NBA Power Rankings: Bucks, Lakers lead the contenders

The NBA is ramping up, and it’s time to announce a series I will be doing this year: weekly NBA Power Rankings. I’ll be ranking all thirty teams in the association, which certainly means there will be zero arguments in the comments/replies about any of my placements!

There are a few storylines that interest me leading up to this season:

I’m really interested to see whether the development from the Atlanta Hawks is real or just an object of luck. I’m relatively high on them to begin this season – and with them having a very young team still, there’s a lot of room for improvement. I’m a big believer in Nate McMillan – and I think his hiring midway through last season was a sensational move by Atlanta.

NBA Power Rankings: Bucks, Lakers lead the contenders

The Oklahoma City Thunder are very weird. Their team sucks. It’s bad. There are like… zero veterans on that team. Derrick Favors… I guess? But there needs to be lots of development from… well the entire team. Pokusevski, Bazley, Roby, Giddey, Maledon are a bunch of interesting young pieces. However, asking those guys all to be core rotational pieces is, well, it’s risky.

I think the team that improved the most this offseason was very clearly the Chicago Bulls. They added three main pieces: DeMar DeRozan, Lonzo Ball, and Alex Caruso. All of those guys are going to get major minutes for Chicago – and there’s a non-zero chance the Bulls are the 4th-best team in the Eastern Conference – and are probably in the tier that includes the Philadelphia 76ers, Atlanta Hawks, and Miami Heat.