NBA Power Rankings: Mavericks, Pelicans among (very) early surprises, Nuggets stay ahead of Celtics at No. 1
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Well hello fellow top 3 ranked teams.
I hope you guys stay healthy. Feel like basketball fans have been robbed of some potentially great Pelicans runs over the last few years.
Fingers crossed man. Even just one healthy season to see how far we could go. Just so we’re not stuck asking “what if?” For ages.
The scary thing is that, while it sucked seeing 😭 injuries derail the team the past few years, now having healthy Zion, B.I., and Cj...there's also TM3, Herb, Jose with three years of experience and playing meaningful minutes. The depth is great now and we don't have to rely on just the Big 3
Absolutely, really excited to see what Trey and Jose could add in their third seasons. What are there their timelines for return again if you know?
I pray for the pelicans to be healthy, the team is real good and I want to see them deep in the playoffs.
Number 6? Let’s fucking go. Incredibly based list.
I immediately jumped to about #20 and was confused when I couldn’t find the Magic 😂
I’ll take it
Me too
That’s wild
The Orlando Magic and early season optimism is such a cute tradition
Bro is talking like the Wolves have done anything ever. Can’t even make 1 Finals when Jimmy Buckets already made 2 after leaving them 💀
Lol we are self aware. We don't think we're going to the finals every year when we start 5-2 and end up winning 28 games. You guys do this every year lol
Nobody thinks that and it doesn’t happen every year. Last year this team was 5-20 after 25 games.
We didn’t write the article dude lol nobody in our fanbase expects us to go to the finals…
Weren't the magic 1st seed after 10 games or something last season?
We started the season 5-20 so no.
This list is based on just who won more
I’m glad they were big enough to admit they were wrong about contender Pacers, led by the MVP candidate Haliburton.
Nuggets, Celtics have looked scary but to drop the Bucks 11 spots for one loss is ridiculous. Some power rankings are more fluid than others I guess.
The intro says it’s just based on this week
These rankings are literally just based on record which is pretty silly given that we’re 3 games in. If you wanna rank based on record 15 games in then sure thats fine but 3 games is absurd.
That’s just stupid. You could just take a look at the standings if they’re not giving any thought whatsoever. It’s probably AI generated
CBS power rankings are always ridiculous so
All part of the plan, got to get the 'Nobody believes in us!" energy going
Damnit that’s our thing!!!
I think winning a game by 1 pt after a teammate drops 40 isn’t great.
To be fair, that has more to do with people underestimating the Sixers, than overestimating the Bucks. IMO, Both of these teams are gonna be top 5 teams at the end of this season, barring injury.
Do they not explain their rankings or is the web page fucked up?
I see the explanations on the desktop site.
Yeah the mobile site is ass lol
Pistons #13 is wild, idt any of the fans need any more fodder for the overreactions we've seen to this team
Nah fuck it we are winning 55 games.
Ranked above Milwaukee? Act like you belong, act like you belong…
The Lakers being in the top 20 is crazy. How good can a team with no good guards be?
Cavs opening at 6 was cruel.
One missing all star game 1, two missing all stars game 2, three missing all stars game 3. Cant imagine how many we’ll be missing by midway through the season
Based on my math, 41
I feel like Jamal's shooting splits aren't getting enough love. I know 3 games but 55/53/100 on ~20 points per game is absurd even with that sample size.
Or how about our rookie Strawther playing 8 minutes and scoring more than SGA who played 28 minutes?
Strawther and Swatson are my two big points of excitement beyond the obvious shot at a repeat. Both of them have the potential to be significant players for this team as the Nuggets attempt to become something truly memorable in the history of the league.
Honestly I was moreso loving Watson and Braun playing together. Those two are going to be our future after our current wave of starters retire
Braun I love but I already loved him last year. Watson and Strawther are more unknown and seeing those kinds of players turn into something is incredibly exciting. Braun + Watson is more likely to matter in the playoffs this year for sure, I would not be surprised if Strawther doesn't fully take flight until next season.
Booth keeps hitting man
Bubble Murray becomes Playoff Murray becomes Healthy Murray
TBF Playoff Murray is putting up like 6 more PPG and another assist/game over what we've seen so far. He isn't running at top gear, though I'd rather the efficiency over the raw points on average because it leaves shots for other players. We have too many mouths to feed lol.
No one should have been surprised by us Pelicans. When healthy, as we mostly are now, we scary.
Taking a pic of us being in the top 3. Enjoying it while I can
Lmao sure I'll take top 5
Damn, Top 5. Dunno if we can sustain it but would feel fucking good if we did.
Whoa, a power ranking list that actually follows the rules of a power ranking list?!
Honestly, I like when power rankings are purely based off recent games. Sure the Bucks are better than where they’re ranked, but just based on one week they’re not. I always believe it’s based on the moment, not where you’re expected to be.
what is surprising about the Pelicans? weren't they a top 2 or 3 seed before zion got injured ?
Bucks at 14 is a wild take lmao.
Apparently, they only rank based on the previous week, not overall.
I mean, overall they're 1-1, and accordingly ranked in the middle of the pack.
So I think you mean, "They're ranked based on how they're doing, not just the hype."
Nah gonna be a pretty middling-team until giannis and dame meld together and get it figured out
Why would the Mavs be a surprise? I think the surprise was that they winning much last year.
Did they seriously just drop the Bucks from 3 to 14 for going 1-1?
Yes, they just base it on how they've played so far.
Flawed methodology but the logic is otherwise sound.
Was this in question?
How is this a power ranking if it's only based on win-loss records? That's worthless
Edit: I mean no disrespect to the Magic, but they beat Houston and Portland. Portland's current set-up could easily end 30th. The Rockets are a mix of young guys and mid-tier role players. They're 0-3 with the only (likely) playoff team being the Warriors.
I think the Magic are a play-in team this year.
Disrespect meant to the Mavericks- Doncic is the only good part of that of that team right now. The guy is a goddamn superhero to start this season. That said, the team is not very good so far. It took Doncic's heroics to barely scrape out wins against the Spurs and Nets. Those teams are competing for the play-in.
The Mavericks were down with 2 mins left in the both games. In the Nets game, it took 14 points by Luka in the final 3:22 to win. He's obviously an amazing player, but he won't hit 4 3-pointers in a row every night.
Yeah beating us is meaningless
Blazers without Simons are easily the worst team in the NBA
You're right, they should rank based totally on offseason hype and just ignore what the teams are actually doing
You can take expected roster strength, goal of the team, health of the roster, and the way the game actually played out into account.
I get we are 0-2 and I am biased. But we have not played badly, in fact, we have probably been the better team in about 80% of the games that have been played so far.
We ultimately lost cause Luka hit some of the most absurd shots I've seen recently, and JV really miss managed the Cavs game.
You were clearly the better team in our matchup, but Luka did Luka things. Sucks.
Basically lol.
Y’all played the better game against us Ngl. Shooting 50% from 3 was destroying us.
Ya if Luka just has a normal Luka game we win by 10 lol
lol, it took four miracle threes to beat the nets, but sure, Luka is 7th
Its very difficult to beat a team when they are shooting 50% from 3 which the nets were and Luka still willed it
hmm, and I wonder why the nets were shooting 50% from 3? It couldn't have anything to do with the Mavs perimeter defense?
Did you watch the game? Nearly every 3 they made was contested and it still went, sometimes shit just happens like all 4 of Luka’s heroic 3s were contested and they still went in. The next "best" thing you can do is foul them on the shot and that's a horrible thing to do.
Mavs fans in their feelings already?
It “could” but if you watch the game you’ll see it didn’t.
But listen…. This is Reddit. Don’t let a little thing like not watching a game stop you from giving in depth analysis of it.
if you put 10k on the Mavs to be a top 10 defense then I will take you seriously
ah, the old perfect defense leads the opponent to shoot 50% from 3 argument
No way this is an actual power ranking. It’s just based on the records of the teams 3 games in. While I would take record into account, I wouldn’t make the whole list based off it..
I know these are basically sorted by records, but seeing Mavs at 5 looks so wrong lmao