As is in the NFL, the NBA contains two very different conferences, one which seemingly is all powerful and one which doesnt seem to measure up. The Eastern conference may have won it all last year, but overall the West is just so much stronger than the East. But if you look closely at the East, the teams with a chance to represent their conference for the title is limited to the Pistons, Heat, Cavs, Wizards, and the Bulls. People may not consider the Bulls or the Wizards as potential conference champions, but they better start thinking about those two teams.

When you look at the Heat, there is no guarantee that Shaq will be healthy for the Playoffs, Wade has been getting dinged up as of late, and Zo and the Glove have to start looking into retiring soon.  

The Cavaliers have Lebron James, but aside from him and Larry Hughes, who has vastly underperformed since coming to Cleveland, they arent that balanced, and they dont seem to enjoy playing much defense either. Illgauskas is a decent big man, but he is as soft as a marshmallow and shoul do a much better jopb on the boards and D if the Cavs want to go far.

The Pistons are still the Pistons, albeit minus Ben Wallace, who is not as big of a loss as people may think. He Chauncey, RIp, Tayshaun, and Sheed are all very solid players, and pose a legitimate threat to any team in the East. But they are getting a little older and if they follow up last year with similar playoff fatigue this year they will not be their at the end.

The Wizards are a type of dark horse team. If when the playoffs roll around Gilbert and company are on a roll, they can be tough to stop. But mainly, for the Wiz to do damage they must have very strong play from Arenas night in and night out. If he doesnt play well, it will be hard for Jamison and Butler to pick up the slack. But their biggest issue is defense, very much like the Mavericks of a few years ago. If they dont play very well offensively, their defense will more often than not give away the game.

This leaves me with a team that I believe is the strongest all around team in the East. The not so baby bulls. Now a may be from Chicago and have a bias, but this opinion is not influenced by my bias. The Bulls are a team that at almost every position offer legitimate scoring threats, as well as above average defensive players, and also posess more than a few key players off the bench, some which can score and defend and some which offer a veteran presence for a pretty young team. Ben Gordon has seeminglt turned a corner and is not a feast or famine player. He now is consistly scoring in the twenties. Kirk Hinrich is a very scrappy player, much in the mold of a John Paxson or Scott Skiles, both of whom influence his game directly. On offense he will give you 15-20 per and on defense he can stick with the best of them. They also have very underreated players in Andres Nocioni and Luol ####, and either can light up for 25-30 points on any given night, and are both above average defense. And playing aside Hinrich is Chris Duhon, who doesnt get enough credit for doing all the little things and playing within his limitations, but when he needs to, can get into the lane and create for himself or others. Of course the Bulls have Ben Wallace, but everybody alreafy knows what he offers. But where the Bulls are stronger than many others is their bench. Their bench consists of Adrian Griffin(who started last year for the Western Champs Mavericks), Ben Gordon, PJ Brown, Tyrus Thomas, Michael sweetney, Malik Allen, and Thabo Sefolosha. 

Another thing to point out is that in the past few years the Bulls improve as the year goes on, a result of the great job done by Scott Skiles with a lot of these young players. The Bulls are not yet at the top of their game, but yet they find themselves a game out of the top of the East. They have a rare blend of young athletic players, good shooters, and veteran big men who offer insight to the younger players, all of which have not reached their potential. All of this adds up to a team that will be contending this year and for many years to come.   

(I realize i didnt discuss the other teams in depth, but the oint of this article was just the bulls.)