Yet this is one of those rare Mondays when ESPN.com's NBA Power Rankings committee (of one) could pinpoint the No. 1 team in the league in an absolute layup.
As teams reach (or pass) the 20-game mark, signifying that one-fourth of the regular season is already in the books, Golden State sits atop this ladder for the fourth time in five weeks, thanks to a 12-game winning streak and the league's highest average nightly point margin of plus-10.9. Skeptics who point to all of the sub-.500 teams Steph Curry and Co. have feasted on during this streak are likewise reminded that the Warriors are 5-2 against teams with. 500-or-better records, making them one of just seven teams in the whole league that can claim to be above. 500 even when facing the league's toughest opposition.
In other notable rankings business, surging Atlanta moved to a season-high No. 12; Phoenix (No. 19 to 13) and New Orleans (No. 20 to No. 14) made big leaps almost by default, thanks to the recent struggles of numerous middle-of-the-pack teams ... and the combination of Philadelphia's unforeseen 2-1 week and the deepening woes of the Detroit Pistons stunningly hiked the Sixers out of the basement and dumped Stan Van Gundy's men down to the dreaded No. 30.
A more detailed look at this week's order can be found on Stein Line Live. You can also comment below on our 1-to-30 ladder, which as always was assembled with the usual helpful dishings from ESPN Stats & Info and the Elias Sports Bureau.
| 2014-15 Power Rankings: Week 6 | ||||
| RANK | TEAM / RECORD | TRENDING | COMMENTS | |
| 1 |
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Last Week: 1 | The Dubs rank No. 1 in field-goal percentage D, defensive efficiency and fast-break points per game. They're No. 2 overall in field-goal percentage as a team and 3-point shooting. They've won 28 of their past 37 road games and generally boast a résumé where you have to look hard for the holes. | ||
| 2 | 1 Last Week: 3 | Road wins over the Warriors and Grizzlies? Let's see how many teams will be able to make that claim by season's end. With Tiago Splitter said to be nearing his return, keep in mind that he, Patty Mills, Kawhi Leonard and the famed Tim/Tony/Manu trio have already combined to miss 46 games. | ||
| 3 | 1 Last Week: 2 | The expiration of a 22-game home winning streak, and the ground lost to Golden State after the teams were so hard to separate these past few weeks, must be mild disappointments when compared to the relief Memphis surely felt when Marc Gasol's MRI turned up nothing serious. | ||
| 4 | 3 Last Week: 7 | Make sure you don't forget James Harden when talking about Team USA players who've started the season with a flourish. Harden is the only player in the league averaging 25, 5 and 5 and has the Rockets at 7-3 without Dwight Howard ... with five of those wins against teams with winning records. | ||
| 5 |
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Last Week: 5 | Can we get away with asking whether the finding-ways-to-win Blazers were actually the attraction when LeBron decided to spend a chunk of his off night in New York sitting courtside at MSG for Portland-at-Knicks? Or are we forced to concede it was merely Melo whom he came to see? | ||
| 6 |
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Last Week: 6 | An 11-0 mark against sub-.500 teams, compared to a mere 3-5 against .500-or-better foes, is bound to turn off some, and combined with their bumpy start, has them unexpectedly flying under the radar. Yet the fact is Doc Rivers' crew is better off after 19 games than it was last season (12-7). | ||
| 7 | 3 Last Week: 4 | You could argue it's a bit harsh to drop the Mavs so soon after a 4-0 road trip in which Dirk Nowitzki sat out two of the games. What you probably didn't know is that Dallas is just 4-4 in the committee's presence this season, compared to 12-2 otherwise. Which was bound to influence us. | ||
| 8 | 2 Last Week: 10 | Follow-up to that stuff we said about LeBron scoring 25 points as the most telling Cavs barometer: Is their magic number actually 70? According to the latest NBA.com player-tracking data, Cleveland is 5-0 when The King makes 70 passes or more ... and 6-7 when he has 69 or fewer. | ||
| 9 |
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Last Week: 9 | Small as the sample sizes are, rest assured Toronto is well aware DeMar DeRozan has been missed on D most of all. The Raps were 13-3 and No. 9 overall in defensive efficiency with DeRozan. Without him? The Raps are 2-2 and 28th in DE in that span, allowing 116.7 points per 100 possessions. | ||
| 10 | 2 Last Week: 8 | If you like to subtract home defeats from road wins, like we do, Chicago is tops in the East as we speak at plus-5. Something tells me, though, that it'd be tough to get Tom Thibodeau to see it that way, with the Bulls just 2-5 at home and D-Rose shooting 40.3 percent from the field when he does play. | ||
| 11 |
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Last Week: 11 | It was shaping up to be such a dominant week for the Wiz, where all we talked about here was John Wall losing two potential triple-doubles, against Miami and Denver, because he sat out the entire fourth quarter in both cases with big leads. Then Sunday afternoon in Boston happened. | ||
| 12 | 2 Last Week: 14 | A check of the SOS column in the Hollinger Power Rankings reveals that the Hawks have played the weakest schedule in the league to date. Fine. You still have to give the Southeast Division's surprise co-leaders props -- Jeff Teague most of all -- for taking advantage | ||
| 13 | 6 Last Week: 19 | Hard to ignore, as well as Isaiah Thomas played in November, that Goran Dragic served up his two gaudiest stat lines of the young season (Indiana and Dallas away) in the midst of Thomas' ankle rehab. Just still not sure how you accommodate Dragic, Eric Bledsoe and Thomas. | ||
| 14 | 6 Last Week: 20 | Anthony Davis is going to test the unwritten Gotta Win 50 Games rule of MVP contention like never before if he maintains his otherworldly PER of 33.3 for a team that would probably take 41-41 if you offered it right now. The record for PER is Wilt Chamberlain's 31.8 in 1962-63. | ||
| 15 |
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Last Week: 15 | Committee rules compel us to share that only 14 of the 157 teams to lose 12 or more of their first 17 games went on to reach the playoffs since the current 16-team format debuted in 1983-84. The history is daunting, even if none of those 157 were able to welcome back Kevin Durant at 5-12. | ||
| 16 | 3 Last Week: 13 | Most egregious mistake of the season so far from the committee (of one)? Stupidly scheduling a flight out of town on the same night the must-see 20-year-old Giannis Antetokounmpo happened to be in town playing his first game for the Cinderella of the season one-fourth of the way through. | ||
| 17 | 5 Last Week: 12 | With four double-digit Ls to start the month and three games to go on what's looking like a rather long West Coast trip, chances are you'll hear more about what's not working -- Miami's increasingly vulnerable D and a banged-up Luol Deng -- than Dwyane Wade's strong play since his return. | ||
| 18 | 2 Last Week: 16 | Getting DeMarcus Cousins an invite to his first All-Star Game no longer seems all that important in Sacramento. Getting Boogie through this scary (and mysterious) cause of viral meningitis is all that matters for the Kings, who started 9-6 with him and are 1-4 since their franchise player fell ill. | ||
| 19 | 2 Last Week: 21 | First it was Tobias Harris failing to realize that you let Steph Curry shoot any shot he wants in that situation as long as it's not a 3-pointer. Then it was Elfrid Payton airballing back-to-back free throws. What probably escaped your attention: Orlando just went 3-3 on a long trip out West. | ||
| 20 | 2 Last Week: 22 | Got excited for the Nets for a sec when I saw the news about them playing in front of Prince William and Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge and mistakenly concluded they were going to England again. Turns out it's just another home game; worse yet, Brook Lopez is ailing anew. | ||
| 21 | 2 Last Week: 23 | Breakfast of champions? Not exactly. But Rajon Rondo has been a different dude since his ballyhooed morning summit with Kobe Bryant, hoisting 17 shots in each of the past two games and overseeing a fourth quarter in which the Celts for once didn't implode, hanging on to stun the Wiz instead. | ||
| 22 | 5 Last Week: 17 | We know Kenneth Faried was out. We know Atlanta unexpectedly ranks as the only Leastern Conference team in the top 10 in both offensive and defensive efficiency. We still expected much more fight against the Hawks on Sunday after the Nuggets' recent revival and coming off Friday's no-show in D.C. | ||
| 23 | 5 Last Week: 18 | The Pacers have been through enough in 2014. Gonna try as hard as I can not to chide 'em too much for backing out of a deal with our guy Gal Mekel because they thought securing him a new visa would take days, only for New Orleans to sort out a new visa for Mekel in 24 hours. | ||
| 24 | 2 Last Week: 26 | A mere 63 more points will take Kobe Bryant past Michael Jordan for third place on the league's all-time scoring list. Consider this one man's wish that No. 24 is in sufficiently close range Friday night, in L.A.'s second game of the week, when the Lakers entertain Kobe's old pals from San Antonio. | ||
| 25 | 3 Last Week: 28 | By now you've surely heard the one about folks in Charlotte starting to pine for the old Bobcats days. Until the Hornets finally beat the Knicks -- by one point at home on a Kemba Walker buzzer-beater -- they were outscored by a ghastly 13.1 points per game during that 10-game skid. | ||
| 26 | 2 Last Week: 24 | The Jazz have concluded Alec Burks does not need shoulder surgery and now list him as questionable for Monday night's visit to Sacramento. That is the closest thing to good news in Utah since mid-November, thanks to the longest active losing streak out West. | ||
| 27 |
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Last Week: 27 | The Knicks' past five Ls were all one-possession games at some stage in the final five minutes. Whether it's shoddy D or Melo's ups and downs or the limited cast around him, New York can't close. Worse yet: Melo and Co. are off to the worst start in club history against the 27th-hardest schedule so far. | ||
| 28 | 3 Last Week: 25 | Losing at home to an 0-17 squad is bad enough. Losing at home to the previously winless Sixers when the visitors shoot a paltry 39 percent from the floor makes it tough for us to focus on the absences of Kevin Martin, Ricky Rubio and Nikola Pekovic as reason to pardon the Wolves. | ||
| 29 | 1 Last Week: 30 | The good news: Philly has to be your consensus Team of the Week after finding a way to win in both Minnesota and Detroit after that 0-17 start. The bad news: Each of the three previous teams in NBA history to start a season 0-17 earned no better than the No. 3 pick in the next draft. | ||
| 30 | 1 Last Week: 29 | The Stan Van Gundy Pistons are suddenly (and stunningly) this season's Milwaukee. Which is to say they came in aspiring to compete for the No. 8 seed in the East -- just like last season's Bucks -- only to find themselves winning as often as a Philly team that's just trying to win the lottery. | ||
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