what I was shying, not "top seed"). In that game LeBron got hurt. So it is a fact that they were actually a good team until that happened.
Fourth of all, after all your posts about "this is not the time for this thread/post/comment" you're really choosing this moment to be a dick about this? Go Blazers. Fuck off with your stupid posts until after the season.