It's an NBA Power Rankings Thursday!
Tradition dictates that the stretch run of the regular season cannot start without some 4,000 words' worth of team-by-team musings from The Committee (of One)
Opening Night in October. And then Thanksgiving. And then again on Christmas.
The Committee (of One) duly delivered a fresh helping of NBA Power Rankings on each of those key dates as planned.
The challenge we face every winter is January. Coverage of NBA Trade Season tends to be so all-consuming that the goal we adopted upon launch of The Stein Line to publish one meaty rankings dispatch per month during the regular season inevitably gets derailed.
The best plan we've hatched to try to make up for what we couldn't serve up last month: Assembling a new 1-to-30 ladder to run on the same day as the resumption of the regular season. So here it is on a 10-game Thursday … with a new No. 1 as well!
The mission as always that we hope to achieve with our monthly(-ish) rankings cadence — as opposed to the weekly rankings I cooked up for 15 years in my ESPN days — remains unchanged: Establish a 1-to-30 order (at least somewhat) independent of the standings which measures big-picture potential and expectations alongside short-term results. Injuries and other off-court developments, positive and negative, are factored in as well … with some sprinkles of Committee whim mixed in.
You are asked, as always, to register your questions, quibbles or any other pertinent thoughts in the comments section below so we can respond and expound upon our thinking. And remember: Rankings posts are incredibly long. Just click on the main headline to get the web or app version instantly if it proves too unwieldy to consume as an email.
1️⃣ Detroit Pistons
The Pistons would trail Oklahoma City by a half-game if the standings appeared in a 1-to-30 procession without conferences ... but these rankings most certainly shouldn't be confused with the regular standings. Detroit has firmly made the leap from good to great this season and — for all the unavoidable skepticism this group will face until it achieves playoff success — also happens to sport a league-best record of 17-6 against .500-or-better teams. This is where Cade Cunningham and Co. belong entering their first and only pre-playoffs visit to Madison Square Garden tonight on Amazon.
Last ranking (Dec. 25): 4
2️⃣ Oklahoma City Thunder
It's not just Oklahoma City's rather mortal 18-13 record since a 24-1 start that has unexpectedly dropped the defending champs to the No. 2 slot. It's also the uncertain health that has encroached upon Shai Gilgeous-Alexander's bid for back-to-back MVP awards, amid a season awash with no shortage of additional injuries for the Thunder, that suddenly has OKC looking up at the Pistons. Is the Committee being too harsh on the league's only team that can currently claim to rank in the top five in both offensive and defensive efficiency? Don't really think so.
Last ranking (Dec. 25): 1
3️⃣ San Antonio Spurs
The Spurs and the Pistons have a lot in common. On pure achievement we should probably be well past the point of questioning whether Victor Wembanyama's team should be classified as a potential Team To Beat in the West. These Spurs are on a 58-win pace, rank among the league's top seven in both offensive and defensive efficiency and stand as the only team on Earth than can say it went 4-1 against mighty OKC this season. Yet you surely know by now how the NBA works. Until we see you do it on the postseason stage ... doubts will linger. Even for a 7-foot-5 (or taller) Alien.
Last ranking (Dec. 25): 2
4️⃣ New York Knicks
Do you believe in the NBA Cup jinx? Although we really don't here, The Committee does subscribe to the theory that the Knicks are under more pressure than any other team in the Eastern Conference ... and not because of anything that happened in Las Vegas in December. The East-leading Pistons still haven't won a playoff series as a group. The Celtics have been a Cinderella team without Jayson Tatum but can't be quite sure what version they will be getting if Tatum indeed makes the comeback that's widely expected now. The Cavaliers, along the same lines, can't really be sure James Harden is going to be their cure-all ... can they? This season legitimately ranks as the Knicks' best opportunity to win the East this century. How will they handle the weight of that reality from here after recent trade speculation so clearly wore on the likes of Karl-Anthony Towns.
These are some of the thoughts we're pondering as New York enters Thursday night's showdown with suspension-weakened Detroit having already lost the teams' two meetings this season by a combined (gulp) 69 points.
Last ranking (Dec. 25): 3
5️⃣ Boston Celtics
Are the Celtics, who once upon a time were a mere 10-9, legitimately top-five material? Their résumé says so. With the league's No. 2 offense and the third-highest nightly average point differential at +6.9, Boston looks like a 40-win team on paper. The 35-19 Celtics also happen to have the whole league talking and wondering about how soon we might see Tatum back after his Achilles' tear last May. Quite a trade deadline if you buy the premise that the 2023-24 champs are about to welcome back Tatum on top of the recent acquisition of former All-Star center Nikola Vučević.
Last ranking (Dec. 25): 9
6️⃣ Denver Nuggets
The Committee wanted to sneak the Nuggets into the top five since we still see them — when whole — as Oklahoma City's most likely top challenger in the West. We simply couldn't convince ourselves to go those lengths. Not when the rarely whole Nuggets are a mere 2-4 in February. Not when Aaron Gordon and Peyton Watson remain sidelined. Not when the team that sports the top-rated offense in the league — even after all the time Nikola Jokić has missed this season — sits 24th in defensive rating. And not when the Nuggets, on top of everything else we've listed here, face the league's most difficult remaining schedule based on opponent winning percentage (.551).
Last ranking (Dec. 25): 5
7️⃣ Minnesota Timberwolves
There are actually six teams as we speak that rank in the top 10 in both offensive and defensive efficiency and the Timberwolves — at No. 8 and No. 7 in those respective categories — are among them. Yet the sense here at Stein Line HQ persists that only a select few have Minnesota on their short list of difference-making teams in the West. While true that the Wolves have a habit of incurring the occasional eyesore loss that makes you question their viability as a contender, they are coming off back-to-back trips to the Western Conference ... boast the newly named All-Star Game MVP .... and just fortified Anthony Edwards' supporting cast with a solid addition (Ayo Dosunmu) and a key re-signing (Mike Conley Jr.). You tell us: How do you see the Wolves? Overrated? Underrated? Properly rated?
Last ranking (Dec. 25): 6
8️⃣ Cleveland Cavaliers
At the regular season midpoint, Cleveland was 22-19 and right at the forefront of the dreaded Most Disappointing Team race. The Cavaliers have since rallied and went on a 10-1 surge heading into the All-Star break while they were also in the midst of breaking up their oft-scrutinized Core Four by shipping out Darius Garland to import Harden. You would certainly expect the Cavs to be one of those aforementioned six teams to rank in the top 10 in both offensive and defensive efficiency rather than their actual splits of No. 5 and No. 12 in those categories, respectively, but they have finally begun to look more like the team we were all expecting. How much of a factor that makes them for the rest of the season, mind you, is still TBD.
Last ranking (Dec. 25): 11
9️⃣ Houston Rockets
How big a deal is the whole KD Files thing? The answer to that question can really only come from Alperen Şengün, Jabari Smith Jr. and the other key stakeholders in the Rockets' organization. If it is a big deal to them, then the story is a significant hurdle for Houston to contend with now on top of how much it has missed Fred VanVleet all season (and more recently Steven Adams). The Rockets actually enter Thursday night's return to work in Charlotte with the league's fifth-ranked defense and sixth-ranked offense ... but you really wouldn't know that based on the way this team gets talked about.
Last ranking (Dec. 25): 7
🔟 Toronto Raptors
Fresh off sending Scottie Barnes, Brandon Ingram and coach Darko Rajaković to All-Star Weekend, Toronto closes the regular season with 15 of its final 27 games on the road. This isn't automatically bad news, though, when you realize that the Raptors are actually 16-10 outside of Canada to this point compared to 16-13 at home. The Raps have pretty much been a top-six team in the East all season and hold a three-game cushion on No. 7 Orlando when it comes to clinching their first playoff berth since the 2021-22 season. (Whether The Committee actually finds a way to get to The 416 before the season ends as we always hope, unfortunately, is yet another TBD matter.)
Last ranking (Dec. 25): 12
1️⃣1️⃣ Phoenix Suns
The Coach of the Year race is going to be a crowded one as always, but the Suns' Jordan Ott has to be up there as a top contender alongside the likes of Detroit's J.B. Bickerstaff, Boston's Joe Mazzulla, San Antonio's Mitch Johnson and Charlotte's Charles Lee. Dare we say that Dillon Brooks had a strong All-Star case, too, thanks to his contributions at both ends (and culturally) for the Surprise Team of the West ... even if Brooks was also the first NBA player to rack up 16 technical fouls before the All-Star break since DeMarcus Cousins in 2017.
Last ranking (Dec. 25): 14
1️⃣2️⃣ Los Angeles Lakers
The Committee's many years working alongside John Hollinger at ESPN rendered us a PDFFL ... Point Differential Fanatics For Life. It's a condition that has had us staring in disbelief — more than once — at the Lakers' 0.0 reading in that column while posting a 33-21 record. Not an easy trick to pull off. Also somewhat hard to believe: Luka Dončić, LeBron James and Austin Reaves have played together in just 10 of LA's 54 games to date. The Lakers obviously need all three firing at the same time offensively to have any shot at offsetting the purple-and-gold's defensive shortcomings.
Last ranking (Dec. 25): 8
1️⃣3️⃣ Charlotte Hornets
Is the league's longest active playoff drought about to perish? The same Hornets who recently assembled a nine-game winning streak have failed to reach the NBA Tournament for nine consecutive seasons. It remains to be seen if they can rise all the way into the East's top six in their final 28 games, but the Hornets are a heady 13-4 since a 13-25 start and have certainly provided The Committee with reassurance that its scouting eye is still sharp. You'll recall that way back in October, after seeing the Hornets on a preseason trip to Dallas, we told you that they might have something percolating after adding rookie Kon Knueppel and Ryan Kalkbrenner to LaMelo Ball and Brandon Miller.
Last ranking (Dec. 25): 27
1️⃣4️⃣ LA Clippers
Even by the infamous standards of Clipperland in the pre-Steve Ballmer Era, this season has been a roller coaster for the ages. The 6-21 start in the wake of the Aspiration and salary cap circumvention allegations. The ouster of Chris Paul and the subsequent 17-4 rebound. The trades of James Harden and Ivica Zubac. The 31-point eruption from Kawhi Leonard across 12 glorious All-Star minutes. What happens next? If the 26-28 Clips somehow managed to post a winning record for the 15th successive season ... would anyone really be shocked?
Last ranking (Dec. 25): 26
1️⃣5️⃣ Philadelphia 76ers
The vibes seemed so good in Philly. Tyrese Maxey took another step toward Face of the Franchise stardom. V.J. Edgecombe proved to be NBA-ready from the jump. And then Joel Embiid began to look more and more like Joel Embiid, giving the Sixers real hope that they had a sneaky-good shot in the wide-open East to seize upon the unique opportunity their conference offers. Then Paul George got suspended. Embiid has been sidelined anew. And fan favorite Jared McCain was traded earlier this month when Oklahoma City unexpectedly offered a first-round pick for the young guard ... something the Thunder rarely do. Can the Sixers still be a playoff wild card? As usual that presumably depends on what sort of Embiid and George they can rely on come spring.
Last ranking (Dec. 25): 13
1️⃣6️⃣ Portland Trail Blazers
There is a fair bit of clarity when you look at the postseason picture in the West. Memphis, Dallas, Utah, New Orleans, Sacramento ... none of those teams is even trying to climb out of the conference's bottom five at this point. The translation for Portlanders' purposes: Go ahead and start planning for the Play-In Tournament. The Trail Blazers haven't been to the playoffs since the 2020-21 season, but they'll have a definite shot through the Play-In door this spring. (Climbing into the West's top six, realistically speaking, is realistically out of reach even though the Blazers have the most favorable remaining schedule in the league in terms of opponent winning percentage at .452.)
Last ranking (Dec. 25): 21
1️⃣7️⃣ Orlando Magic
No let up on the pain in the Magic Kingdom. Franz Wagner returned to the lineup on Jan. 15 to play in the Magic's win over Memphis in Wagner's native Berlin. Yet Wagner was able to play in only three more games after that before being shelved again by persistent soreness in his left ankle, meaning that Wagner and Paolo Banchero have teamed up in only 58 games over the past two seasons. Orlando is 29-29 those games. And now the Magic might have to settle for a Play-In Tournament berth after surrendering all those first-round picks for Desmond Bane last June that won them so many plaudits for their offseason business.
Last ranking (Dec. 25): 10
1️⃣8️⃣ Golden State Warriors
The Warriors were celebrating the arrival of Jimmy Butler this time last year. They return to work this February with Butler lost for the season to an ACL tear and having played the last five games before the All-Star break without the injured Stephen Curry as well. The 29-26 Dubs are actually a game better off than they were at this same juncture last season but realistically speaking they are nowhere close at the moment to the team that swept a baseball series in San Antonio in November. It's more than fair to wonder aloud: Will Golden State still have a winning record on March 14th when Curry — to The Committee's ongoing shock — turns 38?
Last ranking (Dec. 25): 15
1️⃣9️⃣ Miami Heat
The Heat are on course to place in the league's top 10 in defensive efficiency for the sixth consecutive season. The problem: No. 4 Miami is one of just three teams in that top 10 (along with Phoenix and Golden State) that is currently mired in the Play-In Tournament zone. Worse yet: The Heat have slumped to 17th in offensive rating after all those early season raves about how much faster they're playing these days and were somehow on the losing end of one of the two games that got Utah fined $500,000 for refusing to play Lauri Markkanen and Jaren Jackson Jr. in the fourth quarter. Neither the Heat nor the Warriors, frankly, should be lumped in with the Cinderella Suns at the moment.
Last ranking (Dec. 25): 18
2️⃣0️⃣ Atlanta Hawks
The season hasn't worked out as anticipated for either of the East's summer darlings. The Hawks, like the Magic, were widely praised for their offseason business ... only to deconstruct their roster further once the 82 games got underway by trading away both Trae Young and Kristaps Porziņģis. Yet it's also true that an even sunnier summer could be looming in Atlanta ... depending on what happens with the draft pick in June that New Orleans owes the Hawks in June as well as a healthy slice of projected salary cap space. In the interim? Atlanta can celebrate Jalen Johnson, now its undisputed centerpiece, breaking through as an All-Star.
Last ranking (Dec. 25): 17
2️⃣1️⃣ Milwaukee Bucks
If you thought that the passing of the trade deadline would give us clarity on the direction of the Bucks ... you expected too much. They still apparently want to bring Giannis Antetokounmpo back from injury at some point soon even though Antetokounmpo has sustained two calf strains and an adductor strain this season. They are still making win-now moves (signing Cam Thomas and trading for Ousmane Dieng) despite sitting at 12th in the East at 23-30. And Giannis is still transmitting messages that confound in interviews.
In an All-Star Weekend visit with ESPN's Malika Andrews, Giannis said: "I want to win a championship with the Milwaukee Bucks. And if that is not on the table, maybe I have to pivot because I really want to win." Not exactly a quote that squares neatly with this Giannis tweet right after the deadline buzzer sounded:
Last ranking (Dec. 25): 25
2️⃣2️⃣ Dallas Mavericks
The Mavericks have two clear goals for the rest of the season: Boost their lottery odds to the fullest possible extent while also helping Cooper Flagg secure the Rookie of the Year trophy. It might be more challenging than it sounds, though, for Dallas to pull off that double, since Flagg is currently trying to recover from a left midfoot sprain. It's an injury that comes with a recovery time more frequently measured in weeks rather than days. With regards to the losing, meanwhile, Dallas has dropped nine in a row for the first time since a 15-game skid back in 1997-98 during (yikes) The Committee's first full season as a Mavericks beat writer for The Dallas Morning News.
Last ranking (Dec. 25): 19
2️⃣3️⃣ Chicago Bulls
Miami and Atlanta are once again ensconced in the East's Play-In Tournament zone, but the third member of the trio we've grown so accustomed to seeing in that section of the standings is sliding. The Bulls descended into a 1-9 skid heading into the All-Star break and appear to have finally embraced the concept of a rebuild after trading away the likes of Coby White, Nikola Vučević and Ayo Dosunmu. Maybe we should have known that this season would divert from the usual script when the Bulls had to postpone a home game against Miami last month because of ... slippery court conditions caused by high humidity. In Chicago. In January.
Last ranking (Dec. 25): 16
2️⃣4️⃣ Indiana Pacers
The Committee admittedly didn't realize this until my ace research colleague Keerthika Uthayakumar pointed it out recently: Indiana has quietly gone 9-9 in its last 18 games. Of course, if the Pacers could be candid with us on the matter, that's surely more winning than they'd like to see now that their first-round pick is only top-four protected. If that pick lands anywhere between Nos. 5-9 in May after the big swing trade to acquire Ivica Zubac, it goes to the Clippers. The Pacers' dream scenario for next season and what they hope is a swift return to title contention would naturally be adding both Zubac and a top-four pick to All-Star forward Pascal Siakam and the returning Tyrese Haliburton.
Last ranking (Dec. 25): 29
2️⃣5️⃣ Utah Jazz
You can certainly understand why the Jazz and their fans feel so aggrieved about last week's mammoth tanking fine. No matter the optics of its recent substitution patterns, Utah is actually 3-3 in its last six games ... with two losses in that stretch decided by a combined five points. How the Jazz handle the rest of the season, meanwhile, is also bound to be highly scrutinized from here because they currently have the league's sixth-worst record. The Jazz, as you've surely heard by now, need to land in the bottom four by season's end to completely guarantee that their pick doesn't fall lower than eighth in the lottery. The pick must be conveyed to Oklahoma City if it's No. 9 or lower.
Last ranking (Dec. 25): 23
2️⃣6️⃣ Memphis Grizzlies
It certainly crossed The Committee's mind, when we had an in-person seat to watch Ja Morant rumble for an impressive 24 points and 13 assists at the O2 in London on Jan. 18 in a victory over Orlando, that we might be seeing Morant's final game with the Grizzlies. He actually played in one more game after that, but you'd still have to classify everything that has happened since as pretty surprising: Jaren Jackson Jr. is the Grizz star who got traded rather than Ja. And Morant's future in Memphis remains just as murky now that Triple J and Desmond Bane are both gone ... replaced by seven incoming first-round picks.
Last ranking (Dec. 25): 20
2️⃣7️⃣ New Orleans Pelicans
Quite a season for the Pelicans. They are 15-41 and have made the NBA's only in-season coaching change (going from Willie Green to James Borrego) and yet told interested teams before the trade deadline that several of their players — including Zion Williamson, Trey Murphy III, Herb Jones and rookies Derik Queen and Jeremiah Fears — were unavailable to anyone with trade proposals. New Orleans is also the only team that currently resides in the league's bottom 10 record-wise that actually wants/needs to win. Atlanta, remember, inherits the Pels' first-round pick in June thanks to the Queen trade.
Last ranking (Dec. 25): 22
2️⃣8️⃣ Brooklyn Nets
The Nets, we know now, were not kidding about maintaining a high threshold on incoming trade offers for Michael Porter Jr. They opted to keep Porter through the deadline and thus will carry some optionality into the offseason when it comes to either keeping him or moving him as part of Brooklyn's inevitable exploration into its own options for big summer trade swings. Saddened as the Nets were that MPJ got snubbed for an All-Star spot, one suspects they'll move past that disappointment rather quickly if May's lottery treats them kinder. That will be a massive night for the Nets since they do not control their first-round pick in 2027 as a vestige of the James Harden acquisition in January 2021.
Last ranking (Dec. 25): 24
2️⃣9️⃣ Washington Wizards
This season's clamor against pick protections and whether the NBA should continue to allow them is mostly inspired by the Jazz and the Wizards. Both organizations face the same predicament: Part of the reason these teams have been so tank-minded all season is the reality that prior trades require them to surrender their first-round pick in June if it falls outside the top eight in the May lottery. And the only way to guarantee that doesn't happen is by compiling one of the league's four-worst records. Yet Washington, for its part, has managed to bump Indiana out of the Eastern Conference cellar to drop back into the NBA's bottom four in hopes of keep a pick that will go to the Knicks if it falls out of the top eight ... with no indication yet when the newly acquired Trae Young or Anthony Davis will play in a game for their new team.
Last ranking (Dec. 25): 30
3️⃣0️⃣ Sacramento Kings
The Kings have the league's worst record, are in the midst of a 14-game losing streak and appear intent cementing that cellar-dwelling status after announcing Wednesday that Domantas Sabonis (knee) and Zach LaVine (hand) both just underwent season-ending surgeries. Unfortunately, given our tendencies as incurable stickers, The Committee can't help but point out that the last three teams to post the league's worst record — Detroit in 2022-23 and 2023-24; Utah in 2024-25 — all fell as far as they possibly could in the draft lottery to No. 5. The Kings have only had the No. 1 overall pick once previously in their Sacramento history ... selecting Pervis Ellison in 1989. The Committee will refrain from continuing on here with what happened in the 2018 draft — or the 2022 trade deadline — since this comment has been dour enough already.
Last ranking (Dec. 25): 28
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