Power Rankings: Warriors on way up
Week: Team:
The San Antonio Spurs, with their annual Rodeo Road Trip beckoning, have temporarily lost Tim Duncan.
That's the alarmist view.
On the glass-way-more-than-half-full side, San Antonio not only dodged a major catastrophe when Sunday's MRI on Duncan's left knee showed no structural damage but also extended its stay at the top of ESPN.com's weekly NBA Power Rankings for the second successive Monday, with none of the Spurs' nearest challengers applying sufficient pressure.
Oklahoma City, Miami and the Los Angeles Clippers all suffered disheartening stumbles last week to ensure that the Spurs didn't slip. The most notable movement in the top 10 is thus Golden State's rise from No. 8 to No. 5, thanks to road wins in Toronto and Cleveland, home wins over Dallas and Phoenix ... as well as the return, of course, of big man Andrew Bogut.
The rankings, as always, were compiled with peerless assisting from ESPN Stats & Information and the Elias Sports Bureau. Click here to rank the teams yourself.
Also, check out John Hollinger's daily Power Rankings.
| 2012-13 Power Rankings: Week 14 | ||||
| RANK | TEAM / RECORD | TRENDING | COMMENTS | |
| 1 |  | -- Last Week: 1 | The Spurs launch their annual Rodeo Road Trip without Tim Duncan. No one in the Alamo City can moan too loudly, though, after TD survived that nasty fall with no structural damage ... and coming off a virtual bye week with only those cushy home games against the Bobcats and Wiz. | |
| 2 |  | -- Last Week: 2 | OKC has always insisted outsiders make a bigger deal about Russell Westbrook's blowups than his teammates and coaches do. Not quite sure how RW can be mad at anyone but himself given how poorly he's shot the ball lately, nor are we sure we can dismiss this outburst so readily. | |
| 3 |  | -- Last Week: 3 | This really only matters if these teams hook up in the playoffs again, but it was fairly eye-catching (at least to us) to read that the Heat have managed a mere eight points in transition in their two losses to the Pacers this season. The champs average just over 17 transition points nightly. | |
| 4 |  | 1 Last Week: 5 | No team has ever won it all in a season it didn't have at least one All-Star. But shouldn't we at least hat-tip Denver for being the best team on this season's list ahead of the Bobcats, Bucks, Hawks, Hornets, Jazz, Kings, Magic, Mavericks, Nets, Pistons, Raptors, Suns, Wolves and Wiz? | |
| 5 |  | 3 Last Week: 8 | Relief for grieving 49ers fans: Andrew Bogut is back and just sparked a 4-0 week for a team that made it through January with a .600-plus winning percentage for only the second time in (whoa) 35 seasons. Just in time, too, with the Dubs' better-than-expected rebounding starting to slip. | |
| 6 |  | 2 Last Week: 4 | It was all going so well in Clipperland. Remember when they reeled off 24 wins in a span of 27 outings? Now it's all road games, trade rumors and fretting about the knee bruise that has prevented CP3 from playing in nine of the Clips' past 11 games. Or halting their 2-6 skid. | |
| 7 |  | 1 Last Week: 6 | Thirteen straight wins at the Pacers' famed fieldhouse is the streak on the line when Chicago shows up Monday night. Better yet: Indy ranks No. 2 in the East in terms of plus/minus -- adding the total of road wins to home losses -- at a robust plus-7. Miami is tops at plus-9. | |
| 8 |  | 1 Last Week: 7 | As mentioned in various corners of the Weekend Dime, I really don't think this team's ceiling has changed as drastically as many suggested in the wake of the Rudy Gay deal. Yet we'll have to see how long it takes Gay's ex-teammates and coaches to get over their initial disappointment. | |
| 9 |  | 2 Last Week: 11 | As banged up as the Bulls are, they continue to sport the NBA's highest road winning percentage, vaulting Tom Thibodeau past Mike Woodson when it comes to the East's most worthy COY contenders. The Bulls also move back into the top 10 and, to be honest, never should have left. | |
| 10 |  | 1 Last Week: 9 | Let's not completely discount a four-game win streak, all at home, that includes W's over two of the most poundable foes you can find these days: Orlando and Sacramento. The Knicks deserve a little better when they sport one of the East's two winning records against .500-or-better teams. | |
| 11 |  | 1 Last Week: 10 | Good news: Brook Lopez, who ranks as the highest-scoring center in today's NBA at 18.7 points per game, has been granted his rightful All-Star spot by decree of David Stern. Bad news: D-Will and Joe Johnson are making a combined $37 million in the Nets' All-Snubbed backcourt. | |
| 12 |  | 3 Last Week: 15 | James Harden's new team and his old one are locked in a new duel they might not even be aware of. No team in history has ever had the highest per-game average in both scoring and turnovers. Houston is currently No. 2 in ppg and No. 30 in tpg; OKC ranks No. 1 and No. 29. | |
| 13 |  | 1 Last Week: 14 | The hubbub about Ersan Ilyasova's resurrection and Jim Boylan's corresponding pursuit of Brooklyn's P.J. Carlesimo in the Interim Coach of the Year race has obscured the fact The Larry Sanders Show has actually widened his lead on Serge Ibaka on the blocked-shots leaderboard. | |
| 14 |  | 1 Last Week: 13 | Remember when we used to track the Lakers by listing their record based on whether Kobe Bryant took more or less than 20 shots? Not anymore. The new standard with Kobe as QB and Steve Nash playing off the ball: L.A. is 15-7 when No. 24 has at least six assists ... 7-19 when he doesn't. | |
| 15 |  | 3 Last Week: 12 | As soon as we suggested in this space that the Jazz were rolling in January, what happens? Utah suffers a 45-point humiliation at home against a Houston team right in its seeding range that makes us skittish to say anything leading into Monday night's home date with lowly Sacramento. | |
| 16 |  | -- Last Week: 16 | The Blazers don't play another home game until after the All-Star break. Daunting as that sounds, only two of the six foes on this upcoming trip -- which will be capped by a Damian Lillard vs. Anthony Davis duel in New Orleans on Feb. 13 -- have a winning record: Houston and Miami. | |
| 17 |  | 2 Last Week: 19 | The Clips could use Paul Pierce's late-game fearlessness. They could likewise use an enforcer with KG's pedigree on D. Yet I still suspect Boston makes it past the deadline with both greats still wearing green. The Celts would surely seek more in return than Eric Bledsoe in either case. | |
| 18 |  | 1 Last Week: 17 | That block Al Horford got away with to deny DeMar DeRozan, enrage Dwane Casey and clinch an Atlanta win? It made Horford the first player to be credited with two swats in the final 15 seconds of a one-point W since Ben Wallace did the same to the Raps exactly nine years earlier. | |
| 19 |  | 1 Last Week: 18 | A league-leading eight losses when leading in the final 90 seconds of regulation or overtime for the former close-game kings, coupled with the first muscle strain for a franchise player who so rarely misses games, just adds up to more evidence that 2012-13 is a not-gonna-happen season. | |
| 20 |  | 3 Last Week: 23 | The Celtics lost Rajon Rondo more than a week ago and still haven't lost a game without their point guard. It's been that sort of season for the Andrew Bynum-less Sixers, who realistically rank as the only team outside of the East's top eight that can still crash it ... but it's getting late early in Philly. | |
| 21 |  | 1 Last Week: 20 | After parting with the last link to their 2004 title team by jumping into the Rudy Gay trade and shipping Tayshaun Prince to Memphis, Detroit has a new look: Greg Monroe, Andre Drummond and more than $20 million in cap space this summer to build around its young tag team of bigs. | |
| 22 |  | 2 Last Week: 24 | Familiar questions have followed Rudy Gay north of the border. Namely: Do the Raps dare put Gay on the Vince Carter/Chris Bosh franchise player pedestal? The question, in this case, is not whether Gay will stay but whether he'll look more like a franchise player than he did in Memphis. | |
| 23 |  | 1 Last Week: 22 | They've got more wins since John Wall returned (six) than they managed in the 33 games without him (five). The Wiz have also painfully lost seven games when leading or tied in the final 90 seconds of regulation or OT, tied with Toronto for tops in East torture, just one behind Dallas' eight. | |
| 24 |  | 1 Last Week: 25 | Totally down with crazy good Kyrie Irving on the East All-Stars even with his team mired at 14-34. Not there yet, though, with Kyrie starting in place of the injured Rajon Rondo. Wild as it'd be to see Irving lining up next to LeBron, Erik Spoelstra has every right to give Rondo's spot to Chris Bosh. | |
| 25 | New Orleans 15-33 | 4 Last Week: 21 | Now that the pesky Super Bowl has finally left town, locals can refocus on the issues that really matter. Such as: Is Anthony Davis closer to putting real heat on Damian Lillard in the Rookie of the Year stretch run ... or to dropping into third place in the ROY race behind Andre Drummond? | |
| 26 |  | 1 Last Week: 27 | Bittersweet trip for the committee (of one) to one of our absolute fave NBA cities. Loved being back in the PHX for Steve Nash's return to the desert. Hated driving through such gorgeous terrain knowing it might be months (or longer) before the Suns play a game big enough to bring us back. | |
| 27 |  | 1 Last Week: 26 | Don't want to hear about Ricky Rubio's 30.9 percent shooting from the floor. Or how he doesn't have a double-digit assist game yet. After injuries destroyed Sota's season, seeing Rubio in the Rookies/Sophs game at All-Star Weekend would have been, well, something. | |
| 28 |  | -- Last Week: 28 | DeMarcus Cousins? Voice of reason? His production has been trending downward for two weeks, but that doesn't mean he was wrong when he told Sports Illustrated's Ian Thomsen that -- thanks to the Kings' suffocating sale/relocation dramas -- this will go down as "a year lost." | |
| 29 | Charlotte 11-35 | -- Last Week: 29 | 2013 has been as unkind to Michael Kidd-Gilchrist as anyone in the league. Plucked from Kentucky's national-championship-winning college team in 2012, Charlotte's rook averaged just 7.1 points on 39.2 percent shooting in January ... then suffered a concussion in his first February game. | |
| 30 |  | -- Last Week: 30 | With nine straight L's, just two wins in their past 22 games and another long-term injury suffered by Big Baby Davis (broken foot), Orlando's days of being able to look at the Southeast Division standings and somehow see two teams below it (Charlotte and Washington) are numbered. | |
| ||||
ESPN Conversations
comments
