Monday, Feb. 3
Week:14
Adam Silver takes over for David Stern as NBA commissioner with
Oklahoma City and Indiana still in the top two spots in ESPN.com's
weekly NBA Power Rankings ... and lots of shuffling throughout the rest
of the top 10.More on how this week's order was calculated can be found on Stein Line Live.
You're also invited, as always, to rank the teams yourself here.
| 2013-14 Power Rankings: Week 14 | ||||
| RANK | TEAM / RECORD | TRENDING | COMMENTS | |
| 1 |
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Last Week: 1 | During its 10-game win streak that included six wins on the road, OKC shot .525 as a team, averaged 110.2 points and won by an average margin of 12.1 PPG. In case you're wondering why the Thunder didn't drop here after losing in the nation's capital on the second night of a back-to-back. | ||
| 2 |
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Last Week: 2 | For just the second time in its NBA history, Indiana has posted double-digit win totals through the first three months of the season: 13-1 in November, 10-4 in December, 10-5 in January. So three All-Stars sounds about right; yes, we do count Frank Vogel joining Paul George and Roy Hibbert. | ||
| 3 | 3 Last Week: 6 | Nothing quite matches the 16-0 December that L.A. rung up last season. But its 12-4 mark in January, with Chris Paul's bad shoulder allowing him to play in only two of the games, is tied for the second-winningest month in team history. And now CP3 is poised to return to work this week. | ||
| 4 | 3 Last Week: 7 | The stat that made the rounds on Super Bowl Sunday, courtesy of @nbastats, has the Grizzlies sporting the league's best record (and fourth-best defense) since Dec. 21. They're 16-5 in that span and 9-1 since Marc Gasol's return, but have to survive the next week without Mike Conley (ankle). | ||
| 5 | 2 Last Week: 3 | Not unlike fellow top-five fixture Indiana, Portland is working through what it hopes is a mere a 3-4 blip largely caused by a tough stretch of schedule that will stay tough through the All-Star break. Keep an eye on Damian Lillard this week after some so-so showings on the road recently. | ||
| 6 | 2 Last Week: 4 | The Heat won't fret too much about Indiana's Andrew Bynum gamble as long as they keep seeing signs from Greg Oden. But Ray Allen's .326 mark from 3-point range in January, by far his worst month as a pro, is another matter. Ray's previous low: .379 in February of his rookie season. | ||
| 7 | 2 Last Week: 9 | The first triple-double from a Rockets reserve since Cedric Maxwell in March 1988, courtesy of Jeremy Lin, was only the week's second-biggest development in Houston. The biggest: Dwight Howard's quality free throw shooting against the Spurs' and Mavs' latest Hack-A-Dwight tactics. | ||
| 8 | 2 Last Week: 10 | Four players averaged 22-plus points, 6-plus assists and 4-plus rebounds in January. Only one of those four is not an All-Star. Kevin Durant, Steph Curry and James Harden will all be in New Orleans. Goran Dragic will not. More fodder to suggest that the star of your Desert Cinderellas got full-on snubbed. | ||
| 9 | 4 Last Week: 5 | The first signs of attrition from the endless stream of injuries (Kawhi, Tiago, Danny Green and now Manu) are showing. After 43 games without a losing streak of any kind, San Antonio needed a win over short-handed Sacramento to avoid its first three-game skid at home since January 2010. | ||
| 10 | 2 Last Week: 8 | Not only do the Desert Cinderellas in Phoenix have a new (and catchier) nickname, Suns of Anarchy, but they've also managed to nudge the #FullSquad Warriors down to seventh in the West, if only for the moment, despite Steph Curry's gaudy 31.1 PPG over his past eight outings. | ||
| 11 | 3 Last Week: 14 | The Raps, even after what happened to Kyle Lowry's All-Star bid, will miss January more than most after an 11-win month to tie a franchise record. Interesting to watch how long Toronto can sustain its latest trend after mustering a 30-point scorer in six of the past seven games. | ||
| 12 | 6 Last Week: 18 | Let's not rush to dock the Wiz points because they were so rested compared to Saturday night's guests playing on the second night of a back-to-back. Washington's issues at home have been a thing all season. Don't forget that OKC, furthermore, was 9-0 on the road against the East coming in. | ||
| 13 | 2 Last Week: 11 | The Raptors' Titanic Division lead is back up to four games. But I say that Jason Kidd, even after the pain of last week's two one-point crushers against Toronto (home) and Indiana (road) sandwiched around a Kevin Durant-inflicted hammering, is still about to be named coach of the month. | ||
| 14 | 1 Last Week: 13 | It has been brought to the attention of the committee (of one) through a number of reader tweets that Bulls players -- Joakim Noah and Taj Gibson, namely -- were drawing inspiration from the defiant Faux Indians in "Major League" before Bill Simmons made the analogy. Our apologies. | ||
| 15 | 3 Last Week: 12 | The Mavs are one of just five teams (along with the Thunder, Blazers, Clippers and Rockets) to avoid a three-game losing streak this season. Yet they awoke Monday morning as the West's No. 9 team just days removed from allowing 117 points at home to James Harden-less Houston. | ||
| 16 | 1 Last Week: 15 | I know I praised him in this space last week plus a couple of times on Twitter as well, but it must be said again: Mike Budenholzer is relying heavily on the likes of Gustavo Ayon, DeMarre Carroll, Mike Scott and Shelvin Mack, and he still has the Al Horford-less Hawks in the East's top three. | ||
| 17 |
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Last Week: 17 | Twice Kevin Love has racked up 40-plus points along with 15-plus boards. Minnesota lost both times. So there's one more head-scratcher, right up there with the Wolves' eighth-best average nightly margin of plus-4.3, to leave you baffled as to why they're 1-10 in games when they can climb over .500. | ||
| 18 | 3 Last Week: 21 | In the two games immediately before and after the East's All-Star reserves were announced, Big Al Jefferson racked up 75 points and 29 boards in road wins over the Nuggets and Lakers ... with Kemba Walker out injured. So, yeah, we were way out of line as hard as we lobbied for him. | ||
| 19 |
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Last Week: 19 | Despite a five-game losing streak from Jan. 14-22, New York won 10 games in the first month of 2014 after showing up for the new year at 9-21. Melo, meanwhile, just became the fifth-youngest player in league history (29 years, 246 days old) to score 19,000 career points. | ||
| 20 | 3 Last Week: 23 | Only four players in the whole league average 20-and-10. Only one of those four also averages three-plus blocks: Anthony Davis. Factor in the hometown-hero effect and you can see why new commish Adam Silver will be tempted to pick Davis to replace the injured Kobe Bryant instead of a guard. | ||
| 21 | 5 Last Week: 16 | The Broncos are feeling most of the Mile High misery at the minute, but they're not alone. The Nuggets just lost Nate Robinson to season-ending knee surgery on the heels of finding out that Danilo Gallinari will miss the entire season with his knee woes. Ty Lawson (shoulder) is banged up, too. | ||
| 22 | 1 Last Week: 21 | Thanks in large part to the guy who just got a banner hung in his honor, Jerry Sloan, Utah posted a winning percentage of .593 (1,432-982) during the 30-year run of David Stern as NBA commissioner. Only the Lakers (.648/1,566-850) and Spurs (.620/1,497-916) had better success rates. | ||
| 23 | 2 Last Week: 25 | Pretty good company for Andre Drummond as one of just four players with 30-plus double-doubles next to K-Love, Dwight and Aldridge. Yet that remains the extent of the prettiness in Detroit, where last week's wins over bottom-fivers Orlando and Philly only hiked their home record to 9-15. | ||
| 24 | 2 Last Week: 22 | The Kings have lost seven straight games, all without the injured Boogie Cousins, to sink to the bottom of the West standings. They weren't exactly rolling with Boogie, true, but don't Sacramento's struggles when Boogie-less help the Boogie-got-snubbed-out-of-New Orleans argument? | ||
| 25 | 2 Last Week: 27 | What would you say if we told you Philly is tied with Miami at 6-2 for the East's best record in games decided by three points or fewer? Or that Evan Turner's two buzzer-beaters, with the latest beating Boston, have him tied with Joe Johnson and Andre Iguodala for this season's league lead? | ||
| 26 | 2 Last Week: 24 | Have to believe Mike Brown, in Year 1 of his second Cavs stint, is not facing any immediate job danger. Yet the mere fact that the question has to be asked, in Year 1 of a five-year deal, tells how much negativity is swirling in Cleveland, home of the league's most disappointing team. | ||
| 27 | 1 Last Week: 26 | Not much to see with the Celtics these days beyond fixating on Rajon Rondo's progress. Boston's home win on Super Sunday over Orlando was another step, with Rondo shooting 5-for-7 from outside the paint after entering the game 8-for-32 on such shots since returning from ACL surgery. | ||
| 28 |
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Last Week: 28 | The Lakers have surrendered 100-plus points in 14 consecutive games. They're in the midst of their third six-game losing streak of the season. And they just endured their worst month since suffering 12 losses in February 1964, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, by going 3-12 in January. | ||
| 29 |
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Last Week: 29 | The Magic could manage only a split from their anything-but-super weekend showdowns with lowly Milwaukee at home (a win!) and fellow stragglers Boston in Boston (Orlando's 11th straight defeat on the road). Philly's 13 straight road L's is this season's league high that Orlando is trying to avoid. | ||
| 30 |
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Last Week: 30 | We are forced to rewind all the way back to March 1996 for the last time Milwaukee posted fewer than two wins over a full month. The Bucks went 1-15 back then and just went 1-14 in January 2014 ... suffering those 14 defeats by the whopping average margin of exactly 16 points per loss. | ||
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