A sad state of affairs for the NBA

I don't pay much attention to the NBA anymore, but yesterday's ridiculous blowout of Seattle by Denver got me looking.

1) How is a team with Marcus Camby, Carmelo Anthony, Allen Iverson and Kenyon Martin out of the playoff race... oh wait, next question
2) How is a team that's 40-26 in 9th in a conference... oh wait, next question
3) How does the Eastern Conference suck so bad?

The Eastern conference has 6 winning record teams compared to the Western conference 10
Three teams are essentially 500 (Washington (33-32), Toronto (34-32), Philadelphia (33-34)
If the playoffs were today, a 28-38 team would make the playoffs (Atlanta or New Jersey depending on tie-breakers)

In a league with only 30 teams you have to expect the occasional losing team to make the top 16... But to have a huge disparity between conferences is almost inexcusable... In fact, Denver's currently the odd man looking out but poor Portland is 10th at 35-32 and would be a 5 seed in the East... That's a shocking disparity.

Is there a rational explanation for the difference between the Western Conference and the Eastern? We could run the numbers but I'd bet good money that we're several standard deviations off from the norm here. Just a curiosity.