Official /r/nba Power Rankings #5 (1.1.2024) – New Years, New Me

[25/30 rankers reporting this week.](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17bF–yJIj8G5O32Ii3aQ5QYAsUf45P6q46mKE4JZbKg/edit?usp=sharing) /R/NBA’s Power Rankings are published every two weeks which is a bit different from most rankings. Other than that we rank the teams the same way as our competition. If write ups are left blank the team rep decided not to submit. We encourage any user to fill in the blanks in the comment section.

\# | Team | Δ | Record | Comment |
–: | :– | :– | :-: | :– |
1 | [](/BOS) Celtics | — | 26-6 | All that matters is that we didn’t lose to the Pistons. Good god every Celtics fan knew in their heart that if we were going to lose a game, it would of course be against a 27-losses in a row Pistons team at home while you’re still undefeated at home on the season. This team a season ago would have lost that game, and let it spiral them into another loss against the Raptors. |
2 | [](/MIN) TWolves | — | 24-7 | Wolves have maintained their best record in the West and best defense in the NBA on the season. After starring 2023 on a downer they end the year on the rise. Highlighted by Anthony Edwards who on the season is averaging 26-5-5 and 2 stocks on the season. Ant certainly has his foot over the line when it comes to making the All -Star team. |
3 | [](/MIL) Bucks | +1 | 24-8 | The Bucks aren’t “sputtering” as the national-media-podcast-bros may have led you to believe. They have the best offense in the league and went 11-2 in December. Yes, the perimeter defense is leaky — but we start Dame, Beasley, and Khris 1-3… what do you expect? What I do expect is for Jon Horst to cook up a trade to add another guard and/or wing defender by the deadline, especially if Crowder doesn’t look great when he returns from injury in another week or two. |
4 | [](/OKC) Thunder | +1 | 22-9 | Shoutout to Detroit for ending their 28 game losing streak. Fun fact, the first game of that streak was a loss to OKC! |
5 | [](/DEN) Nuggets | +1 | 23-11 | Concerns about the Nuggets and their early December slump have been alleviated, as the team has reeled off wins in 6 of their last 7 games. With most of their B2Bs in the rear-view now, the Nuggets will open January with a relatively easy, home-heavy schedule that will hopefully translate to bunches of wins, especially with Aaron Gordon returning from his, uh, *eventful* holiday break. |
6 | [](/PHI) 76ers | -3 | 22-10 | This should go without saying, but the Sixers do actually need Embiid. Very rarely do they look truly out of games without him, but they really do miss his ability to get a bucket, get to the line, or provide consistent and strong interior defense. Maxey has had incredible games on his own, but it’s clear that he is still adjusting to the idea of being the main focus of the opposing defense when Embiid sits. Unsung hero award goes to Tobias Harris, for playing very consistently and stepping up when needed to. |
7 | [](/LAC) Clippers | +1 | 19-12 | The James Harden era is alive and well in Los Angeles. Averaging 22/9/5 in the past six games, the offense now breathes a new life whenever he’s on the court, at the slight cost of it returning to its ugly form earlier this season whenever he’s out. Zubac and Westbrook have stepped their game up this month as well, both experiencing upgraded roles in the offense while also being our two best rebounders (who would have though that eternal ball of energy Russell Westbrook would be good off the bench?). There are still some concerns in this team, however. As stated earlier, our offense becomes stagnant whenever Harden leaves the floor; this problem becomes magnified now that Kawhi looks to be out for a couple weeks after bruising his hip against Dallas. Paul George continues to have cold stretches during games, and Terance Mann continues to struggle to find a bucket post-Harden trade. Regardless, the Clippers finish off their impressive month 4-2, with the two losses coming from 2 of the top 5 teams in the league at the moment. It is worthy to note that they got smacked by a combined 57 points against said teams, which is not what you want to see when matched up against potential deep playoff teams. |
8 | [](/MIA) Heat | +5 | 19-13 | Tyler Herro has returned. After being out with injury more than a month, he’s come back and picked up right where he left off. Disappointingly however, he’s come back at the same time as Jimmy Butler has been beset by injury but the Heat have done well to continue pushing even with the amount of games missed due to injuries among their important players. The Heat are in excellent form only dropping 3 games in their last 10 and are slowly but steadily gaining pace on the top half of the conference. Are they good enough to compete with the top half? Probably not, but part of the fun is just being given the opportunity to upset someone in a 7 game series. |
9 | [](/SAC) Kings | +1 | 19-12 | Fox once again proves he among the top 3 guards in the NBA and is shooting at a career high from three. The Kings are still very much in need of some size but with the prices of these players will find it hard to fill a need. |
10 | [](/NOP) Pelicans | +1 | 19-14 | The Pelicans have gone 3-3 in the last two weeks. These three losses represent the only losses since they were throttled by the Lakers in the IST semi-finals. They tried their best to put that behind them with a 20-point win against LA in their most recent outing. But each of those three losses has at least warmed Willlie Green’s seat as head coach. This includes blowing a 24-point lead in Ja Morant’s first game back from suspension, and blowing another 14-point lead against the Grizzlies just one week later. Rookie Jordan Hawkins has been sent to the G-league and since recalled as his campaign for the rookie three point record has been iced. If availability continues to be a positive, the biggest questions will be this teams ability shoot threes and generate effective offensive lineups. |
11 | [](/DAL) Mavericks | -4 | 19-14 | |
12 | [](/ORL) Magic | -3 | 19-13 | Nagging injuries starting to show their effect. WCJ is back but still trying to get back into game shape/speed. The bench looks lost without Ingles’ playmaking and Isaac’s defense. Paolo is playing at an All-Star level but the rest of the team really has to rally around him to allow the Magic to keep pace in the East. There’s been a bit of a slide in recent weeks but nothing that can’t be weathered, even through this tough stretch. |
13 | [](/CLE) Cavaliers | +5 | 18-14 | |
14 | [](/IND) Pacers | +2 | 17-14 | Same song, different verse. Indiana’s season continues to be plagued by poor defense against wings and bigs. They were mired in a 4 game losing streak in which they were consistently outmanned in the physicality department, complete with a 64 point explosion courtesy of Giannis Antetokounmpo. But then, the roller coaster swung again- as now Indiana has won 4 out of 6, showing a keen ability to pull away late. Tyrese Haliburton’s All-NBA push got another boost as well, as he became just the 3rd player in NBA history with back to back 20 point, 20 assist games. All the pieces are here for a decent-to-good team; the next step in this young team’s development is simply consistency. |
15 | [](/PHX) Suns | +2 | 17-15 | The last two weeks have featured the highest highs and lowest lows for the Suns so far this season. The Suns blew a 22-point first half lead against Portland on 12/19, and then only led briefly in games against Sacramento and Dallas. Since then, the Suns have gone 3-0. Nurkic and Beal have returned from their absences, Eubanks and Goodwin have been benched, KD had an 8.0 assist/turnover ratio, and Eric Gordon shot 14/25 from 3. |
16 | [](/NYK) Knicks | -2 | 17-15 | Absolutely blasted rn Smithereens. Happy fuckin newyear. Bing bong. Go kincks. OGA NUNOBY. I MISS YOU RJ I MISS YOU IQ NEW YORK WILL NEVER FORGET |
17 | [](/LAL) Lakers | -5 | 17-17 | |
18 | [](/HOU) Rockets | -3 | 15-15 | Three losses on the trot and the rockets are back in the lottery. Size has been a problem. While Sengun has now grown into our franchise player, it seems like Jock Landale isn’t the hidden gem many thought he was, and instead he is… Jock Landale. At this point, Rockets fans are asking for Bruno Fernando or the ghost of Boban to get bumped up above Jock and well… you know you’re desperate when that’s happening. Let’s just hope the Pistons haven’t built up too much momentum from their recent win and hopefully the team can get back on winning ways tonight. |
19 | [](/GSW) Warriors | +1 | 15-17 | Warriors just feel mid. Kerr has been riding or dying with the old guard to a fault. How does Moody get no minutes when Klay has 3/2/1 on 1/11 while playing bad defense? The complete lack of a solid #2 offense is weighing on the Warriors record. I wouldn’t be surprised if his Klay is being shipped around since he’s on an expiring and Warriors are a team that likes to take on large contracts. Despite their mind numbing issues they sit a game back of the play in and TJD continues to be a bright spot. |
20 | [](/CHI) Bulls | +2 | 15-19 | We are no longer the last team to have lost to the Pistons! The team still looks competitive without Lavine, and we are now in a play-in spot. Coby White cooled off, but he is still the number 1/2 scoring option. Derozan has taken a smaller role scoring wise, but makes up for it facilitating. Our upcoming games are against the 76ers and Knicks, hopefully the hot streak continues. |
21 | [](/BKN) Nets | -2 | 15-18 | The Nets aren’t a good basketball team and a lot of early concerns are starting to come to fruition. With Cam Thomas losing minutes, there is a lack of offensive punch and teams are able to focus on Mikal and Dinwiddie with more attention than they can handle. We’ll see how the Nets bounce back but a team slightly under .500 seems apt for where they will end up |
22 | [](/UTA) Jazz | +2 | 14-19 | All of a sudden the Utah Jazz are back in business. Winning 7 of their last 10 games has seen the Jazz make ground in the Western Conference play-in race as they now go into 2024 with just 2 fewer wins than the 8th seeded Phoenix Suns. Though an imperfect stat, Walker Kessler’s +/- over the last two weeks paints a picture of his impact on the Jazz. At +68 in this span, he’s 11th in the league behind 5 Denver, 2 Boston and 2 OKC players. Opponents shot 10.4% worse than expected in the past fortnight when contested by Walker, 4th best mark in the league amongst the top 50 DFGA players. With Markkanen back from injury the Jazz are a better team and when paired with Kessler over the last month the duo have recorded a net-rating of +15.3 when sharing the court. 8 of the next 11 games at home for Utah looks set to make the West look very very interesting in a few weeks.. |
23 | [](/ATL) Hawks | -2 | 13-19 | So the Jalen Johnson injury era did not go well. While he was out, Atlanta went 4-10 and had a net rating of -4.4 (which would rank 24th league-wide). And this was in spite of Trae playing (in my opinion) the best he’s ever played in his entire career. For context, with Jalen in the available roster (and Trae shooting poorly to start the season) Atlanta is 9-9 with a net rating of 2.1 (would be 11th in the league at the time of writing this). Jalen is great and has a lot of potential still to untap, but it’s hard to believe that as a 3rd year player he’s worth a +6.5 point swing on his own. The answer lies in the impact he has on the playstyle of the rest of the roster. Jalen is by far our most athletic player and one of our top defenders/rebounders. With him missing, the rest of the roster lacks size and has to expend a lot more energy on defense to make up for his absence. Since this roster lacks natural defenders, this means that by the end of games the entire team is exhausted. When Jalen was out, our net rating went from -0.2 (15th) in the first half to -8.4 (26th and only ahead of DET/SAS/CHA/WAS) in the second. Especially with Hunter in and out of the lineup, we do not have the defensive personnel to sustain any moderately passable level of defense for 48 minutes. So what does this mean for the Hawks going forward? Trade rumors have swirled around the team, with Dejounte in particular getting a lot of buzz in the last couple of days. I personally think that the front office waits until mid-January to see what the team looks like with Jalen back before making any moves, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if a Woj-Bomb drops on the 5th when Dejounte is eligible to be traded. |
24 | [](/MEM) Grizzlies | +1 | 10-22 | |
25 | [](/TOR) Raptors | -2 | 12-20 | Lost to the Pistons |
26 | [](/POR) Trail Blazers | +1 | 9-22 | With injuries plaguing the team, #3 pick Scoot Henderson is finally getting a chance to open his wings. And thankfully for the Blazers, he’s really starting to shine. In his past ten games, Scoot averaging 15.8p/3.0r/5.5a on 40.6/43.2/90.9 shooting splits. The 19 year old point guard is finally starting to settle in and feel comfortable, and we’re beginning to see where all that superstar hype came from. |
27 | [](/WAS) Wizards | +1 | 6-26 | The Wizards have recorded two wins since the last voter rankings, a reminder that despite being a god awful team, you can still win a NBA basketball game if you believe. All you need is Spencer Dinshittie being on the opposite team and suddenly, Kyle Kuzma stops selling. The Wizards have reached the point in the season — similar to that of the past — where teams start to peruse the menu of talent available, realizing that the Wizards actually have some pieces. We’re the girls you see on Tinder that you wouldn’t swipe on 95% of the time but 5% of the time and you’re a little desperate, you make some sacrifices. Tyus Jones — who received early season criticism because people don’t know ball and still don’t watch Wizards basketball form all of their takes off of social media clips and box scores — is now a guard that will produce a decent haul. Kyle Kuzma continues to be a meal ticket. And players like Corey Kispert and Daniel Gafford are getting rightful recognition of being valuable members of the Wizards (and if anyone touches them, I will cut them). It also means that it is another season where the fanbase is waiting for the trade to occur to end it, which is kind of a bummer. A good sign has been that old Jordan Poole is making appearances at times — with the past two weeks being some of his best basketball of the season. But bad signs such as growing pains with Bilal Coulibaly — who is learning what it is like when teams learn how to guard him — also exist. |
28 | [](/CHA) Hornets | -2 | 7-23 | We’re shit. Fire Clifford. Rozier has been balling let’s trade him for value before losing him for nothing. |
29 | [](/SAS) Spurs | — | 5-27 | Uhh, not too much to say here. Wemby looks good and the team looks generally bad without him–he’s been on a minutes restriction since 12/21 vs Chicago, and if Vassell’s return from injury is an indicator, he won’t be finished with his restriction until 1/7 vs Cleveland. Devin Vassell’s stats from last year to this year are all but identical, which is potentially problematic considering the expectations we’ve had for him (and the extension he was given), Sochan looks more comfortable playing not-point-guard, and Keldon Johnson is debatably our second best player on a nightly basis, which is probably not something the Spurs were hoping for this year. The team’s slowly figuring out defense, but our offense looks as lost as ever. I couldn’t help but notice that the biggest key difference between these Spurs and a team like the Trail Blazers are guys like Brogdon and Grant–having starting caliber vets makes *such* a huge difference when it comes to discussing a “potentially bottom-10 team of all time” and “normal top of lottery bad” team. The Spurs have @MEM, MIL, CLE, @DET, CHA, CHI over the next two weeks. |
30 | [](/DET) Pistons | — | 3-29 | Fuck Tom Gores. Fuck Arn Tellem. Fuck Troy Weaver. Fuck Monty Williams. Fuck Alec Burks. Fuck James Wiseman. |

by powerrankingsnba