Power Rankings: Spurs make strongest move
Week: Team:
History tells us that in-season trades in the NBA rarely make a championship impact.
There have been only four players ever, in fact, to play at least 20 minutes per game in the regular season and the postseason for a title winner after being a part of a deadline deal: Rasheed Wallace (2004 Pistons), Clyde Drexler (1995 Rockets), Mark Aguirre (1989 Pistons) and Mychal Thompson (1987 Lakers).
The San Antonio Spurs, though, believe that Stephen Jackson can be the fifth guy on that list. Some pundits might see the Los Angeles Lakers' acquisition of Ramon Sessions as the most likely of the nine deadline-day deals to alter the course of the playoffs, but the potential of Jackson's return to the Alamo City and San Antonio's big win Friday night in Oklahoma City lead to our only significant change from last Monday to this Monday in ESPN.com's weekly NBA Power Rankings.
Perhaps it'll be only a brief swap, but San Antonio has risen to No. 3 in the latest rankings, bumping OKC down to No. 4. The East's top three maintained their positions, with Chicago maintaining its hold on the No. 1 slot for the third successive week after Wednesday's home victory over Miami without injured Derrick Rose.
Click here every Monday in the regular season for the latest fresh and nonautomated pulse-take of the league's 30 teams, with the usual dishing from ESPN Stats & Information and the Elias Sports Bureau. Click here to rank the teams yourself, or click here to comment on these rankings.
Also, check out John Hollinger's daily power rankings.
| 2011-12 Power Rankings: Week 12 | ||||
| RANK | TEAM / RECORD | TRENDING | COMMENTS | |
| 1 |  | -- Last Week: 1 | Before Friday's fall-from-ahead L to the Blazers, Chicago had won 49 straight games when leading after three quarters, good for the NBA's longest such streak since Utah won 67 games in a row when taking a lead into the fourth quarter from 1997 to '99. In a related story: D-Rose was sitting out with a groin injury. | |
| 2 |  | -- Last Week: 2 | The Heaters squandered a prime opportunity to win one in Chicago with D-Rose in street clothes, but don't ignore the flip side. Miami has won 13 straight at home -- just one shy of OKC's season-best run of 14 straight home wins -- while threatening to catch the Bulls for the league lead in nightly point differential. | |
| 3 |  | 1 Last Week: 4 | One cautionary note amid all the justifiable excitement surrounding Parker's brilliant season ... and the deadline deal that turned a declining Richard Jefferson into a potentially born-again Stephen Jackson ... and Friday night's statement win at OKC: There's still time, but Manu doesn't quite look like Manu yet. | |
| 4 |  | 1 Last Week: 3 | Reassuring to see OKC mow through Portland in Sunday night's late ESPN game because its humdrum 6-4 record since the All-Star break leading up to the Blazers' visit -- which included three home L's -- was starting to make me think last week's tongue-in-cheek Curse of Kate Upton line had some actual merit. | |
| 5 |  | -- Last Week: 5 | I still say the smart play for the Magic is trading Dwight after the season if he won't commit beyond 2012-13. But these rankings, remember, always factor in the present in equal measure with the big picture. And there's no denying that getting him to delay free agency for a year is a certifiable short-term coup. | |
| 6 |  | 1 Last Week: 7 | Despite losing the guy he trusts on the floor more than any other in Fish and that 3-for-20 shooting nightmare, Kobe and his Lakers got a sorely needed injection of backcourt speed when Sessions showed up. Bynum, meanwhile, has three 30-point games this month after just one in his seven-year career before March 1. | |
| 7 |  | 3 Last Week: 10 | If Corey Brewer or Kenneth Faried nudges past the 10-ppg plateau, Denver will have a league-leading seven players averaging double figures in scoring ... and that's before newly re-signed Wilson Chandler joins in. And, yes, I am indeed a fan of the Nene-for-JaVale McGee swap. Click here for the detailed explanation. | |
| 8 |  | 2 Last Week: 6 | According to Elias, Z-Bo is just the second player in NBA history to score at least 25 points in his first game back from 10 or more weeks on the sideline in the same season: Jeff Malone did it with Philly in 1995. The Griz, though, lost to Toronto anyway and, worse yet, are just 10-16 against .500-or-better teams. | |
| 9 |  | 1 Last Week: 8 | The Clips have managed to grind out narrow wins over the Rockets and Pistons after that humbling loss to the Nash-less and Grant Hill-less Suns that prompted an hourlong players-only meeting. Yet concern persists over the load CP3 and Blake are shouldering and how much they'll have left for the playoffs at this rate. | |
| 10 |  | 5 Last Week: 15 | The Mavs lost just 13 regular-season road games in 2010-11 and only four more in the playoffs. This season? They've lost seven straight roadies for their longest such drought since Nowitzki was a rookie in the lockout-shortened 1999 season. It's Dallas' biggest issue these days next to getting healthy. | |
| 11 |  | 3 Last Week: 14 | Josh Smith's longstanding desire to be traded is common knowledge now, but give him this much: Atlanta has been getting some of the best ball he's ever played in the same month management has staunchly refused his wish to be dealt. J-Smoove in March: 25.2 ppg and 9.4 rpg even after Sunday's stinker in Cleveland. | |
| 12 |  | 3 Last Week: 9 | Evan Turner's long-awaited emergence, Spencer Hawes' return from injury, and those eight wins by 22 or more points are the positives. The negatives: Despite leading the league in scoring defense and defensive efficiency, closer-less Philly can't escape the fact that it's 0-7 in games decided by four or fewer points. | |
| 13 |  | 3 Last Week: 16 | If you're going to hang on to Nash this long -- so long that he could leave without compensation in free agency -- might as well make one more inexplicable playoff run for nostalgia's sake. On cue: Phoenix is over .500 for the first time this season and suddenly 9-2 since the All-Star break, second only to Chicago's 10-2. | |
| 14 |  | 3 Last Week: 17 | Al Jefferson was resting. And Enes Kanter and Alec Burks were doing the heavy lifting. So don't even pretend you had the road-shy Jazz becoming the first Western Conference team to beat the Lakers at Staples Center this season and use that breakthrough to clinch their first three-game winning streak since early January. | |
| 15 |  | 4 Last Week: 11 | Yikes: Roy Hibbert is averaging just 9.6 ppg and 7.4 rpg since repping the Pacers in Orlando as an All-Star first-timer. Yikes II: The Knicks were 0-11 in road games against teams with winning records before they went to Indy on St. Patrick's Day and made D-Granger eat his words for the second time in a space of 48 hours. | |
| 16 |  | 2 Last Week: 18 | Not a lot has been going right for the Rockets lately, but that was some comeback in Oklahoma City on Tuesday night. The Elias Sports Bureau reports that Houston became the first team to win on the road after trailing by 11 or more points with less than three minutes to play since Phoenix at Denver in 2000. | |
| 17 |  | 3 Last Week: 20 | They're clearly playing harder/looking happier under Woodson already. Just be advised that only two teams in the 16-team playoff era (starting in 1983-84) have changed coaches after the All-Star break and still won a playoff series: Dallas in '04-05 and New York in '95-96 ... and Don Nelson was the outgoing coach both times. | |
| 18 |  | 5 Last Week: 13 | Some Friday night for Doc Rivers. First, son Austin's Duke Blue Devils get ousted from the NCAA tournament by Lehigh from the, uh, Patriot League. Then Doc's Celts, after the short trip from Oakland to Sacramento and a night off between games, absorbed a 120-95 beatdown from the Kings' collection of youth. | |
| 19 |  | 3 Last Week: 22 | Gotta be honest: We're probably going to need more time to digest that the Blazers lost to the Knicks by 42, made two trades, fired Nate McMillan, replaced Nate with a little-known assistant six years younger than 39-year-old Kurt Thomas, waived Greg Oden and then beat the Bulls ... all in the space of 72 hours. | |
| 20 |  | 8 Last Week: 12 | It appears safe to conclude that the Wolves' visit to the lofty heights of No. 9 two Mondays ago is as high as they'll end up going without their floor general. They racked up mostly turnovers and narrow defeats in their first five games after losing Rubio for the season, then got shredded in Sac-Town to raise tensions. | |
| 21 |  | 3 Last Week: 24 | Cannot lie: Bogut-for-Monta doesn't excite me. Yet I can't deny that (A) Monta's presence does give the Bucks some decent leverage for when it's B-Jennings' turn to get dealt and (B) Ellis' career average of 19.2 ppg is second only to John Williamson's 20.1 ppg among players never to make it to the All-Star Game. | |
| 22 |  | 1 Last Week: 23 | The good news: Detroit almost beat the Clips on the road with Stuckey's mobility severely limited. The bad news: Stuckey's toe injury might have just brought a halt to the best stretch of his NBA career and what arguably ranks as the most promising development in Motown this season not involving Greg Monroe. | |
| 23 |  | 4 Last Week: 19 | The committee's admiration for Andrew Bogut is well-chronicled, but leave it to Dubs owner Joe Lacob to set a new standard. Speaking on "Chronicle Live" in the Bay Area, Lacob likened Bogut's arrival to Kevin Garnett's in Boston and proclaimed that "this is the transcendent deal that's going to change everything." | |
| 24 |  | 2 Last Week: 26 | Jason Thompson has reawakened; Isaiah Thomas continues to be Sacramento's new backcourt darling; and Marcus Thornton has rung up 60 points and nine steals in the Kings' last two wins. And none of them, of course, is hotter than Mayor Kevin Johnson. Would anyone dare run against KJ in the next city election? | |
| 25 |  | 3 Last Week: 28 | With Bargnani's recent return generating virtually no hoopla, Toronto did something about it and spoiled Z-Bo's comeback in Memphis with a nice road win over its former Canadian cousin. Yet it's already forgotten after the Raps went out the next night and found a way to give up 107 points at lowly Charlotte. | |
| 26 |  | 2 Last Week: 24 | Will I be voicing my displeasure about Omri Casspi's dwindling minutes with Byron Scott when the former ESPN analyst and I next cross paths? You know me too well. Not that I expect to win the argument, mind you, knowing that Lord Byron loves new starter Alonzo Gee more than any other Cav not named Kyrie Irving. | |
| 27 | New Jersey 15-31 | 2 Last Week: 25 | These rankings are interactive, so you tell us: Did the Nets give away too much for Gerald Wallace by surrendering a first-rounder protected only 1-3 in the June draft? And is Crash's arrival -- unless he was acquired to sweeten trade offers for Dwight -- really going to excite D-Will about the Nets' future? | |
| 28 | New Orleans 11-34 | 1 Last Week: 29 | The Hornets remain adamantly opposed to buying out Kaman. Which honestly isn't the worst thing for Kaman when you think about it. The opportunity to log heavy minutes and rack up double-doubles is what you want heading into free agency and wasn't likely to be there for him if he made his way to a contender. | |
| 29 |  | 2 Last Week: 27 | The committee (of one) will have to live with this one for eternity: JaVale McGee played his final game as a Wizard just 25 miles from Stein Line HQ ... but chasing trade gossip from the home office took precedence. Guess the folks insisting that J-Wall and Vesely were the only off-limits Wizards weren't kidding. | |
| 30 | Charlotte 7-36 | -- Last Week: 30 | Even if the victims were on the humble side, last Monday's triumph in New Orleans and Saturday's home W over Toronto gave the Bobcats their first two-win week of the season. Which also means they're suddenly on a 13-69 pace, in 82-game terms, which should protect them from Worst Team of All Time territory. | |
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