For my inaugural “real” power rankings where it’s a power ranking of actual teams in the NBA rather than something stupid like Hot Pockets Flavors or NBA Players With the Stupidest Hair, I promise to provide meaningful basketball insight in a way that includes no insight whatsoever. Let’s get this party started! WOOP WOOP
1. Cleveland Cavaliers (6-0)
My mortal enemy Mike Dunleavy Jr. is on this team but I still couldn’t get away from putting them in first. I would offer him a bribe wherein I put the Cavs a few spots higher on my power rankings in exchange for punching him right in his ugly mug with a closed fist, but that bribe would currently be ineffective because the Cavs are already number one on DTB’S INAUGURAL OFFICIAL NBA POWER RANKINGS. So the punch will have to wait. I’ll be over here lifting weights to prepare.
2. Los Angeles Clippers (5-1)
This team is good when healthy. Like WCF good. On paper, only the Warriors are definitely better. Guess which western conference team is currently above them in DTB’s OFFICIAL NBA POWER RANKINGS? It’s not the Kings, that’s for sure. Blake Griffin is no longer the flashy dunker he once was (if karma existed, Griffin would have received a big dose of it for mercilessly punching innocent team employees, but karma doesn’t exist, so there must be some other reason for his athletic decline), but maybe he’s better as a play-maker and jumpshooter. DeAndre Jordan can do all the dunking. By the way, can we skip to the end of the season so I can release my DeAndre Jordan dunkilation please?
3. Golden State Warriors (4-2)
Before the season, everybody was like “who will suffer more for playing with another superstar, Curry or Durant?” The answer is neither. Klay Thompson is the one who is suffering. Those spooky tombstone-themed cookies that LeBron made must have really rattled him. One thing that he definitely doesn’t need is reminders of his own interminable death-march towards…death. He should start pretending that every three-pointer he makes gives him an extra week of life on this earth before the terrible scythe of Death himself comes swinging down to deal the final blow.
4. Toronto Raptors (4-1)
It’s hard to put the Raptors here considering they haven’t beaten any elite teams yet, but they did spank the Pistons in the opener and their roster didn’t change much from last year, when they made the ECF. Knowing Raptors fans, they’re probably imploding because Patrick Patterson and DeMarre Carroll are having slow starts. Jared Sullinger should be glad he got injured since he would never be able to live up to their expectations. Now he can sit at home on his couch and eat ice cream sundaes with no guilt or penalty. Incidentally, that’s exactly what he does all the time anyway. DTB’S IRRATIONAL HATE FOR DEMAR DEROZAN LEVEL: High, but now intermixed with a small measure of grudging respect.
5. San Antonio Spurs (5-2)
This is already way too hard. How am I supposed to rank thirty whole teams? I should have waited until a month into the season so I could actually have opinions on all these teams instead of just making guesses. Hopefully nobody exposes my ignorance when I inevitably say something stupid or factually incorrect. Anyway, Tim Duncan is playing a reduced role this year but I still attribute about three of the Spurs’ wins to him. You can’t even tell if I’m being serious or not. That’s the point, dummy.
6. Boston Celtics (3-2)
Jaylen Brown looks like the only rookie who came to play. Yes, I am holding Ben Simmons’ injury against him. Also yes, I am ignoring Joel Embiid because he was drafted a long time ago. No, I don’t know who Domantas Sabonis is. Don’t make things up. It’s not funny. I’ve got a lot of stuff to keep track of here and it only gets harder when people make up NBA players to try to confuse me.
7. Oklahoma City Thunder (5-1)
Russell Westbrook looked like he could carry this team all the way to at least the second round while averaging a trippy-dubby. Then the Warriors brought him back down to earth. I maintain that Westbrook had a “bad” game that night (still 20 and 10 though) because he tried to have an apologetic bromance conversation with Kevin Durant but got spurned. Then he went back to the locker room, waited until everybody had left, then whispered, “I never meant to hurt you Kevin,” into the darkness. What, you don’t think that happened?
8. Charlotte Hornets (4-1)
I want to see them beat a good team. I also want Kemba Walker to fail because I called him “Brandon Jennings 1.2” for about three years straight. He’s making me look dumb right now. Actually, most of the stuff I’m writing here will make me look dumb three years from now. But especially that stuff about Kemba. Now I’m going to try to undo all my past mistakes: he’s a fringe all-star candidate this year. There. I feel better now.
9. Atlanta Hawks (4-2)
Losing to the Lakers AND the Wizards? Don’t care, they’re still in my top ten. The Dwight Howard experiment so far has turned out to be a rousing success, the Kent Bazemore experiment is a failure (27% from the field before a decent game against the no-defense Rockets), and the Kyle Korver experiment has conclusively determined that the secret to eternal youth lies in the unknown chemical composition of that weird hippie stuff he always eats. It’s probably kale or something gross like that. Ugh.
10. Utah Jazz (3-3)
Power rankings are allowed to be based on potential, right? I’m not sure exactly what the rules are regarding these things. The one thing I’m sure of is that Hayward and Burks are both out for a while, but the Jazz are still pretty good, so they’re only going to improve when those guys get back. George Hill is playing great and doesn’t have any weird colors in his hair like he did at the beginning of last season. Shout out to Boris Diaw for being 1-of-11 from the field in three games (69 minutes) then injuring himself with his fatness/Frenchness.
11. Detroit Pistons (4-2)
The Pistons look like they’re going to move back to downtown Detroit after spending the last couple of decades playing out in Pontiac. I could comment on the socio-political, the socio-economical, and the socio-social ramifications of that move, but I’m just going to say this: Beno Udrih needs to get rid of that ponytail thing right now. Also somebody should tell SVG that Boban didn’t sign for seven million per year to only play two minutes a game. If nobody does I’ll tell him myself. With a strongly-worded sentence in my power rankings.
12. Chicago Bulls (3-3)
No. The terrible trio of Butler, Wade, and Rondo was not supposed to succeed. Happily, they did lose a close game against the Celtics and then got BTFO by the Knicks and Pacers of all teams, so I was able to keep them out of the top ten without resorting to a flimsy excuse like “I hate the Bulls” or “They used to have Mike Dunleavy” or “Their early success is a fluke”.
13. Houston Rockets (3-3)
One could say that Harden’s outrageous start to the season (30+ points, 10+ assists) came about because he’s trying to prove everybody wrong who didn’t vote for him for the All-NBA teams. I’d say he’s just trying to show Corey Brewer how very, very bad the latter is at basketball. If I was Corey I would request a trade so I wasn’t getting shown up all the time. A trade to Europe.
14. Portland Trail Blazers (3-3)
Major free-agent acquisition Evan Turner is recording more turnovers than assists and Al-Farouq Aminu has regressed badly, but we can at least be happy for Jake Layman in an ironic and patronizing way. .73 winshares per 48? Give him more minutes, coach! FUTURE SUPERSTAR LOL
15. Milwaukee Bucks (4-2)
I don’t want to freak you out, but Giannis is basically a superstar right now. 24/9/6 on 53% shooting? Those are superstar numbers (freak out now if you want). If he had a jumpshot, the other 29 GMs would probably get Obama to deport Giannis back to Greece. It already happened with Andrea Bargnani but for different reasons.
16. Los Angeles Lakers (3-3)
Coach Walton has these young guys playing like they love the game. I was going to type more about the Lakers but I gotta stop and say something. Did that or did that not sound like something that somebody on ESPN would say? It totally did! I hope somebody there reads this and hires me. Please.
17. Minnesota Timberwolves (1-4)
Coach Thibs should be unable to unlock the defensive potential of the following players: Andrew Wiggins. Gorgui Dieng. Karl-Anthony Towns. Zach LaVine. That sounds good in theory but it actually makes me mad because I want this team to be offense-oriented. The 116 points they dropped on the Grizzlies? It would have been 140 but everybody was too tired from playing defense. That’s my hot take. It’s probably too hot for you to handle.
18. Indiana Pacers (3-3)
People are saying that the Pacers shuffled around players without improving at anything, while also losing the identity they had last season. News flash: the Pacers still have an identity. Their identity is to be a mediocre NBA team so everybody in Indiana can forget about them again. I’d want to forget about them too if I had to watch Al Jefferson and Monta Ellis every night.
19. Miami Heat (2-3)
Where’s LeBron? Where’s Bosh? Where’s Wade? Nothing makes sense anymore. I walk to the garage where my time machine sits underneath a tarp. I put my hand on it, wanting to pull the tarp away, filled with a yearning desire to see the big three reunited, but I am also filled with fear. I remember what happened the last time my human hubris caused me to meddle with the timeline. Her picture is still on my phone. I don’t bother to look at it anymore; her details are burned into my memory. A single tear splashes the garage floor. Then another.
20. Denver Nuggets (2-3)
The -ic bros Nurkic and Jokic are essentially putting up 30 points and 18 rebounds combined through the first games of the season. So you could replace them with prime Shaq and play four-on-five the whole game and the Nuggets would do about the same. That’s how math works. If you don’t like it, go find some other power rankings where they coddle you and your simple opinions.
21. Brooklyn Nets (2-4)
The Nets are slightly more resilient then I thought. They only got blown out once (by the Bulls) and played well against some decent East teams. I would make a joke about how the Nets don’t even have any draft picks to tank for, but those jokes are old and lame now (like Luis Scola ROFL), so instead I will make a joke about Jeremy Lin’s hair. Upon further review those jokes are lame too so the Brooklyn Nets section of this power ranking is officially finished.
22. Orlando Magic (3-3)
The Magic have Jeff Green which means they are doomed. No team with Jeff Green on it ever does good. And he plays the same tweener position as the franchise’s chosen one, Aaron Gordon, who hasn’t even shown he can be a star in the league but they traded away Tobes and that’s looking pretty dumb right now so they need to save face by pretending it was a savvy move to feed more minutes to their “star”. Which perfectly explains why they signed Jeff Green. “YOU GET A TWEENER! YOU GET A TWEENER! EVERYBODY GETS A TWEENER!”
23. Phoenix Suns (2-4)
Their wins necessitated the use of timely game-winning shots, which isn’t a sustainable model for success. Having future GOAT of all time T.J. Warren, however, is a sustainable model for success. Until Devin Booker scored 38 against the Pelicans, I was ready to discard him in favor of Scorin’ Warren. It could still happen. When Warren scores thirty sometime during the next week I will be totally done with that loser Booker.
24. Memphis Grizzlies (3-3)
The Grizz came into the season without much of a bench. With their aging core players progressing linearly through time and thus accumulating age at the same rate as everybody else, this might not have been the best idea. Their scoring through the first few games was near league-worst, even with unexpected scoring outbursts from Mike Conley (?), JaMychal Green (????), and Deyonta Davis ([500 question marks]).
25. Sacramento Kings (2-5)
Losses to the Heat, Magic, and Bucks pretty much tell us that the Kings are going to suck again this year. Somehow, Rudy Gay is playing well despite multiple reports coming out over the past few months about how much he hates the Kings organization, the city of Sacramento itself, and the people who reside in Sacramento. In fact, a new Rudy Gay quote just got leaked to me by someone from within his inner circle of friends: “There are exactly two hot women in all of Sacramento: my wife, and the picture of my wife I have as my phone wallpaper.”
26. Washington Wizards (1-4)
The Wizards lost to the Grizzlies while their full compliment of players was available, sans Ian Mahinmi, who might be a slight upgrade over Marcin Gortat. The Grizzlies had to start Jarell Martin. I repeat: the Grizzlies had to start a guy who is so unknown across the league that multiple news outlets misspelled his name as “Jarrel” (I made that up but I totally had you going since you also don’t know how to spell his name). Bradley Beal has started the season in a very big slump, and the Wizards need him to be a primary scorer if they want to make any noise this year. In somewhat related matters, is it time to dust off those regrettable “John Wall is a bust” video descriptions that I wrote four years ago? No. Not yet.
27. New York Knicks (2-3)
I stare into the darkness and see what lies within its secret depths. A distant crying sound fills my ears, growing louder. I can see a small child, merely a baby, the only visible object in this void. It is neither embraced by a mother’s loving arms nor secured in a comforting blanket; no, it is lying prone in a puddle of its own vomit. My mind recoils at the sight, but the darkness does not yield its iron grip on me, and I realize with panic that I am forever trapped in these morbid visions.
28. Dallas Mavericks (0-5)
Dirk Nowitzki perused the Mavericks’ depth chart in silence. Mark Cuban, standing nearby, nervously awaited his franchise players’ reaction. Finally, Dirk looked up at his owner. “You’re telling me that I have to play with these guys?” he asked calmly. Mark nodded meekly, wincing at the negative response. “Das ist Scheisse!” Dirk yelled, slamming the paper down on the desk in front of him. “Wesley Matthews, his legs are kaputt, he can barely walk, much less be our second go-to scorer! Where is my center help? What happens when Bogut goes down? If I have to play another second with that Tunisian spaz I will Selbstmord myself!” Mark started to explain that nobody had taken the bait on trades designed to balance the roster, but he was interrupted by the continuation of Dirk’s tirade. “If this Barnes guy doesn’t turn into an all-star for us, we’re not winning thirty games this year! This assemblage of washed-up veterans and untalented young players is an insult to the legacy of your franchise darling.” Dirk, having said all he needed to, spat bitterly on Mark’s shoes, then furiously exited the office.
29. Philadelphia 76ers (0-5)
Dario Saric started out not looking like a bust. Joel Embiid started out not only not looking like a bust, but looking like a potential superstar. Jahlil Okafor gets no minutes. Nerlens Noel hurt himself trying to get a new pair of headphones out of the plastic clamshell. There’s reason for optimism for Philly fans, but only because cheesesteaks are very delicious and I am definitely hungry for one right now. LAST MINUTE UPDATE: They almost beat the #1 Cavs but it’s too hard to renumber this whole thing to put the Sixers at #2.
30. New Orleans Pelicans (0-6)
Q: When is Anthony Davis going to have a proper supporting cast put around him? A: When he leaves New Orleans. The Pels were sort of close in a few games, and didn’t embarrass themselves against GSW, but that’s because Anthony Davis went into team-carrying overdrive and put up a 45/17 game after dropping 50/16 in the season opener. Another silver lining: Buddy Hield finally stopped playing like a disinterred corpse after starting the season shooting 1-for-a bajillion on threes. Now he’s playing like a freshly-deceased corpse. Fun fact: Langston Galloway both looks and plays like a freshly-deceased corpse.