The west has been consistently stronger than the East for 30 years. Not just the past decade. Jordan, like LeBron, had
A fairly easy path to the finals compared to hall of fame counterparts in the west.
The East became a walk thru for Jordan after the decline of the Celtics and the Bad Boy era pistons. Meanwhile, the west was stacked with good teams (especially when Shaq came to the lakers in the mid 90’s).
This is of course, beside the point of your thesis.