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There have been a lot of surprises over the first week of the NBA season.
The Indiana Pacers are scoring like its the 80s. Dallas is undefeated. Detroit looks like a real, live team.
All that said, Denver and Boston are still atop these power rankings. Let’s see where everybody else lands.
Last week’s ranking is in parenthesis.
- Denver (1): Superstar big man Nikola Jokic picked up his 13th Western Conference Player of the Week award, as he led the champion Nuggets to a 3-0 start and a plus-42 scoring margin.
- Boston (2): It’s very early, but Boston has four players averaging more than 19 points per game.
- Milwaukee (3): The Dame Lillard experience has had its ups and downs so far, but Milwaukee is still a force.
- Phoenix (4): The Suns are 2-1 despite Brad Beal having missed every game and Devin Booker sitting out the last two.
- Golden State (6): four games into the Warriors season, Steph Curry has already cracked 40 points twice.
- Philadelphia (7): guard Tyrese Maxey earned Eastern Conference Player of the Week honors, averaging 30.3 points, 6.7 rebounds and 6.3 assists a game as the Sixers went 2-1 to start the season.
- LA Clippers (12): the Clippers are healthy (for now). And they look good, with a 16.6 point differential to start the season.
- Sacramento (8): The Kings “other guys” will need to step up while guard De’Aaron Fox misses some time with an ankle injury.
- Oklahoma City (14): Spurs big man Victor Wembanyama gets all the headlines, but rookie Chet Holmgren has been just as impactful. Holmgren leads OKC in rebounding and is the Thunder’s second-leading scorer.
- New Orleans (16): The Pelicans had been playing great defense, allowing a shade over 95 points per game, until they gave up 130 on Monday to Golden State.
- Dallas (20): Dallas is 3-0, but the wins have come against teams at the bottom of these rankings: San Antonio, Brooklyn, and Memphis. Thirteen of the Mavs first 20 games are against 2023 lottery teams.
- Orlando (22): Sixth man Cole Anthony is having a hot start to the season, putting up 19 points a game on 52% shooting from the field and 44% from 3.
- LA Lakers (5): A comeback win over a (very) shorthanded Phoenix team is the only reason the Lakers aren’t 0-3.
- Detroit (27): the young kids (Cade Cunningham, Jalen Duren, and Ausar Thompson) have the Pistons looking like a threat to make the playoffs.
- Indiana (23): Guard Tyrese Haliburton is looking like a good bet to lead the league in assists.
- Atlanta (17): Guard Dejounte Murray in a Monday win over Minnesota poured in a career-high 41 points, as the Hawks got back to .500.
- Miami (9): the Heat are a play away from an 0-4 start.
- New York (15): RJ Barrett leads the Knicks in scoring on good shooting splits. Is this the year he finally puts it all together?
- Minnesota (13): Offensively, Karl-Anthony Towns is having maybe the roughest stretch of his career, shooting 35% from the field and 21% from 3.
- Utah (21): The Jazz has given up at least 120 points in all three games so far this season.
- Cleveland (10): Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell have already missed time this season. That’s not a good sign.
- Chicago (24): You know when you’re at an open run and there’s a pretty good player running with a bad team who says, “pick me up” after every game his team loses? Zach LaVine was sending out that Bat signal in his 51-point game Saturday in Detroit.
- Toronto (18): The Raptors on Monday scored 91 points in a loss to a Portland team that had been allowing 117 points a game.
- San Antonio (30): Victor Wembanyama has shown flashes of brilliance. The Spurs don’t have much else going for them outside of that.
- Charlotte (28): Charlotte opened the season with three straight home games.
- Washington (25): someone may put 200 on the Wizards this year.
- Portland (29): Scoot Henderson has had a rough start. And is it too early to put out an APB for “DominAyton”?
- Brooklyn (19): this will be a running theme here: since the Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving trades, Brooklyn is 11-24.
- Houston (26): at 101 points per game, the Rockets are the worst offensive team in the league.
- Memphis (11): The Grizzlies play hard every night. They just don’t have the overall scoring to be competitive.
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