NBA Power Rankings: Spurs, Pistons making the leap; Eastern Conference earning its keep
Meanwhile, the Lakers keep cruising along without LeBron James
By
Brad Botkin
•
1 min read
So far the Eastern Conference looks better than expected. Entering play on Wednesday, the top 10 East teams are 16-10 against the West and at least three teams -- Miami, Philly and Milwaukee -- look better than many anticipated.
The West is still the power, though. That's especially true at the top, where in this week's Power Rankings five of the top seven teams reside. Detroit is coming. Cleveland and New York are legit. Still, everyone is chasing the one-loss Thunder, who dismantled the Warriors on Wednesday, and the two-big Rockets, who are flat out demoralizing opponents with their collective size.
- Note: As a general Power Rankings rule, we're going to try to strike a balance between what we're seeing so far and what can reasonably be expected to play out over, say, the next few weeks to a month.
- We will not go so far as to rank these teams based on championship expectations, because in that case it would take a lot more to alter, at least in tiers, the generally accepted hierarchy. Winning matters, and it will get you on the move up this board form week to week. But if you're beating bad teams, just as an example, and probably playing a little above your head, it's not necessarily going to be reflected in a completely commensurate climb up the rankings. Or vice versa.
Biggest Movers
11
Heat
9
Trail Blazers
Rk | Teams | Chg | Rcrd | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  | The only game Oklahoma City has lost this season was a 22-point comeback by Portland. By all rights, they should still be undefeated despite Jalen Williams not having played a single game and Alex Caruso, Chet Holmgren and Lu Dort all missing at least three games. Best team in the league and it's not close at the moment. | -- | 11-1 |
| 2 |  | Denver has won five straight as the only team with both a top-five offense (3rd) and defense (2nd). Nikola Jokic has dialed up his scoring and Denver's starting lineup continues to win its minutes comfortably despite Cam Johnson not having found anything that resembles his normal shooting stroke yet. | -- | 8-2 |
| 3 |  | De'Aaron Fox made his season debut at a nice time with Dylan Harper out, and through two games he has scored 45 points on 60% shooting. Meanwhile, Victor Wembanyama, who is getting used to some different defensive strategies against him, pulled out of a mini slump with 38 points (including 18 in the fourth quarter) on 6-for-9 from 3, 12 rebounds, five assists and five blocks in a win over Chicago. | 8 | 8-2 |
| 4 |  | Your Eastern Conference leaders at 9-2, the Pistons have won a league-high seven straight. The defense is elite. Cade Cunningham -- who is coming off an insane 46/12/11 triple double in which he took 45 shots to his team to victory on a back-to-back without five of its top seven players -- is playing MVP ball. And Jalen Duren, who leads the league with 50 total offensive rebounds, is on an All-Star track. | 4 | 9-2 |
| 5 |  | Cleveland has won four of five with the only loss coming against Miami in overtime on an out-of-bounds alley-oop at the buzzer. Donovan Mitchell is having a career year and that's saying something. The Big 4 are back in the lineup together and, though it's a small sample, the Mitchell-Garland-Allen-Mobley quartet is blistering opponents to the tune of a plus-51.1 net rating. | 4 | 7-4 |
| 6 |  | Houston owns the No. 1 offense in the league despite not having a designated true point guard. It still feels like that is going to be a problem down the road, but right now the Rockets are killing teams with sheer size and offensive rebounding. They hardly shoot any 3s, but the ones they are taking are dropping at a league-high 42%. Reed Sheppard is coming around. | 3 | 6-3 |
| 7 |  | Luka Dončić has been a volume scorer of late but he led the Lakers to a serious early season win over the Spurs without Austin Reaves, who is now back. Marcus Smart has been surprisingly good. The Lakers, on paper, do not have a healthy shot diet, but so far they're posting the league's third-best eFG%, per Cleaning the Glass. We'll see what happens when/if those mid-rangers stop going in, but any way you slice it, for a team playing without LeBron James, an 8-3 start is probably better than anyone could've hoped for. | 3 | 8-3 |
| 8 |  | New York has won five straight and is a perfect 7-0 at home. A combined 4-for-19 showing from 3 for OG Anunoby and Mikal Bridges in the Knicks' win over Memphis on Tuesday will skew the numbers, but those guys have been shooting the 3 exceptionally well to start the season. | 1 | 7-3 |
| 9 |  | Miami capped a three-game win streak with a wild OT win over Cleveland in which Andrew Wiggins finished the game-winner on a buzzer-beating out-of-bounds alley-oop with .04 seconds on the clock. Miami leads the league in points per game because nobody is playing at a faster pace -- a style heavily fueled by what has been able to function as a top-shelf defense despite all the extra possessions. Norman Powell and Simone Fontecchio (this dude cannot pull the 3-point trigger fast enough) are flamethrowers. Jaime Jaquez and Wiggins are balling. | 11 | 7-4 |
| 10 |  | The Sixers continue to look good. They lost a barnburner to the East-leading Pistons on Sunday but bounced back with a tight win over Boston on Tuesday without Joel Embiid. Tyrese Maxey is doing his best Allen Iverson impression -- averaging 32.1 PPG as the only player in the league playing over 40 minutes a night. Who's second in minutes per game? Sixers rookie V.J. Edgecombe. | -- | 7-4 |
| 11 |  | The Wolves have quietly won three straight and five of their last six, but check the schedule and you'll find the wins against five of the worst teams in the league. In other words, don't get too excited. Nonetheless, Anthony Edwards is back, Julius Randle continues to play efficient offense, and Jaden McDaniels is really coming around; he's made 16 of his last 22 3-pointers and has scored at least 21 points in four of his last seven games. | 3 | 7-4 |
| 12 |  | Milwaukee has split its last six games by the skin of its teeth, pulling out two-point wins against the Mavs and Pacers. Top-10 offense. Bottom-10 defense. Giannis Antetokounmpo was huge, as he has been all season, in a win last Friday over Chicago, which at the time had only lost one game. | 1 | 7-4 |
| 13 |  | After a 6-1 start the Bulls have lost three straight to the Bucks, Cavs and Spurs, who rode a superstar closing stretch to get past a game Chicago team that was playing without Josh Giddey. | 7 | 6-4 |
| 14 |  | A bit of a reality check for the Blazers, who've lost three of their last four. Portland has played in six straight and seven overall clutch games, meaning they were within five points with less than five minutes to play, and in those decisive minutes what has been a top-five defense for most of the season is operating at a bottom-10 clip. | 9 | 5-5 |
| 15 |  | Don't look now but the Raptors have quietly won five of their last six. The starters, despite boasting three 20-point scorers with Scottie Barnes and R.J. Barrett well over 40% as a combined 3-point tandem, are getting run off the floor but the bench is picking up the slack. Collin Murray-Boyles looks like a big hit after being drafted No. 9 overall in June. | 1 | 6-5 |
| 16 |  | Golden State has lost five of its last seven. Stephen Curry returned from a three-game absence on Tuesday but it didn't matter as the Warriors were blasted by OKC. It's a tough stretch for the Warriors, who so far are 1-6 on the road with five games still to go on the trip. If you are what your record says you are, then this is an absolutely average team at the moment. | 4 | 6-6 |
| 17 |  | Give the Suns credit. They compete. Devin Booker has been awesome all season, but just when it looked like he was about to get some help on the shot-creation front, Jalen Green re-aggravated the hamstring injury that kept him out for the first three weeks of the season in his second game back and is now out another four to six weeks. | 7 | 6-5 |
| 18 |  | Paolo Banchero still isn't an efficient enough scorer in large part because he's making just 25% of his four 3s per game, but he's headed in the right direction. Jalen Suggs is having himself a hell of a season but the Magic are going in the tank when he's off the floor -- dropping from what would rank as the second-best defense in the league to a bottom-five unit in his absence. Suggs' minutes restriction is a big reason why the Magic have been stuck in mud all year. | 1 | 5-6 |
| 19 |  | The Jazz put a 152-128 beating on the Pacers Tuesday night and Lauri Markkanenm, Svi Mykhailiuk and Kyle Filipowski were a combined plus-36. When those three guys have been on the court together this season, the Jazz have outscored opponents by over 23 points per 100 possessions, per Cleaning the Glass. | 2 | 4-7 |
| 20 |  | A couple nice wins over the Lakers and Clippers have allowed the Hawks to catch their breath without Trae Young. They got the Lakers without Austin Reaves and the Clippers without Kawhi Leonard, but they will take it. The Hawks remain the definition of a middling team. Is it Young holding them back? The offense struggles without him because basically nobody else has ever been given a chance to do much without him controlling everything, but the defense actually looks pretty good without him. His net value as the focal point of a team continues to be a major question mark. On a potentially related note, Dyson Daniels is proving himself to be a real playmaker with 29 assists over his last three games. | 2 | 6-5 |
| 21 |  | Boston beat the Magic on Sunday in what will henceforth be known as the Luka Garza game. Jalen Brown is proving capable of handling 1A responsibilities at 27.7 PPG on a career-high 61.0% true-shooting. Boston plays the Grizzlies, Clippers and Nets twice in its next four games. Good chance to get back to .500. | 2 | 5-7 |
| 22 |  | Bottom-10 offense. Bottom-five defense. Kawhi Leonard hasn't played in more than a week. The Clippers have lost five straight and swing by nearly 21 point per 100 possessions in the wrong direction when James Harden sits. That about sum it up? | 7 | 3-7 |
| 23 |  | Memphis has lost six of seven. Ja Morant's 35%/14% shooting splits continue to be difficult to look at for longer than a glance, and Jaren Jackson Jr.'s scoring is way down too. The upshot: Cedric Coward is playing like the best rookie you likely haven't heard of. | 1 | 4-8 |
| 24 |  | The word on the street is the Kings are about to be in the business of a fire sale. We'll see if it comes to fruition. The contracts of Zach LaVine, DeMar DeRozan and Domantas Sabonis aren't exactly trade friendly, but they're going to try. And for good reason. This is not a good team at 3-8 with a bottom-five net rating, a fact that surprises exactly no one. | 2 | 3-8 |
| 25 |  | You're not hearing much about Kon Knueppel as fellow rookies Cooper Flagg and V.J. Edgecombe are busy stealing all the headlines, but this guy is awesome. Unfortunately, LaMelo Ball, who hasn't played more than 47 games since his second season, is hurt again and set to miss his fifth straight game on Wednesday against Milwaukee. | 2 | 3-7 |
| 26 |  | To say things aren't going well for the Mavericks, who've lost five of their last six with the only win coming against the Wizards, would be an understatement. Nico Harrison has been fired and you have to wonder if the team will eventually hit the blow-up button. | 1 | 3-8 |
| 27 |  | These poor guys. Even with Andrew Nembhard and T.J. McConnell back in the lineup, they have just not had the horses with all these injuries and no Tyrese Haliburton or Myles Turner from the team that was one win from winning last year's championship. Four straight losses for a 1-10 record including a shellacking from the 3-7 Jazz on Tuesday. | 4 | 1-10 |
| 28 |  | Derik Queen might really have it and Jeremiah Fears looks pretty damn good too, with his on-a-string handle and multi-paced speed that is very difficult to stay in front of. That said, Zion Williamson is hurt again and the Pelicans are in dead last with a bottom-five offense and defense. Blow this thing up. | 1 | 2-8 |
| 29 |  | What is Jordi Fernandez supposed to do here? The clear intention of this team is to lose with rookies Egor Demin and Ben Saraf running point. Brooklyn has one win this year (over the one-win Pacers) and has lost its 10 games by a combined 174 points. | 1 | 1-10 |
| 30 |  | Alex Sarr is a bright spot. He's second to Victor Wembanyama in total and per-game blocked shots, but you knew the 40%-plus 3-point shooting was going to come back to reality. That doesn't mean Sarr doesn't fit the profile of a real shooter. He's fast becoming exactly that from a lot of areas and in a lot of different ways. But the Wizards? Yeah, they're 1-10 on a nine-game skid with the league's third-worst offense and second-worst defense. | 2 | 1-10 |
