Power Rankings: Lakers feeling the pain
Updated: February 4, 2009, 9:17 AM ET
By
Marc Stein | ESPN.com
Week: Team:
The four teams at the top of ESPN.com's weekly NBA Power Rankings are pretty much interchangeable. So brace yourself for plenty of shuffling every Monday for the rest of the regular season.
This particular Monday is a prime example, with the Boston Celtics retaining the top spot as the NBA's first 40-win team ... but with Orlando vaulting from No. 4 to No. 2, leapfrogging No. 3 Cleveland with their home rout of the Cavs and dropping the Los Angeles Lakers to No. 4 after L.A. suffered the twin blow of a home loss to Charlotte and Andrew Bynum's scary knee injury.
You can click here to rank the teams yourself or click here to comment.
Also, check out John Hollinger's daily Power Rankings.
Tune in Tuesdays to "NBA Fastbreak" on ESPN to see this week's U.S. Army Power Rankings. New York is the U.S. Army Team of the Week after posting three quality wins that have inched the Knicks to the brink of a top-15 spot for the first time all season.
| 2008-09 Power Rankings: Week 14 | ||||
| RANK | TEAM / RECORD | TRENDING | COMMENTS | |
| 1 |  | -- Last Week: 1 | How much safer will they be taking a 12-game win streak into Thursday's home duel with the Lakers than they were toting a 19-game win streak into the Christmas showdown? Does it even matter since Bynum is out? | |
| 2 |  | 2 Last Week: 4 | Landing three All-Stars, routing Cleveland, reactivating Pietrus ... add it all up and last week might have been better for the Magic than the seven-day span in which they beat the Spurs, Lakers and Nuggets, all on the road. | |
| 3 |  | -- Last Week: 3 | As if the 22-0 record at home isn't gaudy enough, peep this: LeBron averaged 27.5 points, 9.6 boards and 8.2 dimes in January. The last guy to hit those heights for a full month was Larry Bird ... way back in 1987. | |
| 4 |  | 2 Last Week: 2 | Those of you in Lakerland in such a rush to see Odom shipped out see now why your Lakers won't let him go until the summer. Who has the length and triangle knowledge to plug in for the fallen Bynum better than LO? | |
| 5 |  | -- Last Week: 5 | Pop sees 100 points on the scoreboard and says: "We're having too much fun." But maybe he shouldn't fight it, since his Spurs have merely won 30 games in a row -- that's 16-0 this season -- when they reach triple digits. | |
| 6 |  | -- Last Week: 6 | The Nuggets can only hope Melo stays miffed about his All-Star omission for the rest of the month, because they're looking at a Spurs-like eight straight games on the road after San Antonio swings through Tuesday night. | |
| 7 |  | 2 Last Week: 9 | Since sweeping an early trip to Orlando and Miami, Portland has just one road win against a winning team ... way back on Nov. 30 in Detroit. Not that the Blazers' relative lack of road success is really hurting them. | |
| 8 |  | 1 Last Week: 7 | It was right around this time last season that the Rockets launched that unforgettable 22-game winning streak. This season? We're guessing they'd probably settle for trotting out the same lineup 22 times in a row. | |
| 9 | New Orleans 28-16 | 1 Last Week: 8 | West is back from a back injury and back with the West All-Stars, but the Hornets really couldn't enjoy the moment. Not when they just became the first team with a winning record to lose at home to Golden State. | |
| 10 |  | 4 Last Week: 14 | The loudest voice in town against the idea of trading Josh Howard? It's Howard himself telling NBA TV "I know I might end up going somewhere" but insisting that the Mavs "don't need no changes right now." | |
| 11 |  | 1 Last Week: 10 | One small problem with our recent claim that D-Wade would have to merit MVP consideration if he could lead the ultra-thin Heat to 50 wins: Miami would have needed a 27-13 finish when we said it and is just 2-2 since. | |
| 12 |  | -- Last Week: 12 | The Sixers sank all the way to 18-30 last season before rising to seventh in the East. The surge started much earlier this time -- Philly is 10-3 since its 13-20 start -- for you Brotherly Love denizens looking for silver linings. | |
| 13 |  | -- Last Week: 13 | Anyone else getting the feeling that A) All-Star Weekend 2009 is going to be the high point of the Suns' season and/or B) All-Star Weekend 2009 is going to be remembered as Amare's farewell to the Valley of the Sun? | |
| 14 |  | 1 Last Week: 15 | Anyone else getting the feeling that this just might not be Utah's year? We actually used that line five Mondays ago because of Boozer's knee op, but it's even more appropriate now with Kirilenko recovering from surgery, too. | |
| 15 |  | 4 Last Week: 11 | You can't trash the Hawks for their 6-10 slump in January without noting that Horford has missed the past 11 games. The bigger issue: Woodson is losing this team, according to Page 74 in the latest issue of ESPN The Mag. | |
| 16 | Charlotte 19-28 | 1 Last Week: 17 | Elaborating on the crack everyone's making about how the Lakers better hope they don't see the Bobs in the Finals: Charlotte is now one of only two franchises with a winning record against L.A. The other? Boston. | |
| 17 |  | 3 Last Week: 20 | I'm not saying David Lee was blatantly snubbed by the East coaches. I'm just saying you can't scoff at a guy whose 35 double-doubles this season are second only to the 36 posted by someone named Dwight Howard. | |
| 18 |  | -- Last Week: 18 | Make that nine losses in 13 games, taking Detroit down to sixth in the East, with the ongoing pain in hopes of summertime gain conceivably getting worse before it gets better. July can't come soon enough. | |
| 19 |  | -- Last Week: 19 | The Pacers are saying Granger's knee trouble shouldn't keep him out of the All-Star Game. Don't think anyone needs to say what would happen to Indy's flickering playoff hopes if this is a problem he can't shake. | |
| 20 |  | 4 Last Week: 16 | First Love gets snubbed from the rookie squad playing at All-Star Weekend. Then Jefferson gets snubbed from the West squad. Conclusion: Minnesota should have no problem with second-half motivation. | |
| 21 |  | -- Last Week: 21 | Can the Bucks really hang on to the No. 8 slot without our beloved Redd? Even with six teams chasing them? If Bogut's back holds up, along with that favorable second-half schedule and the new Villanueva ... maybe. | |
| 22 |  | 3 Last Week: 25 | The short-term impact of Reinsdorf's outburst looks pretty good. But publicly branding this season a "disaster" is an outburst his rookie coach will hear about every day now. Can't see how that helps the cause. | |
| 23 | New Jersey 21-27 | 1 Last Week: 22 | I had Devin Harris as an All-Star, too, so I'm not second-guessing the coaches. I'm just saying he's lucky they apparently made their minds up early, because the Nets' 3-9 swoon has dropped them below the Knicks. | |
| 24 |  | -- Last Week: 24 | The strangest part about the Warriors' two finest hours -- beating Boston at home on Dec. 26 and Friday's win in New Orleans -- is that those are Golden State's only two Ws all season where the game wasn't a shootout. | |
| 25 |  | 2 Last Week: 23 | We state with a good degree of confidence that Raps fans needn't be worried about Bosh getting traded between now and the Feb. 19 deadline. Worrying about anything and everything else? Completely understandable. | |
| 26 |  | -- Last Week: 26 | Maybe a 7-8 record in '09 doesn't sound like much to you. Yet look what it's done for OKC: Durant is now seen as an All-Star snub victim, Westbrook finds himself in the ROY race and all those 9-73 fears are a memory. | |
| 27 |  | 3 Last Week: 30 | They're mentioned in lots of trade scenarios. They're also somehow 0-21 against the East, with only nine more chances to do something about that O-fer. Who says the Kings are giving us nothing to talk about? | |
| 28 |  | 1 Last Week: 29 | I used to get a lot of flak for daring to suggest that Agent Zero wasn't the best handle for Arenas. Now I wonder: If Gil plays zero games this season, won't you blame at least some of that on bad nickname karma? | |
| 29 |  | 2 Last Week: 27 | Our pal Sam Smith of Chicago fame was only teasing, sadly, when he saw the re-hiring of Lionel Hollins and recent re-acquisition of Steve Francis and wondered aloud about the Grizz possibly heading back to Vancouver. | |
| 30 |  | 2 Last Week: 28 | This season is getting so painful, even with Baron and Camby back in the lineup, that Mike Dunleavy Jr. has almost as many wins in the 14 games he's played (seven) as his dad does with the Clips in 47 games coached. | |
| ||||
ESPN Conversations
comments
