NBA Week 2 Power Rankings: Cavs limping, Warriors soaring
The NBA season is nearly two weeks old already, and it’s been an eventful collection of games. A French tower is making his mark, favorites are stumbling, and the defending champions look ready for a repeat. The Cleveland Cavaliers join a group of teams off to stumbling, injury-riddled starts that mask any true analysis.
Two weeks is an understandably small sample; we don’t want to overreact to the result of five or six games. With that being said, it’s the best data that we have as to how teams have improved, weakened or changed since last season. So with that in mind, let’s rank all 30 teams in our Week 2 NBA Power Rankings.
Power Ranking the league
Our ranking will be of how teams are playing right now, not how we project them to play by the end of the season or in the playoffs. The Memphis Grizzlies will be a better team when Ja Morant returns, but he is out for another 19 games so the Grizzlies are going to be judged by their currently-available players.
If we were going to wrap this season’s results into a long-term view of title equity, here is what the Top 10 teams would look like:
- Denver Nuggets
- Boston Celtics
- Golden State Warriors
- Milwaukee Bucks
- Phoenix Suns
- Los Angeles Lakers
- Philadelphia 76ers
- Dallas Mavericks
- Cleveland Cavaliers
- Miami Heat
With that being said, let’s break down all 30 teams in the league. How are they playing? How have things shifted since the start of the season? We begin at the bottom of the ladder with the three teams that look like they will be fighting for the best lottery odds all season long.