BDL’s Most Interesting Power Rankings: Kobe’s last ride is too big to ignore
Let’s face it — the best and most powerful teams in the NBA don’t really change from week to week. A handful of results in the middle of winter can only mean so much to a franchise’s championship hopes. What does shift regularly, though, is how much interest a squad can hold over the course of a season. Every Monday, BDL’s Most Interesting Power Rankings track the teams most worthy of your attention.
THE TOP FIFTEEN
1. Los Angeles Lakers (2-14, last week: 29): Forget the six-game losing streak, terrible record, and generally poor product on the court. Kobe Bryant’s announcement that he will retire at the end of this season makes the Lakers the most talked-about team in the NBA. Sunday’s post-announcement night of 13 points on 4-of-20 shooting won’t convince anyone that Kobe will go out on a high note, but the Lakers are about to embark on an eight-game road trip that begins in Philadelphia, the closest thing Kobe has to a hometown. Sixers fans haven’t been Bryant’s biggest fans over the years, but it will be interesting to see how other teams’ fans welcome Kobe now that he’s officially playing in many arenas for the last time.
2. Golden State Warriors, 18-0, last week: 2): Apologies to the Warriors, who were locked into our top spot up until Sunday afternoon’s big news. The undefeated defending champions set a record for the best start to a season on Tuesday and show no signs of slowing down. Harrison Barnes will miss at least three games with an ankle injury, which digs into the team’s unparalleled depth, but the schedule arguably gets easier despite a seven-game road trip that starts Monday in Salt Lake City. Plus, are you really going to predict a loss for this group until they prove it can happen?
3. Philadelphia 76ers (0-18, last week: 30): Yes, the Sixers are awful and Jahlil Okafor, their most productive offensive player, is now embroiled in several offcourt controversies. But the team has taken on a sick fascination in recent days due to a run of horrific fourth-quarter performances to avoid their first win. The Sixers have held fourth-quarter leads in their five most recent losses, including a few that featured multi-possession advantages with a just few minutes remaining in regulation. Unfortunately, their league-worst guard play has resulted in a raft of crunch-time turnovers and poor shots. No one thought this season would bring many wins for the Sixers, but it’s hard to see how they’re developing the sort of habits that lead to future victories.
Tuesday’s home game against the Lakers could bring that elusive first win and a fruit basket for Brett Brown. If it doesn’t, they’ll set an NBA record for the worst start to a season. Either way, it figures to be one of the most cruelly fascinating tilts of the campaign.
4. Oklahoma City Thunder (11-6, last week: 3): Kevin Durant has averaged 30.3 ppg on 58.5 percent shooting since he returned Monday from the hamstring injury that kept him out six games, and suddenly the Thunder look like championship contenders again. It helps that Russell Westbrook has been stellar while taking fewer shots, affecting the game in myriad ways and looking comfortable in that role. The Thunder still have to figure out how to maximize their talent level, but a five-game win streak shows that they could be on their way to doing so. They just have to hope that Durant’s latest injury doesn’t prove to be a nagging one.
5. Indiana Pacers (11-5, last week: 5): Sunday’s win at Staples Center won’t end up on many year-end highlight tapes, but the Pacers have now taken five games in a row to claim sole possession of second place in the East. Paul George looks better than he did before the injury that kept him out of most of last season, the offense appears to have adjusted to its new faster pace with minimal issue, and the defense currently ranks third in the league. George may not play at this level all season, but the Pacers are one of a handful of teams that can imagine beating the Cavs in a playoff series.
6. Miami Heat (10-5, last week: 8): Despite the Pacers’ success, LeBron’s old team still looks best equipped to beat out Cleveland for the conference title. Miami has allowed the second-fewest points per 100 possessions and seems likely to maintain something close to that elite status throughout the season, a necessity for any team that hopes to stop LeBron. The schedule has not been especially challening in the early going and gets tougher this week with home games against the Celtics, Thunder, and Cavs, but the Heat are developing a strong rotation and look capable of improvement.
7. San Antonio Spurs (14-3, last week: 6): Credit to the Spurs for eschewing the highs and lows of other preseason contenders. Instead, a team that saw serious offseason changes has looked steady as can be. They have yet to lose at home, boast the league’s best defense, and have seen Kawhi Leonard gain the superstar consistency that has eluded him in the past. The only downside is that they don’t play the Warriors until late January.
8. Utah Jazz (8-7, last week: 10): The team everyone picked to emerge as the West’s “surprise” team has rounded into its expected form in the past few weeks. A loss in Durant’s return was offset by convincing wins over the Clippers and Pelicans, and they have the top-10 defensive ranking to match expectations. To top it off, the Jazz are impressing by eschewing league-wide trends and therefore remain fascinating to watch despite (or maybe because of) playing the league’s slowest pace.
9. Cleveland Cavaliers (13-4, last week: 7): From the outside, the Cavs have been mostly successful without Kyrie Irving — they’re undefeated at home, look to have integrated Kevin Love into the offense effectively, and still have a healthy LeBron James to take over when necessary. But the seriousness with which they have approached this season appears to be draining much of the fun out of the enterprise — LeBron won’t stop talking up the need for improvement and has even gone so far as to ban motorized scooters from Quicken Loan Arena. Why is J.R. Smith even on the team if he cannot ride his PhunkeeDuck?
10. Charlotte Hornets (10-7, last week: NR): Wait, is this team good? The Hornets have rebounded from an 0-3 start by playing a shoot-as-many-threes-as-possible style that most thought them ill-equipped to execute. Yet offensive balance (six players average double figures in scoring) and a willingness to shoot (they take more than 26 triples per game) has propelled them to plenty of impressive and exciting wins after an 0-3 start. Who knew that Jeremy Lin, Kemba Walker, and Jeremy Lamb would be so fun together?
11. Dallas Mavericks (10-7, last week: NR): It looks increasingly likely that this quality start is not a fluke. Yes, the Mavs don’t appear to have the defensive talent to rank in the top 10 of defensive efficiency over a full season, but it’s also hard to imagine they’ll rank in the middle of the pack on the offensive side. A recent run of three-straight road losses to the Thunder, Grizzlies, and Spurs suggests that the Mavs are sub-elite, but beating teams you’re supposed to should be enough to make the postseason in a top-heavy conference. This season could have been an unmitigated disaster for Dallas and they have impressed simply by remaining relevant.
12. Minnesota Timberwolves (8-9, last week: 8): Not much has changed for the Wolves, a team that sits on the brink of playoff contention and generally lacks the consistency needed to be better than average. It doesn’t matter, though, because the presence of budding stars Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins makes them one of the most exciting viewing experiences in the sport nearly every night they play. It honestly wouldn’t be shocking to see the Wolves stick in the upper bracket of these rankings for the full 82-game season.
13. Washington Wizards (6-8, last week: 14): It’s shocking that we can speak of a resurgent East when the young-leaning Wizards have been a profound disappointment. They enter this week on a three-game losing streak that features three woeful showings. The new-look offense has been a disaster — they rank fifth in pace but 25th in points per possession. This tweet just about sums up the whole operation:
14. Memphis Grizzlies (10-8, last week: NR): These lovable grit-and-grinders have put the early-season blowouts behind them and now look like a solid postseason participant once again. Oddly enough, they have done it with some diversification — they rank a relatively high 22nd in pace (ahead of teams like the Spurs, Cavs, and Raptors) and 28th in three-point attempts, which is still low but would mark their first time out of the bottom two since 2011-12.
15. Houston Rockets (7-10, last week: 27): We were so, so ready to keep the Rockets in the bottom five, but week-closing wins over the Sixers and Knicks brings new possibility of a return to form. Of course, they only beat a winless squad by two points and needed overtime to beat the Flying Porzingises, who haven’t been especially good lately. It’s possible, maybe even likely, that the Rockets are just bad and will only win enough to keep hope alive. That’s enough to keep them relevant for now.
THE BOTTOM FIVE
26. Portland Trail Blazers (7-10, last week: NR): The Blazers are a perfectly acceptable and noble team that has performed well after a very rough offseason. Unfortunately, they look very likely to finish in the middle of the lottery and offer little more than Damian Lillard and the occasional C.J. McCollum explosion in terms of wow factor. Their place in the bottom five is more about our preference for extremes than anything they have done wrong.
27. Milwaukee Bucks (6-11, last week: 26): It says a lot that a team we tabbed as the No. 2 Most Interesting Team in our preseason rankings has grabbed their most attention this season for a Jason Kidd ejection and suspension. The league’s second-best defense last season ranks last in efficiency, and they’re just 0.1 possessions ahead of the Jazz to list 29th in pace. They’ve lost eight of their last 10, provide little in the way of excitement, and sit here as the biggest disappointment in the East.
28. New Orleans Pelicans (4-13, last week: 11): The only good news for the Pelicans is that Anthony Davis played Sunday after being carried off with a knee injury on Saturday night. Other than that, they’re a mess — last week brought losses to the Clippers and Jazz. It’s probably not going to get much better in the next seven days, either, because they’re about to face the Grizzlies, Rockets, and Cavs. Reasonable excuses exist, but it’s probably for the best to assume that New Orleans just isn’t going to be very good this year.
29. Denver Nuggets (6-11, last week: NR): They’ve lost six in a row and Emmanuel Mudiay is shooting 32.4 percent from the field. It’s shaping up to be a long winter.
30. Brooklyn Nets (4-13, last week: 28): The Nets are more boring than terrible — they can beat other bad teams and look much better than the Sixers and Lakers right now. They rank last only because those sorry squads are facing particularly interesting weeks.
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Eric Freeman is a writer for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
