BDL’s Most Interesting Power Rankings: Golden Years
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 15
1. Golden State Warriors (35-2; last week: 1):
Heaven’s in here. After a little defensive intrigue and the league-wide recognition that the Spurs might be just as good (if not better), the Warriors got back to having fun in the team’s win over the Sacramento Kings on Saturday night. They’ll now get a chance to take on Hassan Whiteside and the massive Miami Heat on Monday, in the realization of one of our favorite NBA feuds.
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2. San Antonio Spurs (32-6; last week: 3):
It must be rather frustrating to have won nearly 85 percent of your games as you near a season’s midpoint, and yet still be 3.5 games out of first place in the conference, but you get the feeling this hardly deters these Spurs. The boys will keep swinging, winning seven in a row (with five of those conquests coming in blowout fashion). They get into their set with alacrity, San Antonio is still crushing teams on the defensive glass and free throws remain hard to come by when in the face of the league’s best defensive team.
3. Chicago Bulls (22-13; last week: 8):
The Bulls are up to their usual tricks in the New Year, rattling off a series of solid wins (six in a row, at one point) before leaving us with a sense of doubt as the bad habits returned in a loss to Atlanta on Saturday. Chicago coasted through possessions on both ends as the Hawks prevailed by 15, and one has to wonder if the return of Joakim Noah from a left shoulder injury will put a kink in what has been a much-improved offense of late. Noah was shooting miserably even before going down with the shoulder tear, how will he look after rehabilitating the arm that he shoots the majority of his shots with?
4. Cleveland Cavaliers (36-9; last week: 5):
You’d think that a year after being dealt from the moribund Nuggets to the championship-level Cavaliers, Timofey Mozgov would be enjoying his new career in a new town. Nearly midway into 2015-16, though, the big man has LeBron James snarling at him, and other teams calling to see if they can deal for him on the cheap. The Cavaliers can’t pursue any deals, though, because even in a league that’s getting smaller finding a replacement pivotman is forever tough, and they’ll have to at least give re-signing him a shot this summer despite the massive bucks he’ll expect to be offered. Also, butt stuff.
5. New York Knicks (19-20; last week: NR):
Kristaps Porzingis isn’t just a future legend, he’s killing it right now. The rookie averaged 18 points, eight rebounds and two blocks per contest this week, in just 31 minutes a game. He’s proven adept at both power forward and center, and though the Knicks appear to have abandoned all but a few precepts of the triangle offense, they remain an incredibly entertaining team to watch. The squad is a game under .500 and just a game and a half in back of the suddenly-vulnerable Celtics for the last playoff spot in the East.
6. Oklahoma City Thunder (26-12; last week: 6):
Everything is not hunky dory for this outfit. The Thunder has to understand that, in spite of falling short (due mostly to injury) of the Finals from 2013-to-2015, opponents are going to treat any roster that features Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook as their game of the week. We saw the mercurial Bulls get up for their win over OKC on Christmas Day, and on Sunday evening Portland guard Damian Lilllard had his best game of the season (and that’s saying something) while hitting eight three-pointers in the Trail Blazer win.
7. Atlanta Hawks (23-15; last week: 10):
These Hawks are fun to watch, as the team’s offense is slowly rounding into form and the ball movement never left the equation even when the squad (relatively) struggled earlier in the year. Still, something about this squad underwhelms, as they’ll beat all the teams they’re supposed to, yet fall flat when a San Antonio, Oklahoma City, or Miami is thrown in (we’re not sure, at this point, if the Hawks are “supposed to” beat the Knicks, a team they fell twice to this week). You just don’t know if they’re going to remain above average, moving from station to station, waiting for that second round exit.
8. Los Angeles Clippers (25-13; last week: 4):
The loss of Blake Griffin had to shake the Clippers cold, but in his indefinite absence the team has exploded offensively. The team swept a five-game road trip and has won eight overall, with Chris Paul dominant on that end. The idea that the team has gone 6-0 in Griffin’s absence does leave me a little uneasy. It’s not as if his 24 points, nine rebounds and five assists are empty stats, January games shouldn’t act as too telling, and the shift from Blake to starting forward Luc Mbah a Moute (or Paul Pierce, if you’re pedantic) is as steep as downgrades come, but the team’s brilliant offensive turn is a little odd. Glass half-full approach? Credit Chris Paul.
9. Utah Jazz (17-20; last week: NR):
The return of the team’s resident savior machine in center Rudy Gobert has to have Jazz fans giddy. He was initially on a minute restriction, always a smart move when dealing with the recovering knees of a 21-year old 7-footer, but that appears to have been lifted: Gobert played a typical 30 minutes in Sunday’s win over the Lakers, contributing 10 points, five boards and three blocks. The Jazz are 10-6 when Gobert starts on the season, and the team (currently two games up on the Kings for the last playoff spot in the West) deftly sidestepped the injuries to Gobert and forward Derrick Favors.
10. Miami Heat (22-15; last week: 7):
The Heat are going to have the running gun blues over the next few weeks, there’s no way around it. The team did well to mostly take care of all the home games they were afforded over the season’s first two months, but a whopping 11 of the team’s next 13 contests between now and Feb. 5 are on the road. The group is off to a so-so start to the trip, pulling out a tough one in Phoenix prior to falling by 15 in Utah, and they’ll be asked to play a statement game against Golden State on Monday.
11. Dallas Mavericks (22-16; last week: NR):
The Mavericks, frankly, did not look well in its six-point win over Minnesota on Sunday night, and this was supposed to be the team’s big turnaround game. With the win the team evened its record over its last six games, as the team twirls within a width of a circle, even needing double-overtime to down the Sacramento Kings on Tuesday. The upcoming schedule is not pretty, with games against the Cavs, Spurs, Thunder, Bulls, and Celtics dead ahead.
12. Boston Celtics (19-18; last week: 26):
Losers of four of five games, the C’s still feature beautiful defensive sets created to knock your first two offensive options out of whack, but the team’s offense has been rather beastly during this stretch – knocking the team down all the way to 22nd in the NBA. You have to wonder if the team’s defensive hustle is wearing the group out, as Boston still does an excellent job of closing out on three-point shooters, but the team appears to be rather gassed (mentally and physically) down the stretch of games as their leads evaporate.
13. Sacramento Kings (15-22; last week: 13):
One can admit to having a certain level of fascination with these goofball Kings. Lost in the fury that was the Stephen Curry Show on Saturday night was the image of the Sacramento Kings actually giving the Warriors a competitive game on the champs’ home court. Sacramento has won three of five (with one of those losses coming in a double overtime defeat to Dallas) and is just two games out of the West’s playoff bracket, due in large part to a thunderous offense. Of course, if Sacramento keeps this trend alive, they’ll have to send their first round pick to the Chicago Bulls. Oh, you silly Kings.
14. Toronto Raptors (24-15; last week: NR):
It’s hard to conclude that the Raptors are really taking care of business, even with the team’s three-game winning streak and familiar placement as the East’s third seed. It needed to overcome an early 12-0 deficit to the lowly 76ers on Saturday night, and you could most assuredly assume that they were told by coach Dwane Casey that this was the trappiest of all Trap Games. The Raps eventually came back, but not before Casey put on that Dwane Casey Face. This guy will perpetually be second-guessed by his own front offices, rightly so in some instances, so he also remains perpetually sour. It’s fun to watch that man.
15. Detroit Pistons (21-16; last week: NR):
Huh, how about that? An old school, full-sized center with gaudy defensive stats that actually contributes well on that end while working a great defensive team. It’s not an occasional dream, as Andre Drummond keeps rolling along with averages of 18.1 points, 15.6 points, and 3.3 combined blocks/steals. The Pistons have won three in a row after a mini-swoon around Christmas, though Brandon Jennings is playing as you’d expect (35 percent from the floor) in his return from an Achilles tear.
THE BOTTOM FIVE
26. Phoenix Suns (13-26; last week: 3):
You don’t know what the Suns are waiting for, attempting to have it both ways in this unholy batch of basketball purgatory. I say, jump. Take a chance on an assistant coach as interim head man, let Jeff Hornacek off the hook of coaching this mess. Yes, trade value for Tyson Chandler and Markieff Morris is at an all-time low, but you have to get something at this point. When you’ve lost 10 of 11, half-measures won’t do.
27. Los Angeles Lakers (8-31; last week: 13):
Just when you thought coach Byron Scott was about to allow a little teenage wildlife into our League Pass lives, rookie D’Angelo Russell had to go and sprain his ankle, knocking the 19-year old out of the lineup for the foreseeable future. The team righted its draft lottery ship by losing four straight after that three-game winning streak from earlier in the year, but at times watching this team either whiff on defense (as was the case against Oklahoma City on Friday) or get bogged down offensively (on Sunday, against Utah) can be drudgery.
28. Orlando Magic (20-18; last week: NR):
Losers of five of six in the calendar year, the Magic appear to be going up the hill backwards. Their dulled position on this list has less to do with the team’s descent out of the Eastern playoff bracket, but the way in which they’ve gone about losing so many games recently. This just isn’t a fun team to watch at times, and like a lot of Scott Skiles teams they rarely (as in, “dead last in the league”) get to the line, and they appear to value the wrong sorts of shots.
29. Brooklyn Nets (10-27; last week: 30):
We’ve all had a chance to look back in anger at the Billy King regime, and there is the slight possibility that the Nets rally under interim head coach Tony Brown, but he’s in an impossible situation and the players know it. It’s a mean thing to say, but players can’t exactly trick their brains into thinking that any of these upcoming 45 games count for much, and until the hammer drops on this club we’re going to have to work through some truly uninspired basketball in Brooklyn.
30. Philadelphia 76ers (4-36; last week: 29):
By now we’re all under the assumption that it’s going to take a full five years for these Sixers to turn the corner. Even if Joel Embiid returns to full health, Dario Saric works out and the team finds a way to pair Jahlil Okafor and Nerlens Noel in ways that make hay, there is still the matter of the two upcoming unnamed lottery picks to assimilate, and youth to be considered. A full half-decade, following the group’s decision to blow it all up in the spring of 2013. Astonishing.
(Thank you, David.)
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Kelly Dwyer is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @KDonhoops
