Power Rankings: Spurs, C's open training camp on top

Updated: October 1, 2007, 4:01 PM ET
By Marc Stein | ESPN.com
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The NBA and its public have never endured a more depressing summer. Never, ever. Tim Donaghy, Eddie Griffin, Greg Oden, Seattle and its Sonics, Isiah Thomas and the Knicks in court ... it's too often been horribly bad or sad news.

Yet it's time to move on -- or at least try -- and this is the best first step we've got. The return, after an absence of 167 days, of your beloved NBA Power Rankings.

This is where you click for a (human) pulse-take on the NBA, starting with our annual training camp edition from the committee (of one). For the purposes of review, allow me to share my usual reminder that this set of rankings measures each team's standing and outlook heading into the season and is not a predicted order of finish.

How last season ended and how good a team is projected to be in 2007-08 are only part of the equation at this early stage. How each team fared in the summer factors in as well, along with a dash of totally subjective whim. For example: It might be premature to bestow title-contender status on Boston, but the Celtics make the monumental leap from No. 29 in the final 2006-07 rankings to No. 2 after two blockbuster offseason acquisitions that upstaged the whole league. (Acquisitions, it says here, that do give them a real shot to win the wide-open East.)

The next batch of rankings will appear on Oct. 29, one day before opening night, after all 30 teams have a month to show us something. The rankings will then continue every Monday throughout the regular season. Click here to comment on the first helping.

Editor's note: Last Week and Record categories are from the final Power Rankings of the 2006-07 regular season.

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