Yeah, the East is weak, but not watered down...Hell no! We have a few elite teams (If the 2006 champs: The Heat, 2004 champs: Pistons, and the 2007 chmps, Cavs are your so called version of "Watered down teams", then I wonder what you think of the teams that lost to them). Yeah yeah, everyone talks about the post Jordan era, where the East failed to win the champlionships for about 5-6 years in between. but, what about the 2001 Lakers who swept all the teams in the Western conference playoffs with ease but lost the first game to Philly in the Finals?? The West then was hyped to be all that but with Philly's first game win, the east finally lost its step-child status. You talk about match-ups as though that determines the winner straight up, hahaha thats naiveity at its zenith. The NBA is not about that and it never was except for a few instances. Who in the league could match up one-on-one to Shaq or Kobe during the the Laker dynasty? The Spurs broke that theory and so did Detroit the very next year. I still say that last year, Wade single handedly killed the Mavs…Shaq is an old warrior living off his glory days and to give him credit for the NBA championship at Miami would only gonna blemish his myth. Lets all cut the bull and let the facts do the talking. LeBron is gonna kill the Spurs, and I (of all people) want this to be the beginning of a new era. Since Jordan left, the NBA looked desperately for a superman among its Justice League of Heroes and as far as I see, it has found its new ratings man. Go James, the Cavs are gonna seek and destroy the Spurs...But its gonna be a hard fought series, I give you that. My prediction: Cavs win 4-2.