'Round the NBA we go: Power Rankings!

Our monthly 1-to-30 ladder is back and Stephen Curry's Warriors haven't vacated their No. 1 perch, slamming home that status with a big win in Phoenix

Dec 28, 2021

The last Newsletter Tuesday of 2021 is also a Power Rankings Tuesday.

Please permit me to commemorate the occasion, as well as Golden State's ongoing hold on the top spot after an impressive Christmas Day triumph at No. 2 Phoenix, with a question that might come across as what (I think) the kids call a subtle flex:

Have you noticed, since I stopped doing the NBA Power Rankings for ESPN after the 2016-17 season, that they replaced The Committee of One with an actual committee?

If my math is right, Bristol Inc. commissioned a seven-writer panel to do what was always done by one person. I guess they found it to be a much heavier lift every Monday than they realized from 2002-03 through 2016-17.

All good. I think we've landed on a wise cadence here issuing monthly Substacked rankings from the same set of eyes and a singular voice. Whether you agree or disagree with the analysis, you will always know who is responsible for the 1-to-30 order.

Remember: Power Rankings, especially how The Committee does them, will always factor in a team's big-picture outlook strongly in addition to weighing short-term results (along with a sprinkling of subjective whim). I hope to see lots of you commenting below and I will certainly be responding there. Thanks again for following me to Substack, reading this newsletter and sharing in my journalistic endeavors like you do!

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1️⃣ Golden State Warriors

Maintaining a hold on the top spot is nothing new for the Warriors, but this might be the deepest team they've had in the Stephen Curry Era, with mainstays Curry, Draymond Green and Andre Iguodala flanked by vets (Andrew Wiggins, Otto Porter Jr. and Nemanja Bjelica), youth (Jordan Poole, Jonathan Kuminga and Moses Moody) and undrafted success stories (Damion Lee, Gary Payton II and Juan Toscano-Anderson). They'll also be getting even deeper soon with the looming returns of Klay Thompson and James Wiseman.

Last ranking (Nov. 30): 1

2️⃣ Phoenix Suns

The holiday season has been far from festive for the Suns, who followed up a home loss to Golden State on Christmas Day with an agonizing home loss to Memphis hours after Coach Monty Williams and star center Deandre Ayton entered the league's health and safety protocols. The Committee, though, does not succumb to recency bias — not when the Suns went 16-0 in what they dubbed "No Loss November" and went into the Golden State date on a 69-13 pace.

Last ranking (Nov. 30): 2

3️⃣ Utah Jazz

Scanning the Western Conference standings and seeing only four teams with winning records as we near the 41-game midpoint of the regular season takes some serious getting used to. Yet you must also rightly note, given the up-and-down first halves endured by Milwaukee and Brooklyn thanks to their various roster disruptions, that the West houses the league's three best as-we-speak teams. Utah has quietly been almost as imposing as the West's more celebrated twosome of Golden State and Phoenix thanks largely to the league's runaway No. 1 offense (nearly four points per 100 possessions better than No. 2 Charlotte).

Last ranking (Nov. 30): 6

4️⃣ Milwaukee Bucks

The standings say that the defending champions are off to a somewhat middling start at 22-13. Don't buy it. The Bucks are 14-2 when they have Giannis Antetokounmpo, Khris Middleton and Jrue Holiday all in uniform — and surely you saw the havoc Giannis wreaked (36 points and 12 points) with virtually no ramp-up after a 10-day quarantine in a Christmas Day come-from-behind victory over Boston. The reigning Finals MVP, furthermore, said he actually relished the unforeseen physical and mental break. Uh-oh.

Last ranking (Nov. 30): 3

5️⃣ Brooklyn Nets

The way the Nets capitulated to Kyrie Irving by agreeing to let him rejoin the team — after taking the bold step of telling Irving during training camp that he had to make himself available to his teammates for all games, home and road, to be a part of the squad — was undeniably disappointing. And it might not have even been necessary given what we saw from James Harden on the Nets' two-game swing through Los Angeles, when he looked a lot more like the Harden Brooklyn was banking on to compensate for Irving's absence in road wins over the Lakers (36 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists) and the Clippers (39, eight and 15).

Last ranking (Nov. 30): 4

6️⃣ Memphis Grizzlies

For all the justified talk about how underwhelming the Western Conference looks as a collective, not enough has been said about the rise of the Grizzlies. They went 10-2 when Ja Morant was sidelined by a knee injury and a stint in the league's health and safety protocols and rank as the only team in the league with road wins at Golden State, Phoenix and Utah. Monday night’s victory over the Suns on a clutch Morant hoop in traffic had wrestling legend The Iron Sheik tweeting the Grizzlies’ praises. Let's not overlook the West's fourth-best team.

Last ranking (Nov. 30): 23

7️⃣ Miami Heat

For all the lineup disruptions Miami has faced, with Jimmy Butler (tailbone), Bam Adebayo (thumb) and Kyle Lowry (health and safety protocols) all missing time in December, only two teams in the East currently sport a winning record against teams .500 or better. That would be the Heat at 11-8, followed by Chicago at 7-6. The most encouraging part for the Heaters: This team is getting deeper as the season unfolds because of the emerging likes of Max Strus, Gabe Vincent and Ömer Yurtseven.

Last ranking (Nov. 30): 5

8️⃣ Cleveland Cavaliers

No one expected the Cavaliers to seize the league's No. 2 ranking in defensive efficiency after placing 25th last season ... or a top-10 spot with us entering the new year. Cleveland rolls into 2022 as the league's most surprising team, not only in a nod to where the Cavs are in the standings but their approach. They have defied modern wisdom about the need for shooting and speed by relying so heavily on so many big men: Rookie of the Year favorite Evan Mobley, Jarrett Allen, Lauri Markkanen and a rejuvenated Kevin Love.

Last ranking (Nov. 30): 13

9️⃣ Chicago Bulls

In his first seven NBA seasons, Zach LaVine never played on a team that won more than 31 games. With LaVine and DeMar DeRozan forming a stronger partnership than many pundits anticipated and the Bulls starting to gain some distance from what has been one of the NBA's most severe COVID-19 outbreaks, I think we can safely proclaim this to be the season that LaVine finally tastes playoff basketball and maybe even 50-win territory. There is actually some wiggle room there with the Bulls on a robust 56-win pace.

Last ranking (Nov. 30): 7

🔟 Denver Nuggets

The Nuggets, in truth, are not playing top-10 basketball. The problem: The Committee wanted to draw a line after No. 9 to emphasize the drop-off in these rankings underneath the Bulls, but somebody from the league's fleshy middle class had to fill the No. 10 slot. We ended up going with Denver purely in tribute to Nikola Jokić and his ridiculous PER of 32.8 despite playing without the injured Jamal Murray or Michael Porter Jr.

Last ranking (Nov. 30): 16

1️⃣1️⃣ Philadelphia 76ers

While true that The Committee couldn't quite bring itself to nudge the Sixers into the top 10, they are a solid 14-8 when Joel Embiid is in uniform and were thus strongly considered. Philadelphia sports the look of a barely-over-.500 team because of a 3-8 record when both Embiid and Ben Simmons are missing that's not terribly surprising. Of course, now that the Feb. 10 trade deadline is in range, much of the focus in Philly is bound to shift back to the Simmons Saga that generated curiously scant discussion in December. Are the Sixers really prepared to wait until the offseason to trade Simmons unless someone offers a top-25 player sooner? Is Simmons really willing to sit out the whole season if no trade materializes? Let's see how long we have to wait in 2022 for those answers.

Last ranking (Nov. 30): 12

1️⃣2️⃣ Charlotte Hornets

If you're looking for teams likely to fare better in the second half of the regular season than they did in the first, Charlotte has to figure prominently in the conversation. The Hornets have managed to stay over .500 in spite of an 0-4 record in overtime games, their road-heavy schedule (22 of 35 games away) and one of the league's most pronounced manpower crises in the struggle to cope with the Omicron variant that has engulfed so many teams. Those are all big reasons why, along with up-and-down play from so many teams through the rest of the teens, Charlotte placed so high with The Committee.

Last ranking (Nov. 30): 17

1️⃣3️⃣ Dallas Mavericks

Little has gone to plan in Jason Kidd's return to Dallas as the head coach this time. Luka Dončić has missed 12 games. Kristaps Porziņģis has missed nine. The Mavericks, though, have been surprisingly spunky even without the high-profile absentees, with Kidd extracting positive contributions from various hardship signees (Theo Pinson, Marquese Chriss and Brandon Knight) in support of blossoming stand-in franchise player Jalen Brunson. Nothing, mind you, has changed in the big picture: Dallas isn't going anywhere notable until it can get Dončić and Porziņģis playing well together.

Last ranking (Nov. 30): 18

1️⃣4️⃣ San Antonio Spurs

At 4-13, San Antonio was off to its worst start since the 3-15 launch in 1996-97 that led Gregg Popovich to oust Bob Hill and install himself as head coach. At 10-6 since Thanksgiving, Pop's first-ever rebuild is in the midst of a dramatic uptick that has seen the Spurs unexpectedly climb into the top 10 in offensive efficiency, sparked by the league's surprise co-leader in triple-doubles. With six of them, Dejounte Murray is tied with Nikola Jokić and Russell Westbrook and has forced his way into the crowded All-Star conversation among West guards.

Last ranking (Nov. 30): 26

1️⃣5️⃣ Minnesota Timberwolves

After just one trip to the playoffs in the past 17 seasons, Minnesota isn't about to get carried away with the slight cushion it has opened up over Portland, Sacramento, Oklahoma City and New Orleans in the race for a Western Conference play-in spot. The Wolves, though, continue to be more credible defensively than expected when the season began (they've slipped but only to No. 11 in defensive efficiency) and have clearly benefited from Patrick Beverley's arrival to lend Karl-Anthony Towns and Co. some veteran know-how.

Last ranking (Nov. 30): 14

1️⃣6️⃣ Atlanta Hawks

The Hawks awoke Tuesday tied for 11th in the East after last season's run to the conference finals and have surely benefited from the Lakers' monopolization of this season's Most Disappointing Team discussion. Yet it's also hard to be overly critical when the Hawks' latest injury report listed 15 players unavailable ... 13 of them parked in the league's health and safety protocols even after Monday night's return of Trae Young from his protocols stint. Atlanta was a second-half team last season and, not by choice, will soon have an opportunity to show us it can do it again.

Last ranking (Nov. 30): 10

1️⃣7️⃣ New York Knicks

Credit Stefan Bondy of The New York Daily News with one of the lines of the season if the Knicks can't relocate the form that led to the East's No. 4 seed last season and a 5-1 start this season. "From Bing Bong to possibly Ping Pong," Bondy wrote when the Knicks were in the midst of a 1-7 nosedive after Kemba Walker's benching. Walker just made a return to the lineup so triumphant that it earned him Eastern Conference Player of the Week honors, but the Knicks are still a sub-.500 team at home (7-11) and ranked No. 22 in defensive efficiency. Lots to sort out for Coach Tom Thibodeau.

Last ranking (Nov. 30): 15

1️⃣8️⃣ Boston Celtics

It's not just Portland, Indiana and Dallas. Fan exasperation is mounting in Boston as well as the Celtics continue to flail in the .500 range and squandered a 19-point lead in Milwaukee on the national stage of an ABC game on Christmas. So much was expected from the Jayson Tatum/Jaylen Brown/Marcus Smart trio that helped the Celtics take a 2-0 lead over the LeBron James-led Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2018 Eastern Conference finals. How much longer before the prevailing expectation in Boston shifts to shake-up trades?

Last ranking (Nov. 30): 9

1️⃣9️⃣ Washington Wizards

In the heady days of a 10-3 start, this looked like the first basketball team in the nation's capital, Wizards or Bullets, to have 50-win capabilities since Washington won 54 games in 1978-79. Optimism on that front has faded considerably in the wake of a 7-14 slide that, as of Tuesday morning, found the Wizards parked in the bottom 10 of both offensive and defensive efficiency. The only other teams to hold that double distinction are bottom-feeders (Detroit, Orlando, Houston and New Orleans) and one suspects that close games aren't going to go the Wizards' way forever (they're 6-0 in games decided by three points or less).

Last ranking (Nov. 30): 11

2️⃣0️⃣ Toronto Raptors

If my love for Canada as a country and Toronto as a city are contributing factors to the sympathetic tone here ... fine. Guilty as charged. I would counter by saying that it's hard not to feel some sympathy for the Raptors, after they were forced to play all of last season out of Tampa, Fla., then watching them absorb a 144-99 loss in Cleveland on Sunday with all of eight players available ... four of whom were 10-day hardship signings. Such are the depths of Toronto's health-and-safety woes that the heartwarming story of a call-up from the G League for Canada's own Nik Stauskas was scuttled because Stauskas couldn't establish clearance from the protocols after getting a 10-day summons from the Raptors.

Last ranking (Nov. 30): 22

2️⃣1️⃣ LA Clippers

I have long protested again the notion of a Power Rankings jinx, but the Clippers might have a real case to lodge a complaint with The Committee after we specifically lauded their ability in last month's rankings to maintain a top-six slot in the conference without the injured Kawhi Leonard. Now they have lost Paul George indefinitely to an elbow injury, on top of Kawhi's ongoing recovery from knee surgery, and are about to play (gulp) 27 of their next 40 games on the road. Expect them, in other words, to be slipping out of the top six swiftly.

Last ranking (Nov. 30): 8

2️⃣2️⃣ Los Angeles Lakers

Perhaps we've been too hard here on the L.A. teams, but The Committee felt a need to drop them both into the bottom 10 after my longtime colleague John Hollinger shrewdly observed that the co-residents of the newly renamed Crypto.com Arena face the shared daunting prospect of leaving the building empty come playoff time given how their respective seasons are playing out. Many more thoughts from me on the Lakers and how residence in the unusually underwhelming West is the most helpful force in LeBron James' life as his 37th birthday approaches were printed here Monday.

Last ranking (Nov. 30): 20

2️⃣3️⃣ Indiana Pacers

Trade talk has been chilled leaguewide by the daily struggle so many teams have faced to ensure that they have enough players in uniform to cope with the latest COVID-19 surges. Expect to hear a lot more about the Pacers in January when the transaction winds kick up anew in advance of the league's Feb. 10 trade deadline, given the level of external interest in Indiana's Domantas Sabonis and Myles Turner. Caris LeVert is likewise on an offensive upswing that could tempt a suitor or two.

Last ranking (Nov. 30): 21

2️⃣4️⃣ Oklahoma City Thunder

It was only 26 days ago that the Thunder of Oklahoma City lost a basketball game to the Memphis Grizzlies by 73 points. They are a plucky 6-4 since and have shamed those who thought this team would struggle to reach the 10-win mark by climbing to within 1.5 games of a play-in spot in the West. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is making an All-Star case and rookie Josh Giddey is meshing beside him for a team of upstarts showing how nicely it can pay off in the modern game to be able to lean on multiple ball-handlers.

Last ranking (Nov. 30): 28

2️⃣5️⃣ New Orleans Pelicans

Even without Zion Williamson, who remains sidelined indefinitely after offseason foot surgery, New Orleans has been a borderline .500 team when it can orbit around Brandon Ingram. The Pelicans' problem: They're 0-8 without Ingram if you include the game he exited Sunday with left Achilles soreness before the end of the first quarter. Even with Jonas Valančiūnas and now Josh Hart playing the best all-around basketball of their lives, trying to function without Williamson and Ingram is way too much to give away.

Last ranking (Nov. 30): 25

2️⃣6️⃣ Sacramento Kings

Alvin Gentry has been working in the NBA for more than three decades. The Kings are the sixth team for which Gentry has served as a head coach after stints with the Heat, Pistons, Clippers, Suns and Pelicans — only Larry Brown (nine) has coached more NBA teams. So it naturally got a lot of attention when Gentry reacted to Sunday's lopsided home loss to Memphis by saying the no-show performance left him "the most disappointed I've been in 34 years in the NBA." Kings fans, staring at a record 16th successive spring without postseason basketball, rightfully have to be asking when it will be their turn again.

Last ranking (Nov. 30): 24

2️⃣7️⃣ Portland Trail Blazers

The messaging from the Trail Blazers and from Damian Lillard has been consistent: Neither side wants to pursue an in-season trade. It's simply getting harder and harder to see what the parties are hanging onto. The Blazers appear to lack the trade assets at this point to reconstruct a winning core around Lillard and could presumably still command a lot in return for the 31-year-old with two locked-in seasons on Lillard’s contract after this one. As difficult as a trade would be emotionally on the franchise and fan base, given the bonds Lillard has formed with the Blazers and Blazermaniacs, one can't help but ask: Isn't the time now?

Last ranking (Nov. 30): 19

2️⃣8️⃣ Houston Rockets

Enjoyable as the recent seven-game winning streak was, after all the losing Houston has endured since trading away James Harden, ensuring that Jalen Green registers a positive and productive rookie campaign is the Rockets' foremost concern this season — especially given the ROY-worthy play we've already seen from the player (Cleveland's Evan Mobley) Houston passed up to draft Green. The Rockets were undeniably heartened to see Green score 20 points in 25 minutes in his recent return game against Indiana since the winning streak began just as Green sustained a hamstring strain.

Last ranking (Nov. 30): 27

2️⃣9️⃣ Orlando Magic

With so many injury absentees and player losses to the health and safety protocols, Orlando's roster swelled as high as 23 players last week. The circumstances are such that the Magic are somewhat forced to celebrate the small victories ... and the promise they're seeing from rookie Franz Wagner certainly qualifies. The Magic are putting the ball in Wagner's hands more and more and the 20-year-old is flashing promise as a playmaker to go with his scoring (17.9 PPG in December).

Last ranking (Nov. 30): 30

3️⃣0️⃣ Detroit Pistons

The Pistons have won one of their 18 games since Nov. 17. All I can say is that I have a lot of admiration for my pal Josh Gardner, who makes frequent appearances in the Spotify Greenroom sessions I host and never wants to stop talking Pistons. He's a Lions fan, too, which means he's been able to celebrate all of seven wins from those two teams since the NFL season began in September. Hang in there, Detroiters. Have to imagine this has been a colder winter than most.

Last ranking (Nov. 30): 29