This week’s biggest busts: Suns -8, Nets -4, Trail Blazers -4
This week’s biggest successes: Grizzlies +8, Pacers +5, Bulls +4, Pelicans +4
1. Los Angeles Clippers (12-2, 3-1 this week) (last week: #1 [4-0] +0)
Who even needs a decent SF rotation when you’ve got Chris Paul on your team? Playing Luc Mbah a Moute and Wes Johnson all the small forward is perfectly fine because they won’t take away shots from the better offensive players they share the court with. In fact, you could probably replace Wes Johnson with yours truly and still only have a net loss of about three points per game from your rotation. You can’t even argue with my logic right now.
2. Golden State Warriors (11-2, 4-0 this week) (last week: #3 [3-0] +1)
Kevin Durant is scoring at the most efficient rate of his career (he is also receiving and deflecting criticism at the most efficient rate of his career, but that’s immaterial to the Warrior’s OFFICIAL POWER RANKING). Is this the most damning indictment of Russell Westbrook’s alleged “superstar” status there is? Durant went to play with Curry, who arguably needs the ball just as much as Westbrook, but Durant actually got way better when he switched between the two superstar teammates. The sample size is still somewhat small, so my official opinion will be withheld until such time as the sample size is of adequate…girth.
3. Cleveland Cavaliers (10-2, 3-1 this week) (last week: #2 [1-1] -1)
They lost to the Pacers. That seems bad until you look at the box score and see that LeBron isn’t listed anywhere on it. What if the Pacers had to play without Paul George, their best player? You wouldn’t expect them to win, would you? So why do you expect the Cavs to win missing their best player? That’s the kind of hard-hitting, mind-expanding thought experiment that you can count on from DTB’S OFFICIAL POWER RANKINGS.
4. Atlanta Hawks (9-3, 2-1 this week) (last week: #4 [3-0] +0)
The secret to the Hawks’ success? It’s not some feel-good story like “this team has really come together as a unit” or “Coach Bud is connecting with his players on another level” or “they are making the most of their limited talent through hard work and solid team basketball”. No. It’s because Thabo Sefolosha and Mike Muscala are both near the top of the league when looking at any advanced metric of your choosing. That’s the real reason. Muscala and Sefolosha are unstoppable as long as you don’t give them more minutes than they can reasonably be expected to handle.
5. San Antonio Spurs (10-3, 3-0 this week) (last week: #8 [2-1] +3)
The Spurs beat a bunch of teams, but they weren’t great teams, and the Spurs didn’t win by very much (four point win over Miami, five points over Sactown, etc.), so that just makes it really hard for me to rank them. Quality of wins has to count for something, right? Anybody who scrutinized these OFFICIAL POWER RANKINGS hard enough with doubtlessly come away with some negative conclusions about my intelligence, given the arbitrary and inconsistent criteria for rating teams.
6. Chicago Bulls (8-5, 2-1 this week) (last week: #10 [2-1] +4)
Chicago Bulls: better without Rajon Rondo? That would be somewhat hard to believe, given that the only other uninjured point guard on the roster is Jerian Grant. For the Bulls to be better without Rondo, Grant would have to be better than Rondo. I, for one, am neither prepared nor willing to live in a world where that is the case. Can we just say that neither Grant nor Rondo is very good at this point in their respective careers, and that that the Bulls are as good as they are because Jimmy Butler is playing like a top-5 player? Can we just say that?
7. Charlotte Hornets (8-4, 2-2 this week) (last week: #6 [2-1] -1)
When it comes to the Hornets, there’s only one player you can really talk about: Kemba Walker. He is the most important player by far on a team that doesn’t seem to possess any other all-star candidates. But I can’t talk about Kemba Walker every week so I’m going to try to talk about Marvin Williams instead. Basketball-reference informs me that he has regressed severely after being an elite role player last year. The good news is that he played well enough last year that I have to pause and think for a moment before calling him a bust. That’s not much comfort for Hornets fans who just want him to hit his threes.
8. Toronto Raptors (8-4, 1-2 this week) (last week: #5 [3-1] -3)
DeMar DeRozan finally had a game where he scored under the thirty-point mark (26 points on Nov. 15), but that was just a minor hiccup in his otherwise uninterrupted display of offensive skill. I’ve always been skeptical of the benefits of playing in the Olympics, but DeRozan might have actually come out of Rio having matured as a basketball player. The outcome would probably have been different if he had been forced to swim in a body of water filled with diseased corpses and raw sewage. Luckily, the basketball arena featured neither of those things.
9. Houston Rockets (8-5, 3-1 this week) (last week: #11 [2-1] +2)
Would Harden have averaged 13 assists per game last year if Dwight had been willing to run pick-and-rolls? Probably not, but since it’s in the past and humanity as a race has not yet mastered the art of time travel, we can say “yes” and nobody can prove otherwise. Here’s a fact for you: Clint Capela scores like five baskets per game by being the roll man with Harden. Maybe more. Dwight could have averaged like ten. That would be ten assists right there for Harden; he would only need to get three more to average thirteen like he’s averaging this year. You can’t prove me wrong unless you’re a time traveler.
10. Oklahoma City Thunder (8-5, 2-2 this week) (last week: #9 [1-2] -1)
Allowing the Magic to score 119 right before they would score 69 in the following game is somewhat worrying. Russell Westbrook continuing to tally monster triple-doubles is not worrying at all though. That part is awesome. When it’s time for his HOF speech he’s probably going to admit that he spent all of the 2016-17 season gunning to be included in the fabled “averages a triple-double for the season” category that is currently the sole provenance of Oscar Robertson. And then we’ll all laugh and clap and pretend like we didn’t already know that. I’ll be there in person because by then my highlights empire will be a publicly traded corporation, so I’ll be a big enough deal to get invited to those things.
11. Los Angeles Lakers (7-6, 1-2 this week) (last week: #13 [3-1] +2)
Nick Young: good. Luol Deng: bad. That is the exact opposite of what you, I, and everybody else expected going into the season. But Swaggy P is an unstoppable three-point marksman while Deng is an extremely stoppable three-point brick machine. Ingram’s gotta be ready to start soon – you don’t pick guys number two overall so that they can come off the bench, and there’s never been an easier opportunity for Ingram to outplay somebody. It’s like Luke Walton is daring Ingram to take the starting small forward job but Ingram doesn’t quite realize it yet. Well, now he does, as long as he reads downtobuck.net, which I know he does because what NBA player doesn’t want to read about themselves?
12. Utah Jazz (7-7, 0-3 this week) (last week: #7 [4-1] -5)
Raul Neto looks on from the bench, outwardly smiling and supportive, but inside, his soul burns. He did not come to the US to be fourth-string PG. The bust Dante Exum has just stolen the ball, and Raul claps robotically in response, each slap of hand against hand echoing falsely in his mind. He secretly wishes for Dante to fail, or perhaps, even to injure himself, Raul admits to himself with a sick kind of guilt. He looks down the bench at the man responsible for the injustice, Quin Snyder. Snyder is engrossed in all the details and observations required of him as coach, giving Raul ample time to stare at the petty man who clearly harbors an unreasonable hatred for Brazilians. A timeout is called, and Raul obediently stands up to high-five his teammates, but when Dante walks over, Raul deliberately ignores his outstretched hand. A brief look of confusion and pain flickers over Dante’s face, and Raul smirks, glad to have inflicted some sort of damage on his foe, however minimal.
13. Boston Celtics (7-6, 2-2 this week) (last week: #12 [2-2] -1)
The Celtics were supposed to be good, but I can only keep ranking them like that for so long. Eventually their OFFICIAL POWER RANKING has to match their real life ranking, not their ideal ranking based on perfect circumstances such as “Al Horford not being concussioned” and “Jae Crowder not having suffered a grievous dreadlock injury”. Right now they get one or two bonus places for having the potential of an ECF team, but next week they’re not getting bonus anything. I’m putting my foot down.
14. Memphis Grizzlies (8-5, 3-0 this week) (last week: #22 [1-2] +8)
A win against the Clippers pretty much gave the Grizzlies ten free spots in my OFFICIAL POWER RANKINGS. There’s a line between being measured and reasonable with rank adjustments and being totally reactionary, and this is definitely the latter. Also, is Vince Carter currently sapping Zach Randolph’s powers or is it just a coincidence that VC is balling out of control while Z-Bo’s body can no longer handle major minutes? The circumstances align too perfectly for it to be a coincidence. Somebody check VC’s person for voodoo spells or charms.
15. Detroit Pistons (6-8, 1-3 this week) (last week: #15 [1-3] +0)
There’s gotta be some minutes for Boban somewhere in that rotation. There just gotta be. Move Drummond to PF if you need to. Create a new twin towers in Detroit to complement the “twin tweeners” Marcus Morris and Tobias Harris. I don’t care. Boban needs more minutes. If Boban doesn’t get more minutes soon, I have it on good authority that Boban will take those minutes by force from whoever he deems is taking them. And he will use his fists. Remember, his fists are each the size of a WNBA ball. Keep that in mind.
16. Indiana Pacers (6-7, 2-1 this week) (last week: #21 [1-3] +5)
Something has happened to Rodney Stuckey. He went from a semi-useful bench piece last year to a total zero this year, appearing in just three games. Is it because of my juvenile “Really Sucky” nickname for him? I’m sorry about that nickname. It’s not clever or funny at all. I’m going to come up with a new nickname for him right now that will build up confidence rather than unfairly erode it. How about “Godney”? It’s inaccurate but at least it has positive connotations. Unless you’re an atheist.
17. Minnesota Timberwolves (4-8, 2-2 this week) (last week: #17 [1-2] +0)
Andrew Wiggins dropped a 47-burger on the Lakers early in the week. That would normally be three spots on the OFFICIAL POWER RANKINGS just by itself. However, closer examination of the box-score reveals that, while Wiggins did in fact score the advertised amount of points, he did it while shooting too many free throws. Therefore, the 47-point game is null and void. It doesn’t count. Ten is the maximum amount of free throws you are allowed to make while scoring forty; Wiggins hit seventeen throws of the free variety, which disqualifies him.
18. Portland Trail Blazers (7-7, 1-3 this week) (last week: #14 [3-1] -4)
When Lillard and/or McCollum are off their games, look out, because the Blazers are going to suck. They simply have nobody to pick up the slack. The player with the best chance of picking up that slack is Evan Turner, and he’s sucked. You can turn to Allen Crabbe but he’s sucked too. Then you turn back to Lillard and/or McCollum and tell them “You each have to score at least 25 on good efficiency in any given game or you are going to get blown out.” Then say it again but only to Lillard because he’s been more of the problem this week.
19. Milwaukee Bucks (5-7, 0-3 this week) (last week: #16 [1-2] -3)
Greg Monroe recently got a DNP-CD for apparently no reason. That’s an interesting coaching strategy: bench your third-best player so that John Henson and Miles Plumlee can have all the center minutes. Henson and Plumlee are demonstrably worse than Monroe, however, even if they were ten times better than him, Monroe is still a good enough player to deserve AT LEAST ten minutes per game. Coach Kidd must be confident that his rotations aren’t going to cause strife and mistrust to simmer in the locker room. Somebody get Gary Neal and Larry Sanders in there and then we can see some real fireworks.
20. New York Knicks (5-7, 2-1 this week) (last week: #24 [1-3] +4)
Suddenly I am transported away from the morbid scene in front of me, and I immediately feel an overwhelming disappointment fill me, for I never uncovered the hidden symbolism contained in the child’s sundered flesh. Now, I look down and see that I have been returned to my body, but when I look up, the infinite spread of twinkling stars above me informs me that I am certainly not on earth. All around me there are disembodied, blinking eyes trailed by red bundles of nerve fibers that are almost like tails. Are they the same ones that fell out of the baby’s split stomach? What madness is next?
21. Denver Nuggets (4-8, 1-2 this week) (last week: #19 [1-3] -2)
Malik Beasley might be quite ready for regular rotation minutes, but he is ready for SICK DANCE MOVES. Unfortunately, these dance moves are only displayed when one of this teammates makes an especially good play. How are his teammates supposed to know that they have Beasley’s support if Beasley isn’t dancing at all times when the ball is in play? If It was Gallinari or Faried I would be depressed if I looked over at the bench and Beasley was over there merely clapping instead of engaging in an awkward yet cool dance-off with himself. tl;dr the Nuggets don’t win very much because Malik Beasley doesn’t dance enough.
22. Miami Heat (4-8, 2-2 this week) (last week: #23 [0-3] +1)
So this is what it looks like when Dion Waiters has his own team. The past few games have seen him take over the offense and shoot as many shots as he wants in exactly the way he wants them. This has turned out exactly as you would expect it to: high scoring numbers for Waiters, but woefully inefficient and not really helping the Heat collect more of them W’s. Does this count as stunting Winslow’s development?
23. Washington Wizards (3-9, 1-2 this week) (last week: #26 [1-3] +3)
It has come to my attention that there is a player named “Danuel House” on the Wizards’ roster, and that Mr. House has appeared in one game for them. This raises many questions: why is his first name spelled wrong? What position does he play? Is he good at basketball? How did his existence evade my notice for such a prolonged period of time? Is his place of residence nicknamed “The Danuel House” by all his friends? And, most importantly: when will I get to make Danuel House highlights?
24. Brooklyn Nets (4-8, 0-3 this week) (last week: #20 [2-1] -4)
I take back everything I said about the Nets looking resilient. That was a lie which sounded good at the time. They are not resilient at all and they really, really, really miss Jeremy Lin. Really really. If you want to see something really sad but also a little bit funny at the same time, you can watch Rondae Hollis-Jefferson try to be the primary ball-handler and distributor. It’s like watching a newborn fawn try to stand up for the first time ala Bambi, but instead of Bambi it’s a big black guy whose jumpshot is totally scrambled, and instead of trying to stand up he’s just trying to dribble without losing the ball.
25. New Orleans Pelicans (4-10, 3-1 this week) (last week: #29 [1-3] +4)
Jrue Holiday makes his season debut against the Blazers and they immediately look like a real basketball team again. Either that or none of the bigs on the Blazers could deal with AD at all. Or it could be both. All I know is, if Evans and Pondexter come back in the same game and the AD/Jrue tandem is healthy for that game, I will be disappointed if its anything less than a fifty-point blowout win for the Pelicans.
26. Phoenix Suns (4-10, 1-3 this week) (last week: #18 [1-3] -8)
Reality is catching up to the Suns as they keep getting blown out by bad teams (Brooklyn, Denver, Philadelphia): Devin Booker is not ready to be the primary scoring threat, as evidenced by his flagging percentages. A lack of competent big guys can’t help. On the plus side, I found out that Alan Williams’ nickname is “Big Sauce”, a fact I never would have learned if he had not been pressed into emergency service for the past few games. Does that make Nik Stauskas “Little Sauce”? Can I be “Medium Sauce” or is that one already taken?
27. Orlando Magic (6-7, 3-1 this week) (last week: #28 [0-3] +1)
The nacho metaphor from last week was just too good to not revisit this week. If you remember, the Magic are like a plate of nachos from a fancy restaurant where the chef got too creative and put too many weird, mismatched ingredients on the nachos. This week, the Magic are still those nachos, and you still don’t really enjoy eating them, but they’re better what your friend ordered, which was a single two-ounce piece of steak served on a gigantic plate dotted with brussels sprouts. If this metaphor is too advanced for your small brain, the steak dish is supposed to be the Pelicans, the steak is Anthony Davis, and the brussels sprouts are his teammates.
28. Sacramento Kings (4-9, 0-2 this week) (last week: #25 [2-2] -3)
It’s that time of year again: Boogie trade rumor time! Actually, it’s not even that time, because as far as I’ve heard, there aren’t any concrete rumors floating around yet. It’s more like “Rumors of future Boogie trade rumors” time. When phrased that way, it seems a lot less imminent and a lot less exciting. Well, let’s make it more exciting RIGHT NOW: Cousins for Avery Bradley, Amir Johnson, and some picks. That’s what I’m hearing out of the Boston camp right now. Sources.
29. Philadelphia 76ers (3-10, 2-2 this week) (last week: #30 [1-3] +1)
Worst offense in the league + near-worst defense in the league + lack of authentic cheesesteaks when playing on the road + people other than Joel Embiid and optionally Jahlil Okafor trying to be “the man” = very bad basketball team. Gerald Henderson should simply not shoot shots while one of those two guys is out there on the floor. He’s old and he’s sometimes good, but there are two young talents who are ready to score at any time as long as they receive a ball to score with.
30. Dallas Mavericks (2-10, 0-4 this week) (last week: #27 [2-1] -3)
“This is what a future without me looks like, Mark,” says Dirk Nowitzki, the skin on his face half fallen-off and with maggots crawling where his eyes should have been. Mark Cuban knows he’s dreaming, and he tries desperately to wrench himself from the nightmare, but there is something holding him there. “When it is just Harrison Barnes and Wes Matthews, you will yearn for the days when the team could score ninety or even eighty on a regular basis.” As Dirk talks, his face continues to visibly decay, and his liquefied tongue falls to pieces within his mouth. “Justin Anderson is not the answer. He was never more than a role-player, Mark! But in a future without Dirk to save you, he will take fifteen shots a game as if he is an all-star!” Dirk’s words rise in pitch until they are nothing more than a shrieking gibber, and his head abruptly ruptures. The shock of this gory, festering explosion finally causes Mark to awaken, crying and whimpering, from his sleep. To his horror, the O’Brien trophy on his bedside table is dripping blood.