1) The Eastern Conference is no longer the West's whipping boys.

In fact, the East may even be better from top to bottom.

For a decade or more it's been widely believed that the West is the vastly superior conference, with good reason. It has been the better conference.

Sure, the East has had some quality teams -- like the Detroit Pistons, Miami Heat and Boston Celtics in their championship years -- but the West's depth and overall superiority has been unquestioned.

Until now. This season, for the first time since before the turn of the century, the East has a winning record over the West as a whole, and it's not even that close.

Through Friday night's action, the Eastern Conference teams hold a 58-39 edge over the West. That means that the East is winning six of every 10 interconference games.

And while it's true that the East is dominating the bad teams in the West, like Oklahoma City (1-10 vs. the East) and Golden State (1-9), the East is also more than holding its own against the good ones. For instance, the Jazz are just 3-7 against the East, but are 10-1 vs. the West. All three home losses by Utah -- Chicago, New Jersey and Miami -- are against teams from the East.

Even the mighty Lakers have had less success against the East than the West. Both of L.A.'s two losses this season are against Eastern teams.

By the way, the Jazz's struggles against the East thus far may come back to haunt them if the Northwest Division continues to be close. The only two West teams that have had a great deal of success against the East are Portland (7-1) and Denver (5-1).

2) NBA owners and general managers are not very patient with coaches.

Barely a month into the season and 10 percent of the league's coaches have been axed. P.J. Carlesimo was fired by Oklahoma City. Eddie Jordan got canned by Washington and, most recently, Sam Mitchell was sent packing by Toronto.

That's in addition to the eight head coaches who are in the first year with their respective teams, which means 11 of the 30 NBA franchises have changed coaches since the end of last season.

We probably haven't seen the end of it, either. With Sacramento (Reggie Theus), Minnesota (Randy Whittman) and Memphis (Marc Iavaroni) all struggling, coaching changes in those places and elsewhere are possible.

Two other teams that have been huge disappointments this season -- the Clippers (Mike Dunleavy) and the Warriors (Don Nelson) -- have veteran coaches who have recently signed deals and whose immediate futures appear safe. Dunleavy, in fact, recently got promoted to general manager as well as being coach and the notoriously cheap Clippers owner, Donald Sterling, is not likely to want to buy him out.

Nelson, meanwhile, coaches a Warriors team that won a playoff series in '07 and 48 games last season, but is just 5-14 this year through Friday night. That may sound like a club that is headed in the wrong direction where a new coach may help. But Nelson insists he's not worried.

"I think part of the reason I got an extension this year was that I think our ownership knows that it's not going to be the best year this year," Nelson told the Associated Press this week. "They wanted me to feel free to do what's best for the franchise and not worry too much about winning a couple of extra games."

3) This is a better than average rookie class with several breakout stars in it.

In the past couple of weeks, Jazz season ticket holders have been able to watch Derrick Rose of Chicago, O.J. Mayo of Memphis and Miami's Michael Beasley. All three have been outstanding so far this season, but only one can be the league's Rookie of the Year.

Mayo is the leading scorer of that group, averaging better than 21 points per game. Rose, the No. 1 overall pick in the draft, however, showed he has ability to control a game beyond his years in the Bulls win over the Jazz in Salt Lake. He's averaging 18.7 points and 5.9 assists. Beasley would likely be third in the rookie voting right now, averaging 14.5 points and 5.3 boards.

Other quality rookies include Marc Gasol (Memphis), Rudy Fernandez (Portland), D.J. Augustin (Charlotte) and Russell Westbrook (Oklahoma City).

And then there is Greg Oden, the 7-foot, man-child for the Trail Blazers who had to sit out all of last season. Oden may turn out to be the best of all of them, but he's still trying to find his way. He's averaging 7.8 points and 7.7 rebounds per game.

4) Jazz players aren't as tough as they used to be.

Sure, this sounds like the grandparents who talk about walking five miles up hill, both ways, in five feet of snow to and from school.

Still, it's true.

During Utah's heyday with John Stockton and Karl Malone in the 1990s, players routinely toughed it out through many aches and pains that would keep players these days out for weeks. Malone and Stockton, played entire seasons with sprained ankles and sore knees. Malone played one year with a broken finger, never missing a game because of it.

The fact of the matter is that other players on those Jazz teams took their cues from the stars. Because Stockton, Malone and Jeff Hornacek, the guy with no cartilage in his knees, were willing to play through pain, the others had to follow suit. It was a peer pressure thing.

This year's Jazz team has missed nearly 70 man-games due to injury already. Make no mistake, those injuries are real and games would have been missed regardless of the era. And with the type of money NBA players make and have the capability of making in the future, it's only smart to be conservative in deciding whether or not to return from a given injury.

Still, here's betting that if Stockton and Malone were on the team under the same circumstances on the injury front as this year, things would be different. For better or worse, players used to be, well, tougher.

5) The Lakers and Celtics are still the class of the league and will meet again in the finals.

Yeah, Cleveland has been very good, as LeBron James now has more weapons around him.

And the West will be no cakewalk for the Lakers.

But with only two losses apiece, it already seems clear that either Boston or Los Angeles will be holding a victory parade downtown next June. E-mail: lojo@desnews.com