This summer, four all-star players — guards Ray Allen and Jason Richardson, and forwards Zach Randolph and Rashard Lewis — as well as one future Hall of Famer Kevin Garnett, have moved from the Western Conference to the East. The imbalance between the two conferences was so great that no one in their right mind thinks that this swings power back to the East, which hasn’t been a dominant conference since the ramp up for the Clinton impeachment vote. But clearly, this kind of talent shift affects the balance between the two conferences; the issue is by how much.

To answer that question, I figured it would be a good idea to get a clear handle on how much better the Western Conference has been. After all, any good contrarian can point out that the two conferences have split the last four NBA Finals and split the 22 games held in those four finals. However, when looked at over the course of the last nine NBA regular seasons, the picture isn’t so rosy. Here’s how much they won by:

1998-’99: West by one game (lockout shortened season)
1999-’00: West by 17 games
2000-’01: West by 49 games
2001-’02: West by 22 games
2002-’03: West by 35 games
2003-’04: West by 51 games
2004-’05: West by 27 games
2005-’06: West by 31 games
2006-’07: West by 31 games

Now, that’s dominance. There are several good reasons for this split, few of which actually have to do with Isiah Thomas. Western teams were more aggressive in scouting Europe. Western teams got lucky when it counted, like in the Yao Ming lottery. And Western teams have been much more stat savvy, which has enabled them to find productive role players like Chuck Hayes at bargain prices while Eastern teams dumped their entire midlevel exceptions on guys like Jerome James (there’s an Isiah foible).

The West also remained dominant because teams like the Lakers, Kings, Spurs, and Jazz never became consistently bad while Dallas and Phoenix joined the elite and Houston, Denver, and the L.A. Clippers became playoff caliber teams. By contrast in the East, every team except Detroit and Indiana has suffered through some doldrums during the West’s reign.

How much will this summer’s superstar shifts help? Some, but not much, and many of the gains made purely from these trades may be temporary. Each of the players coming east are either in the middle of their prime years or the latter part of them. Portland and Seattle have substantial talent influxes thanks to the draft. Minnesota just took back a bounty of young talent from Boston’s now defunct youth movement. Golden State has a battalion of wing players who can shoot the three almost as well as Richardson. With intelligent executive leadership (assured in Portland, probable in Seattle and Oakland, and anyone’s guess in the Twin Cities), these teams will rebound quickly from dealing their key veterans.

So are we still in a situation where there are for all intents and purposes two leagues divided by geography?

Not so fast. There is real change afoot in the East. Charlotte won 33 games during an injuryplagued season and now return to health with Richardson in the fold. Chicago won 49 games with an interior game that was best described as a work-in-progress. With draft choices Joakim Noah and Aaron Gray in the fold and Tyrus Thomas shooting 700 jump shots everyday to build a midrange game, the Bulls figure to rise further into the league’s elite. And while I among many others wonder about the Knicks’ interior defense, the locals should be able to score on almost anyone with their interior duo of Randolph and Eddy Curry.

I think the evolution of these teams plus the rise of the Celtics and possibly — yes I’m hedging strongly here — the rise of Atlanta could make the East formidable. The Hawks have been hamstrung by dissension within the ownership suite for the last few seasons, but Atlanta has been a bad team for so long that they may have amassed so much talent they simply can’t continue to lose. And as long as we’re this far into heresy territory, it’s worth noting that the Spurs and Suns are two of the oldest teams in the league. I expect that they will continue to be good for a few more years, but Steve Nash and Tim Duncan are on the far side of 30, and there aren’t replacements for those kinds of players.

With all of these factors in play, the Western Conference dominance over the East should continue for a few more years, but the degree of that superiority will decline to the point that a key injury or fall off due to age could be enough during the next five years to swing the pendulum ever so slightly to this side of the Mississippi for the first time since Michael Jordan wore a Bulls uniform.

mjohnson@nysun.com