Last week I posted team rankings according to the NBA Basketball Power Index. It was a controversial ranking, to say the least, with the oddest ranking being the Warriors at 4 and the Nuggets at 10.
Here’s the updated ranking after the first week (or partial week) of the season. I’ve added a number at the end to show how the ranking changed – 0 means it didn’t change, positive numbers means it rose, negative numbers means it fell. The Nuggets were the biggest riser, jumping four spots. The Lakers and Pelicans were the biggest losers, each dropping four spots.
1.Celtics 0
2.Bucks 0
3.Sixers +2
4.Cavs -1
5.Clippers +1
6.Nuggets +4
7.Warriors -3
8.Hawks +3
9.Timberwolves 0
10.Heat -2
11.Lakers -4
12.Suns 0
13.Kings -2
14.Nets -1
15.Mavericks -2
16.Knicks 0
17.Pacers +3
18.Pelicans -4
19.Thunder 0
20.Raptors -2
21.Magic +3
22.Bulls -2
23.Grizzlies -1
24.Jazz -1
25.Wizards 0
26.Hornets +2
27.Rockets 0
28.Pistons +1
29.Blazers -3
30.Spurs 0
ESPN calling it the NBA Power Index makes it unnecessarily confusing and makes it easy to confuse it as one and the same as the power rankings the NBA itself puts out but it’s not. The NBA’s own power rankings this week are so completely different for a vast majority of the teams that you’d think these lists were from completely separate seasons, much less the same week of the same season lol. NBA’s power rankings this week are below with ESPN’s ranking for the teams from the above list in parentheses: