This week’s biggest busts: Knicks -7, Clippers -5, Mavericks -4
This week’s biggest successes: Wizards +6, Jazz +4, Pelicans +3
1. Golden State Warriors (29-5, 2-1 this week) (last week: #1 [3-0] +0)
“Steph’s brand is sinking fast,” said the sharply-dressed man, sitting in a conference room with other sharply-dressed men. “He is no longer the best player on his own team! While Steph himself is happy with his increased chances of winning another championship, his projected future earnings are taking a big hit. How can he be expected to garner the huge endorsement dollars if he’s less recognizable than Kevin Durant? A two-time MVP sells many fewer shoes than a five-time MVP!” The man slammed his fist on the table, causing everybody else in the room to jump. They seemed too intimidated to speak. Finally, after a period of uncomfortable silence, the man spoke again. “We will plant an idea in his head. Just the seeds of a notion that he wants to be on a team where he is the undisputed alpha dog. It may take a year or two for the seed to germinate, but when it does, he will beg the Warriors’ front office to get rid of Kevin Durant by any means necessary.”
2. Cleveland Cavaliers (25-7, 3-1 this week) (last week: #3 [3-0] +1)
The Cavaliers escaped with a Christmas miracle win over the Warriors, then immediately rested LeBron and essentially conceded a game to the Pistons (who really did need the charity, given their own recent struggles). OFFICIAL LEBRON JAMES COASTING WATCH: is resting the same thing as coasting? I think not. Resting is entirely different. Coasting implies that you’re actually playing in the game, not sitting on the bench in a suit politely clapping whenever Mike Dunleavy’s ugly mug manages to do something good. As of right now, LeBron is still not coasting except maybe on defense, so it would be premature to call him LeCoast. Stay tuned to LeBron James coasting watch for more updates as the season progresses.
3. Houston Rockets (26-9, 4-0 this week) (last week: #5 [1-2] +2)
It came out this week that the Rockets are allegedly dangling veteran wing Corey Brewer as a trade piece. This is funny because Brewer has been good exactly one time in his life, and that was the night he scored 51 points. It’s also funny because the Rockets apparently think that they can flip Brewer for a player who can actually help the team enough to push them from “contender pretender” status to “maybe contender” status. They’re probably finding out through their calls to other GM’s that the trade market for a strung-out spazz with no jumper who weighs 110 pounds soaking wet is very weak.
4. San Antonio Spurs (27-6, 3-0 this week) (last week: #4 [3-1] +0)
Literally who even needs Kawhi Leonard? The Spurs easily beat the Suns and Blazers even without their soft-spoken star, who was out with a tummyache (I don’t know what gastroenteritis means but it sounds scary. #prayforkawhi). Jonathon Simmons can give you a lot of the same stuff that Kawhi does, just in smaller amounts and with fewer cornrows (a lot fewer). Kyle Anderson can also do some Kawhi-type things, but at a volume so low that you could watch him specifically for five minutes straight and not see him accumulate any kind of box-score stat. Anderson also is lacking in the cornrow department. Kawhi please come back once your gastro-whatever gets better.
5. Toronto Raptors (22-10, 1-2 this week) (last week: #2 [3-0] -3)
A loss to the Warriors is excusable. They are #1 in my OFFICIAL POWER RANKINGS, after all. Immediately following up that loss with a loss to a bottom-five team like the Suns is less excusable. One could even call it embarrassing. Season-ending? That too. Franchise-ending? Maybe! DTB’S IRRATIONAL HATE FOR DEMAR DEROZAN LEVEL: Increasing, because he’s not averaging 30 PPG anymore so I don’t have to pretend that he’s a top-five player. Also, I no longer have to pretend that he’s better than Kyle Lowry.
6. Utah Jazz (21-13, 3-0 this week) (last week: #10 [1-3] +4)
Let’s do a thinking exercise. Hypothetically speaking, what would the Jazz’ record be if all their players had been healthy for every game? In this hypothetical scenario, other teams remain afflicted with their normal injury problems. Only the Jazz have uncovered the super-duper secret medical technique that prevents their players from ever missing a game due to injury. Also in this scenario, the lack of injuries means that team chemistry develops to its optimal level and everybody buys in to their role in the team. Would the Jazz have three more wins? Five more? Ten more? Would they be undefeated? Would Adam Silver have cancelled the rest of the games and just given the O’Brien trophy to the Jazz straight up? DTB’S OFFICIAL HYPOTHETICAL PREDICTION: The Jazz would currently be 24-9 if they had no injuries this year.
7. Oklahoma City Thunder (21-13, 3-1 this week) (last week: #8 [2-1] +1)
When Russell Westbrook got ejected halfway through the Thunder’s game against the Grizzlies, we got to find out what the team looks like without him. Hint: it’s not very good. With Oladipo still out, the only ball-handler on the team was unproven rookie Semaj Christon. The nine assists that the Thunder as a team finished with is tied for second-lowest by a team this season (a Rondo-less Bulls team totaled eight assists in a game earlier this season). New trade rumor that I just came up with: Rondo to the Thunder. The other components of this trade are still being worked out.
8. Memphis Grizzlies (22-14, 2-2 this week) (last week: #7 [2-2] -1)
The Grizzlies now are averaging more points per game than their opponents, which is something you would naturally expect out of a team that’s way above .500 but isn’t something that the Grizzlies were actually doing until they bitch-slapped the Thunder with Marc Gasol’s man boobs (and Z-Bo’s, too). With both their points per game and their opponent’s points per game stuck well below 100, The Grizzlies join the Jazz and Pistons in the exclusive yet dubious “never watch them on League Pass” club.
9. Boston Celtics (20-14, 3-1 this week) (last week: #9 [3-1] +0)
OFFICIAL ISAIAH THOMAS SUPERSTAR STATUS: Still not a superstar. Yeah, he scored 52. Yeah, he’s averaging 27 points per game. Yeah, he’s the best player on a top Eastern conference team. But there’s an important requirement for superstardom that Isaiah Thomas does not meet: superstars must be at least 6’4″. It’s right there in the official NBA rules. Isaiah Thomas falls several inches short of the official height requirements so the most he can be is a vanilla “star” with no intensifiers. If you don’t agree with that, take it up with the NBA.
10. Charlotte Hornets (19-15, 2-2 this week) (last week: #11 [2-0] +1)
The Hornets were one Randy Foye game-winner away from having a five-game winning streak. But really, who’s fault is it that the Nets were that close to begin with? If the Hornets had been able to put the Nets into their coffin early (as they should have done when they scored 40 in the first quarter), we’d be talking about a team that was definitely top ten instead of a team that’s sorta-kinda top-ten(ish) in quality. Funny how one shot can radically alter my perception of a team and rearrange the entire power rankings. Let’s blame Roy Hibbert.
11. Los Angeles Clippers (22-14, 0-5 this week) (last week: #6 [2-2] -5)
The Clippers hit the part of their schedule where they were supposed to start another winning streak, but instead of doing that thing, they did the opposite thing with losses to the Lakers, Nuggets, and Pelicans. There is the built-in excuse of not having Chris Paul or Blake Griffin, but I’m not buying that weak stuff. They have competent backups at those positions. You might have heard of them. Their names are Austin Rivers and, uh, um…Brandon Bass. Okay, fine, the injury excuse is legit.
12. Washington Wizards (16-16, 3-0 this week) (last week: #18 [2-2] +6)
The Wizards went on a three-game winning streak this week (as you no doubt ascertained from the helpfully-provided numbers straddling the top of this paragraph). In the first two of those games, Trey Burke scored zero points. Not a big deal, since he has been scoring consistently in the low single digits whenever Scott Brooks sees fit to play him. However, in the third game, Burke piled on a season-high 27 points against the Nets, who probably hadn’t gameplanned defensively for a former NCAA Player of the Year/current midget going off on them. Do I expect Burke to score that many points again this season? Not really. Especially if teams gameplan for him, which I don’t think they will.
13. Milwaukee Bucks (16-16, 2-2 this week) (last week: #13 [1-2] +0)
The Bucks are tough to rank. They lost to the clearly inferior Timberwolves and the somewhat inferior Wizards. Then they beat the clearly inferior Pistons and the somewhat inferior Bulls. Since they failed to beat any good teams, that would point towards lowering their ranking a little bit, but then you look at their winning margins this week (25 and 20) and you just can’t do it. Giannis putting up a terrifying 35/9/7/2/7 statline against the Bulls (who he seems to have a personal vendetta against) almost makes me want to throw restraint to the wind and put the Bucks in the top ten, but I can’t do that either. They’re staying put for now.
14. Atlanta Hawks (17-16, 2-1 this week) (last week: #15 [2-1] +1)
For the month of December, Dennis Schröder averaged 20/7 on 50% shooting and 40% from three. That makes him a really good point guard. But there are so many good point guards in the league that even averaging stats like that doesn’t guarantee you a spot in the top ten. Isaiah Thomas averaged 30/6, for example. Kyrie Irving averaged 23/8. Even scrubs like Stephen Curry averaged 20/6 (LOL scrub). The Schredder has a lot of work to do to catch up those guys, and it doesn’t help that his good games often don’t correspond to wins.
15. Indiana Pacers (16-18, 1-2 this week) (last week: #14 [1-2] -1)
Paul George recently said that basketball hasn’t been fun for him lately. This is the perfect time for me to get all uppity about this spoiled millionaire complaining about having to play a game for a living, but I won’t because I legitimately don’t harbor any of those thoughts. Instead, I’ll say this: if you want basketball to be fun again, you should just dunk it more often. This is so obvious to me yet it seems like these professional basketball players lose sight of it sometimes. Maybe I view dunking in such a reverential light because I myself am unable to dunk a basketball on a regulation-height hoop. In any case, I’m aiming this next sentence directly at Mr. George, who may or may not read it: dunking is fun, so if you’re not having fun, it’s because you’re not dunking.
16. New Orleans Pelicans (14-21, 3-0 this week) (last week: #19 [2-2] +3)
Another winning streak is officially underway in New Orleans, and that means it is officially time for DTB to overreact to the Pelicans’ apparent newfound ability to play basketball. Beating Dallas doesn’t exactly count as “legit”, but beating the Clippers is absolutely legit even if they were missing some guys. Beating the Knicks? That’s kinda legit too. The Big Birds finally got Tyreke Evans back so injuries are no longer an excuse unless you’re the world’s biggest Q-Pon believer (a title which belongs solely to me at this point. Come fight me for it).
17. Denver Nuggets (14-19, 2-1 this week) (last week: #17 [1-2] +0)
Tear it all down and rebuild around Nikola Jokic. Yes, I’m aware that the Nuggets are already in the middle of a rebuild. No, this isn’t hyperbole. Mudiay is particular is totally expendable, because, if you hadn’t realized, Jokic is a point-center. When running a point-center, you need a point guard who can shoot. Mudiay is not that point guard. Ship him out and try to persuade Luke Ridnour to come out of retirement (that part was supposed to be funny but the rest of it is totally serious. Super serious)
18. Chicago Bulls (16-18, 2-3 this week) (last week: #16 [1-2] -2)
I’m just going to assume that Denzel Valentine was billed as NBA-ready going into the draft given the extremely long list of accolades he amassed during his four-year college career. That’s a fair assumption I think. So, if Valentine really was NBA-ready (which he was, as we have already determined), why is he so bad right now? If his name was Danny Valentino and he came in as an unknown rookie and shot 27% from the field, he’s be out the door so fast you’d wonder whether he ever existed in the first place or if he was just a figment of your troubled mind. Luckily for Denzel, the 2016 draft is so deeply stocked with pure dumpster trash (a third of the guys who’ve played have negative win shares) that nobody is even paying attention to how ineffective he has been so far.
19. New York Knicks (16-17, 0-4 this week) (last week: #12 [2-0] -7)
The landscape is morphing underneath my feet as I walk. Whatever cruel logic defines this place, I have disturbed it with my actions (thoughts?). The sky itself is undecided; it changes colors rapidly as if painted by the brushstrokes of an erratic child. Mountain ranges appear and vanish in the distance like a glitched-out video game. I beseech the disturbed consciousness that rules over this reality to permit my escape, but instead, Brandon Jennings’ disembodied head pops out of the ground near my feet. “Better than Derrick Rose!” it screeches, before immediately withdrawing into the shifting rock.
20. Detroit Pistons (15-20, 1-2 this week) (last week: #20 [0-3] +0)
Andre Drummond sat hunched over the too-small laptop which rested on his lap. His back ached in protest of the unnatural pose, but Andre’s attention was too focused on the screen to pay heed to his body’s complaints. His eyes flicked to and fro, watching the YouTube video unfold. The title of the video used the word “Dunkilation,” a word which Andre wasn’t familiar with. But the contents of the video, Andre was very familiar with. Lob after lob, alley-oop after alley-oop were thrown by an onscreen Reggie Jackson and caught by the onscreen hands of Andre himself. Those days of endless lobs were long gone, Andre knew. He yearned for them to return but knew they could not. Not while Reggie continued to play in an increasingly shoot-first style. The video grew to a furious crescendo of dunking fury, but Andre’s depression only sank lower with each converted dunk. Finally, the video ended. Andre realized that there were tears in his eyes. He shut the laptop and sat in the darkness of his living room, mourning the ghosts of lobs long past.
21. Orlando Magic (15-19, 1-1 this week) (last week: #22 [2-2] +1)
Here’s what I’m trying to figure out: why did the Magic trade for Serge Ibaka when he has one year left on his deal and the prevailing wisdom was that they would not make the playoffs this year? Ibaka is using this opportunity to put up great numbers on a bad team, numbers that he probably wouldn’t be achieving on a Westbrook-led team, and it’s looking more and more likely that he will get paid the max in the offseason. Are the Magic going to be the ones paying him that max money just so they don’t look like bigtime idiots? Every transaction and signing that the Magic have made in the past two years just doesn’t make sense. Their trades are so absurd that it’s hard to even joke about them. Bonus round: will the team that eventually shells out the cash for Ibaka be aware of the fact that Ibaka is actually 33 years old right now?
22. Sacramento Kings (14-19, 1-2 this week) (last week: #21 [3-1] -1)
The Western Conference this year might end up being like the Eastern Conferences of the past decade, where a team that actually kinda sucks just blindly stumbles into the eighth seed only to get shock-and-awed in the first round. The Kings could be that team, and in fact SHOULD be that team. No other team would consider it a great achievement to make the playoffs with a likely sub-.500 record, but this is the Kings we’re talking about. The fact that the Kings are even in the playoff discussion in January is an accomplishment unto itself.
23. Portland Trail Blazers (14-21, 1-2 this week) (last week: #23 [0-3] +0)
The Blazers’ season is spiraling out of control. There is only one way to right the ship: play even less defense, up the pace to breakneck speeds, and try to score 120 points per game. A strategy like that would not result in any more wins than the current Blazers strategy, but it would be way more fun. Lillard and McCollum are already big-time scorers even when playing on a team that’s middle-of-the-road in pace. Think how many points they could score if they got 120 possessions per game. A bonus side effect of the increased pace would be that Evan Turner either looks better in a frenzied passing offense or Evan Turner gets more chances to screw up possessions and thus make his contract look even worse.
24. Minnesota Timberwolves (11-22, 2-2 this week) (last week: #25 [2-1] +1)
Andrew Wiggins seems to have gotten back on track this week, shooting 50% or better in all four games while maintaining his usual high volume of shot attempts. He even got six assists against the Bucks, which seems like it could be a career high for him [Ed. note: just checked. Nine is his career high. Six is the next-highest though]. There must be something in the air in Minnesota because Karl-Anthony Towns had ten assists as part of a triple-double against the Nuggets. Maybe the Wolves found some way to genetically infuse their young players with Ricky Rubio’s DNA. By the way, can I have some of that DNA? I want girls to like me.
25. Los Angeles Lakers (12-24, 1-2 this week) (last week: #27 [0-3] +2)
If the Lakers were going to win just one more game for the rest of the season, their game against the Clippers at “home” (why does LA need two teams anyway?) was a good one to win. Their 111-102 victory reaffirmed the fact that Los Angeles will always be a Lakers town first and a Clippers town second (or third or fourth). It’s like the spirit of Kobe Bryant will always be present with the team and he’ll never leave even if they have ten twenty-win seasons in a row. And as long as the Kobe ghost is haunting around Staples Center, the people of Los Angeles will inexplicably be drawn more to the Purple and Gold than the Red, Blue, White, and Black.
26. Phoenix Suns (10-24, 1-3 this week) (last week: #28 [1-2] +2)
Devin Booker shot 38% from the field in December, including 30% from three (guess who just figured out how to use basketball-reference’s shooting splits. me!). If you remove the first two games of the month, in which he shot 17-of-30, Booker’s numbers get even worse. How much of this can we blame on Brandon Knight? It’s looking more and more like this is either Booker’s fault for being too confident or Earl Watson’s fault for giving the young guy too much responsibility too quickly. Now let’s head into “meta” territory: what if the development of Devin Booker is actually ruining the development of Marquese Chriss and Dragan Bender????? MIND = BLOWN
27. Miami Heat (10-24, 0-3 this week) (last week: #26 [1-3] -1)
In the midst of another losing streak for the South Beach basketball club, James Johnson is doing his best LeBron impersonations on the regular. However, he’s probably not a part of the Heat’s long-term plans (he’s only on a one-year deal) so, despite a string of LeBron-esque performances that probably give Spoelstra PTSD flashbacks, he doesn’t even get to start. Instead, the Heat are forcing Justise Winslow to try to produce even though his woes shooting the ball are almost historically woeful.
28. Dallas Mavericks (10-24, 1-3 this week) (last week: #24 [3-1] -4)
It was another rough week for the Mavericks, who lost three of four. However, they weren’t absolutely pathetic in the games they lost and they did win a game against the Lakers, so it was actually a good week for them. OFFICIAL MAVS YOUNG TALENT WATCH UPDATE: Dorian Finney Smith: decent until scoring zero in 21 minutes against the Warriors. Justin Anderson: still not shooting 40% from the field. Salah Mejri: further review indicates that this dude is thirty years old. A.J. Hammons: might get to play when Bogut is bought out. Dwight Powell: good. Pierre Jackson: maybe French. Nicolas Brussino: French? No, Argentinian. Jonathan Gibson: waived.
29. Philadelphia 76ers (8-24, 1-2 this week) (last week: #29 [1-2] +0)
Ersan Ilyasova is having a career year for the talent-bereft 76ers; he’s only scored under double digits three times during his tenure as a Disciple of Ben Franklin. On-off stats tell us that the team struggles mightily when Ilyasova sits on the bench and that he’s actually more important to on-court success than Joel “The Big Cheesesteak” Embiid. It’s not quite accurate to say that he’s the reason that they’ve won any games at all this season, but, if we’re being honest, the 76ers would have a big ol’ zero in the wins column if the Ersanator wasn’t there to bail him out with his resurrected three-point snipering.
30. Brooklyn Nets (8-24, 1-2 this week) (last week: #30 [0-4] +0)
The toughest thing about these power rankings is trying to figure out which bottom-feeding East team should be at the very bottom in thirtieth place: Nets or Sixers? Which one is worse? We can obviously say that the Nets have a worse outlook than the Sixers in the next few years, but that’s not what my OFFICIAL POWER RANKINGS are about. They’re about officially ranking the current power of teams currently in the NBA. Both teams managed to win one game this week so that didn’t help me make a decision. I’ve decided that the Nets win this round solely because they have Anthony Bennett and the Sixers have Joel Embiid.