Just like the east and west coast there are 2 conferences in the NBA too. The eastern conference has all the east coast teams like New York Knicks, etc and the western conference has all the west coast teams.

Due to the two different conferences only one team from each conference goes to the finals. Each year western conference is the better conference as they have better all around teams. Due to all the good teams in the western conference its very hard for the one team to make it into the finals but on the other hand eastern conference only have like 2 good teams and they breeze through the playoffs to play for the conference finals and whoever wins gets to go to the finals.

The conference system was started because it was hard for the teams to play inter-conference games due to not easily available transportation but in the new era transportation is not an issue due to flights. If the conference system was removed it would create a more equal chance for each team to make into the playoffs rather than just the same old teams from the weaker conference make the finals each year. Lebron James made into the NBA finals for 8 years in a row due to him being into the weaker conference which is the eastern conference.