Grading the Eastern Conference on just about anything is a relatively simple matter. The Boston Celtics are on top. Everyone else is chasing them.
They might be doing so here and now. They might be preparing to challenge Boston a few years down the line. But the Celtics are the conference's best team, they are a reasonably young team, and they are an extraordinarily well-run team.
They are the standard. Anything a team does can be viewed through the prism of what it means in an eventual matchup with Boston. But the West? Yeah, good luck figuring it out.
Of the 15 teams in the conference, pretty much everyone except Portland figures to be reasonably competitive (at least for now). There is no obvious favorite, and even if there were, last postseason's game of rock-paper-scissors between the Nuggets , Timberwolves , Thunder and Mavericks proved that it hardly matters which team was the best all year if the bracket breaks in the right way. Eastern Conference teams are building to challenge the Celtics.
Western Conference teams have to be prepared to beat anybody, and then when they've emerged from the Thunderdome triumphant, the Celtics will probably be waiting for them afterward. Therefore grading the West's offseasons will be a much more holistic exercise. Moves don't need to be as matchup-focused.
What matters most here, aside from the obvious things like talent and asset-valuation, will be adaptability. Are you prepared to play several kinds of teams? Are you equipped to piv.