NBA Week 2 Power Rankings: Cavs rise, Lakers bottom out

The NBA is almost two weeks into the 2022-23 season, and it has been nothing if not surprising. The standings look like someone took an expected ranking, put it in a ziploc bag and shook it up like Shake and Bake. The Utah Jazz and San Antonio Spurs are near the top, while the LA Clippers and Miami Heat are near the bottom.

This might be a Cleveland Cavaliers website, but it’s helpful to keep the entire league in view and see how the Cavs stack up against their competitors. Therefore we will take regular looks at the NBA by rolling out Power Rankings.

The first edition of the NBA Power Rankings are here! From the moribund Lakers to the surging Cavs, where do the league’s 30 teams fall in 2022-23?

Which teams have been truly good or bad to start the year, and which have just been the victims of bad luck or tough schedules? We’ll try to parse that out here. We will primarily lean into each team’s performance this season alone, with preseason expectations serving as anchors to help us, not command us.

Let’s start at the bottom, where one of the greatest of all time has been let down by his organization and could log the worst season of his career. At the top, we’ll find the Cavs and other teams off to strong starts. Here we go!