NBA Power Rankings Update: Are the Sacramento Kings for Real?
Teams Ranked 10th to 1st
Three new teams jump into the top tier, while the Milwaukee Bucks go scorched earth.
| Ranking | Team | Record | nERD | Last Ranking | Plus/Minus |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | Portland Trail Blazers | 6-2 | 59.3 | 14 | 4 |
| 9 | Utah Jazz | 4-3 | 59.6 | 12 | 3 |
| 8 | Charlotte Hornets | 4-5 | 60.2 | 15 | 7 |
| 7 | Boston Celtics | 6-2 | 61.1 | 6 | -1 |
| 6 | New Orleans Pelicans | 4-4 | 63.8 | 3 | -3 |
| 5 | Denver Nuggets | 7-1 | 66.5 | 5 | 0 |
| 4 | Indiana Pacers | 5-3 | 69.7 | 4 | 0 |
| 3 | Toronto Raptors | 7-1 | 75.1 | 2 | -1 |
| 2 | Milwaukee Bucks | 7-1 | 75.2 | 7 | 5 |
| 1 | Golden State Warriors | 8-1 | 80.3 | 1 | 0 |
Risers
The Portland Trail Blazers followed up their first 3-1 week with another 3-1 week, putting them at 6-2 and third place in the Western Conference. They sit 2nd in the league in offensive rating (116.7), 11th in defensive rating (108.4), and 4th in margin of victory (8.5). They've put up signature wins against the Los Angeles Lakers, San Antonio Spurs, Indiana Pacers, Houston Rockets, and New Orleans Pelicans, all of which have spent time in our top-10 so far this season. It looks like the Blazers might actually be really good and we all may have been too quick to judge them on their being swept by the Pelicans in the first round last year.
Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks have officially arrived. Their 7-1 record is bested only by the 8-1 Golden State Warriors, and they currently lead the entire Association in margin of victory with a mark of 13.38. Antetokounmpo is playing like a bona fide MVP candidate, and the addition of coach Mike Budenholzer seems to have been just what the team needed to vault into the upper echelon of the Eastern Conference elite. Their schedule has admittedly been a bit soft to start the season, so their upcoming Western Conference road trip should be a good measuring stick for how legitimate this hot start truly is.
Fallers
The New Orleans Pelicans started the season red hot at 4-0, but they have cooled off considerably since then by going 0-4 and right back down to .500. Missing Anthony Davis for three of those four losses is obviously a huge factor (and a nice feather in his MVP candidate cap), so we'll have to see how things go once he returns before we can truly say which version of the Pelicans we can expect going forward.
The Toronto Raptors don't really deserve to be classified as a "faller", since the only bad thing they really did this week was lose their first and only game of the season, but they had to make room for the red-hot Bucks. Other than that, everyone else who lost ground in the top tier from last week to now (with the exception of the Boston Celtics) fell out of the top-10 entirely.
