Most seasoned hoops observers expected this year’s Atlantic Division to be a mediocre group, and several supposed that the winner – the Knicks in most prognostications – would finish just above .500. A quarter of the way through the season, it turns out that those previews may have been optimistic. The Atlantic Division is not only bad, but it could challenge for the dubious title of worst division in NBA history.

The Atlantic 5 – New York, New Jersey, Boston, Philadelphia, and Toronto (an inclusion that willfully confuses Lake Ontario with the ocean) – have spent most of the season below sea level. And it doesn’t look to get much better from here.

The Knicks have shown their hand. They’re a guard-driven team that will win when Stephon Marbury and Jamal Crawford can connect from the perimeter (as happened Sunday afternoon against Denver), but they’re toast otherwise. Defensively, the team is weak inside, and gets overpowered by opponents with good frontline players.

Although the Knicks emerged from last night’s game against the Nets a game above the .500 mark, they have allowed 1.5 points per game more than they’ve scored. According to the Pythagorean method designed by the statistical Web site www.basketballreference.com, this point differential is consistent with a .473 winning percentage, or a 38-44 final record. While Pythagorean projections are not flawless and cannot account for slumps, streaks, or midseason personnel moves, they generally provide a more accurate reflection of how well a team is playing than raw win totals.

Philadelphia, the alternative choice to win the division in most forecasts, has posted a 9-12 record, but the Sixers have allowed 4.6 points per game more than they’ve scored, which is consistent with a 25-57 final record. The most worrisome part of their poor play is that Allen Iverson hasn’t rebounded from last year’s career low in shooting percentage or career high in turnovers.

The Raptors have been outscored by 3 points per game, which puts them on pace for a 29-53 finish. At 7-16, the Raptors have already taken up residence in the Atlantic cellar, and it could get much worse in Toronto if Vince Carter and Jalen Rose are traded for cap relief rather than talent.

The Nets are still a work in progress. Before facing the Knicks, they’d won three of four since the return of Jason Kidd. However, if the All-Star guard is traded for players who don’t contribute much right away, the Nets could well revert to the form they displayed while slumping out to a 2-11 start. As it is, their 6.5 point per game differential puts them on pace to lose 61 games.

The one exception to the Atlantic mediocrity has been Boston. Although the Celtics have a losing record, they are outscoring their opponents by nearly 2 ppg, which translates to a 46-36 final record. The Celtics have accounted for half of Seattle’s four losses this year, and while they’re not that good, there is distinct improvement in Beantown.

The major change is that the Celtics are pushing the ball more, and they’ve finally exorcised the last remnants of Pitino-ball from their system; as a result, they are scoring 3 ppg more than last season. While last year’s Celts jacked up 19.5 3-point attempts a game, Doc Rivers’s crew is taking only 13.3 this year. As illustrated by their dramatic increase in free-throw attempts (with 29 a game, they’re up four from last season), they’ve traded heaves from downtown for drives to the hoop. These structural changes in the team’s offense bode well for the remainder of the season.

If something derails Boston’s progress, however, then this year’s Atlantic will challenge the 1975-76 Midwest Division as the worst in NBA history. That year, the Milwaukee Bucks, who were in their first season after trading Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to Los Angeles, won the division with a 38-44 record that would have left them in last place or next-to last place in every other division. The second-place team, Detroit, finished at 36-46. The other teams in the division, Kansas City and Chicago, lost 51 and 58 games, respectively, giving the division a cumulative winning percentage of .393. Discounting the Celtics, the four losers in this year’s Atlantic Division project to a .344 stench.

Thanks to the NBA’s convoluted playoff system circa 1976, both the Bucks and Pistons made the playoffs that year. The Pistons ousted Milwaukee in a three-game series then took defending NBA champ Golden State to six games in the Western Conference Semifinals.

This year’s Atlantic also looks likely to send two teams into the playoffs, but it’s highly unlikely that this year’s Atlantic second-place finisher will come within two games of the Conference Finals as the ’76 Pistons did. Instead, they will offer yet another argument to support restructuring the playoff system.

Since the NBA invites more than half its teams to the postseason party, there needs to be a quality control initiative. With the Eastern Conference in a chronically weak state, the league should require that all playoff teams finish at least 42-40 (a number I chose because two 42-40 teams, the 1976 Suns and the 1981 Rockets, have gone to the Finals). If only seven teams in the East top that relatively low bar, then a team in the West should receive an at large berth into the postseason.

Fluctuations happen between the conferences – in 1975-76 the East was a vastly superior conference – but the postseason shouldn’t suffer for it. The NBA should spare us the perfunctory dismissals like Indiana’s first-round sweep of Boston last season, when the average margin of victory was 15 points, or the Nets’ sweep of the Knicks, when the average margin was 13 points. Otherwise, the league seriously risks degrading the concept of a championship tournament.