Monday, Nov. 23
Unstoppable Warriors
Yet something tells me that the ever-sunny Golden State Warriors don't see any downside to the way they've opened their NBA title defense.
How can they? The numbers tell us that they've been even more dominant, through 15 games, than the 72-10 Bulls of '95-96 were, as this beautiful SportsCenter placard illustrates.
Pinpointing who belongs in the top 10 after the Warriors/Spurs/Cavs triumvirate remains a tough task for your trusty Power Rankings Committee of One, but we'll get into those struggles more via Stein Line Live. Better to focus here on the Warriors' ridiculous dominance, which is reflected in their tidy average point margin of plus-14.4. The only other team in the modern era to start 15-0 -- the 1993-94 Houston Rockets -- sported a point differential of just plus-9.3, by comparison, during their historic start.
Please allow us to offer profuse gratitude to our friends in the NBA wing of ESPN Stats & Information, as well as the Elias Sports Bureau, for their peerless assistance with the data we need to compile our 1-to-30 order. And please feel free to comment below, as always, on this week's ladder.
| 2015-16 Power Rankings: Week 4 | ||||
| RANK | TEAM / RECORD | TRENDING | COMMENTS | |
| 1 | 
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Last Week: 1 | The latest number to make you double take: ESPN's Basketball Power Index says the champs will be favored in 65 of their 67 remaining games ... with the only exceptions their two road games in San Antonio. What do you expect after a 15-0 start that includes 10 wins by double digits and an 84-16 mark in their last 100 regular-season games? | |
| 2 | 
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Last Week: 2 | Going into the New Orleans loss, San Antonio had led for a league-high 79.3 percent of the time in its 11 games to that point, ahead of even the undefeated Dubs. But maybe we should have seen the loss coming, because no team since the start of last season has beaten the Spurs as often as the Pelicans have (four of the last five meetings). | |
| 3 | 
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Last Week: 3 | The lack of urgency LeBron keeps addressing is one of the rare downsides of life as the presumptive kings of the East. The Cavs know, deep down, that realistically no one can keep them out of the Finals, so hunger is naturally harder to manufacture. Yet they're still one of just three unbeaten teams at home along with the Warriors and Spurs. | |
| 4 | 
| 4 Last Week: 8 | Judging the Thunder without Kevin Durant is always tricky, but all signs point to his return this week after KD missed six games with that hamstring strain. And while team defense remains an issue, OKC is second in offensive efficiency and No. 3 in the West in nightly point differential at plus-4.5, so things could be far more unsettling than they are. | |
| 5 | 
| 2 Last Week: 7 | The Bulls quietly rank No. 6 in defensive efficiency, suggesting that the groundwork former coach Tom Thibodeau laid was maybe even sturdier than we thought. Offensively, though, this is a group that, despite a couple good wins for the resume already, is clearly still trying to find itself under Fred Hoiberg, as evidenced by that No. 23 offensive rating. | |
| 6 | 
| 2 Last Week: 4 | We were bracing for a rash of Twitter heat after Miami, default risers into the top four last Monday, sank into a 17-point hole at home to Philly. We tried to explain ourselves here, but Hassan Whiteside continues to need no disclaimers, bidding to become the NBA's first four-a-game shot swatter since Dikembe Mutombo in 1995-96. | |
| 7 | 
| 3 Last Week: 10 | If you trust the plus/minus system old heads use -- subtracting home losses from road wins -- Toronto is second in the whole league at plus-5 and thus better off than its record suggests. If you still can't help worrying about the Raps' 4-6 mark since that 5-0 start, as well as the loss of Jonas Valanciunas, all we can say is: DeMar! | |
| 8 | 
| 4 Last Week: 12 | The Paul George Report: He's averaging 24.8 PPG, 8.5 RPG and 4.8 APG, all of which will go down as career-bests if he can maintain those levels all season. He also made it clear last week that he's "not a fan of analytics," but PG-13's 24.2 PER is also on course to set a new franchise NBA record, well ahead of Danny Granger's 21.8 in 2008-09. | |
| 9 | 
| 2 Last Week: 11 | With most of the attention Utah gets going to Rudy Gobert or Gordon Hayward, it has probably escaped your attention that Derrick Favors is up to No. 8 overall in PER at a robust 25.5. Utah has played a league-low three home games, so a .500 mark at this stage is passable, especially with the West suddenly in more flux than anyone expected. | |
| 10 | 
| 5 Last Week: 5 | The Hawks want to believe these bumpy past two weeks since their 7-1 start and rise here to No. 3 is due mostly to health. Paul Millsap (shoulder), Jeff Teague (ankle), Kent Bazemore (ankle) and Tiago Splitter (hip) have been banged up, while Kyle Korver is shooting a mortal (for him) .411 from deep after multiple offseason surgeries. | |
| 11 | 
| 2 Last Week: 13 | The East amazingly awoke with 11 teams over .500 on this Rankings Monday. The West is only up to five because the Mavs just uncorked a six-game win streak no one saw coming. Dallas is overachieving to such a degree that even its heartbreaking losses come with silver linings; JaVale McGee made his season debut in Sunday's narrow L at OKC. | |
| 12 | 
| 2 Last Week: 14 | Leave it to ace Wizards watcher Mike Prada of SB Nation to point out that the Wiz are outscoring teams by 17.1 points per 100 possessions when Jared Dudley is on the floor. Getting Bradley Beal back and winning in Detroit on the same day -- when Beal and John Wall combined for a mere 15 points -- won't do the team psyche any harm. | |
| 13 | 
| 4 Last Week: 9 | Playing host to the Nets on Friday and then visiting Brooklyn two nights later were handy reminders that the Celts, no matter how many ups and downs they endure in a season that's already delivered plenty in these early stages, enjoy a daily silver lining: Boston knowing it owns the Nets' first-round pick in June ... with zero protections. | |
| 14 | 
| 8 Last Week: 6 | Anyone out there curious about what sort of scar would be inflicted by what happened against Golden State got their answer pretty quickly, with the Clips losing in Portland and then absorbing a 29-point halftime deficit at home to Toronto before falling to 2-7 since their 4-0 start. Houston, in short, appears to have company in the Team Turmoil rankings. | |
| 15 | 
| 8 Last Week: 23 | The best part about Porzingis Fever? Carmelo Anthony seems to be embracing these sooner-than-expected eruptions from Kristaps Porzingis ... even if it means Zinger is taking away some of Melo's spotlight in the process. You'll recall that acceptance from Melo was an issue when we last saw a phenomenon like this called Linsanity. | |
| 16 | 
| 3 Last Week: 19 | Make it five straight home wins for the Hornets, who've averaged a thoroughly unexpected 108.7 PPG in their six Time Warner Cable Arena dates so far. I suppose duty demands that we point out that Charlotte's last three victims there (Portland, Brooklyn and Philly) sport a combined record of 9-34, but why not let 'em enjoy the moment? | |
| 17 | 
| 2 Last Week: 15 | After nine straight games with at least 15 rebounds, Andre Drummond managed just 24 combined in the Pistons' weekend split against Minnesota (road win) and Washington (narrow home loss). For historical context: Ben Wallace had a 14-game run of 15-plus boards in '02-03; Dennis Rodman had streaks of 14, 22 and 24 in the Bad Boys glory days. | |
| 18 | 
| 1 Last Week: 17 | 6-0 when they score 100 and 1-7 when they don't? Who are these guys? The Grizz have indeed played better since the start that prompted coach Dave Joerger to lament that "we look a little bit old," but new local darling Mario Chalmers can't fix it all. Memphis' first made 3 against San Antonio came in the final minute of a game that was already over. | |
| 19 | 
| 1 Last Week: 18 | Just when we were poised to start making Bled-Show part of the daily lexicon, Brandon Knight turned in a couple of dream box scores for fantasy owners in wins over the Lakers and Nuggets to make sure we all know it's a two-headed backcourt in the desert that, at least numbers-wise, is hanging with Curry/Thompson and Lillard/McCollum. | |
| 20 | 
| 4 Last Week: 24 | Given the sort of chaos we're seeing with some of the West's contenders, don't we have to give some props to the Kings for weathering the storm? They're 5-4 when DeMarcus Cousins plays, looked credible without the suspended Boogie in Miami and won in Orlando without Rudy Gay. None of which seemed possible about two weeks ago. | |
| 21 | 
| 1 Last Week: 20 | The OT win over Minnesota was fairly momentous because it hiked the Magic to .500 at the 12-game mark for the first time since Dwight Howard's last season in Orlando in 2011-12. The real headline, though, was the second-half benchings of Nikola Vucevic and Victor Oladipo. Scott Skiles didn't wait long to demonstrate just how demanding he can be. | |
| 22 | 
| 4 Last Week: 26 | The Wolves still don't have a home win in six tries and will be desperate to put a halt to that drought Monday night when a certain 0-14 outfit from Philadelphia comes to town. I'm guessing Uber-rook Karl-Anthony Towns has by now heard the story of how Philly, at 0-17, came to Minnesota shortly after Thanksgiving last season to find win No. 1. | |
| 23 | 
| 2 Last Week: 25 | A double dose of Los Angeles proved to be the tonic for the young Blazers after they squandered a 17-point lead in Houston to tumble to a seventh straight defeat. Weekend wins over the Clippers (home) and Lakers (road) gave us something else to point to beyond the offensive exploits of the Damian Lillard/C.J. McCollum backcourt. | |
| 24 | 
| 5 Last Week: 29 | Just how banged up have the poor Pelicans been? In his first 12 games as Pels coach, before Friday night's desperately needed upset of the Spurs and Anthony Davis' weekend domination of the boards, Alvin Gentry was forced to use 11 different starting lineups. We only saw 17 different Pels starting combinations in total last season. | |
| 25 | 
| 4 Last Week: 21 | In 1996, Michael Jordan's Bulls arrived in Denver with an 18-game winning streak that the Nuggets promptly ended. As recently as 2013, they brought a halt to the visiting Clippers' killer run of 17 wins in a row. These Nuggets, though, are a bottom-six defensive team, even with Mike Malone in charge. And the Dubs duly took advantage. | |
| 26 | 
| 10 Last Week: 16 | With so much focus on the Rockets' and Clippers' ills, Milwaukee's struggles haven't been dissected as much as they should. The Bucks, though, have been as disappointing as anyone, having just followed up that supposed fortune-changing home win over Cleveland with road losses of 29, 15 and 37 points to the Wiz, Cavs and Pacers, respectively. | |
| 27 | 
| 5 Last Week: 22 | This was a top-12 team in offensive and defensive efficiency last season. These Rockets are 27th on O, tied for 26th on D and, only adding to the panic, enjoyed the sort of bounce you'd expect after a coaching change for all of a quarter (plus OT) against Portland. Kevin McHale's ouster won't be the last big move we see here if this keeps up. | |
| 28 | 
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Last Week: 28 | The Nets just inflicted what one prominent Celtics-watcher called "the worst Celtics loss in 3 1/2 years." They've actually been competitive throughout this 3-4 stretch, getting some decent productivity from Brook Lopez. But they're the anti-Celtics; any flicker of positivity gets snuffed out as soon as someone mentions the next draft. | |
| 29 | 
| 2 Last Week: 27 | We're not quite talking a Tastykakes level of tasty, but Lakers at Sixers on Dec. 1 is legit shaping up to be an irresistible watch. On one side, Lower Merion High star Kobe Bryant will perhaps be making his final appearance on Pennsylvania soil. On the other, Kobe's hometown team will very possibly need a W to avoid the worst NBA start ever seen. | |
| 30 | 
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Last Week: 30 | Hate to say it, but the NBA's first 0-19 start feels as inevitable as Golden State posting the first 16-0 start. The manner of their fall-from-ahead L at Miami, in the second game of a six-game trip, is bound to have a dispiriting effect on the Sixers, who are now 37-141 in the Hinkie Era, having suited up 49 players in those two-plus seasons. | |
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