Says who? Not the author of these rankings. 

As a general Power Rankings rule, we’re going to try to strike a balance between what we’ve seen in the last week, the season as a whole so far, and what can reasonably be expected to play out over the rest of the season. This week there is a greater emphasis on that last factor after the trade deadline has passed and given us a clear picture of where every roster officially stands. 

I mean, that’s what power rankings are in the sense that people post articles to generate clicks and discussion and such. Power rankings SHOULD be who the best teams are.

Celtics recently blew out the lakers

They were both close games, we were missing Pritchard and brown after he was ejected in the 1st half vs the spurs, and white and Tatum vs the thunder.

“When they go low, we go high” - Kings

You know Kings are a thing of the medieval age

They did not have tanks back then!

The ethical tan kings! 

The idea that the basketball gods favor any team that isn’t the Spurs in the slightest is absolute cap

Laughing/crying that you think this is true

That’s like telling an ant-eater to try beetles.

Yeah, this isn’t a “how good has a team been across the season” (that’s just the standings), it’s “how good are they currently plan”.

8-4 over their last 12 qualifies for the guady heights of 18th…

I feel like the Bulls lately always, comparatively to the rest of their season, ball out in March

Fair, I guess I’m just cautious about getting too excited about a three seed after last year.

The wild part of it is despite being 3rd, nobody even sees them as a true threat to win it all - even most Lakers fans. This year is accepted as a growth year, especially the situation with the weird talent triangle and the odd fit of Bron with Reaves/Luka. Next year should be better with the right offseason moves, but there just isn’t the depth to beat the top teams in a best of 7. That context is what makes the 3 ranking surprising.

I would say top 5-6 is fair. Lakers been playing great basketball. If we continue to rack up wins tho, these power rankings could accurate but top 3 seems too high imo as well

A lot of their flaws started peeking through this month against teams with a body to put on duren. Would still be excited if I was a Detroit fan, considering how bad the team has been in past years, but they’re the young team who will get figured out this year.

That’s irrelevant to a power ranking

Duren stacking 30 pt games since coming back from suspension.

We’ve had a shooting slump but it’s getting back on track recently.

Knicks are ranked higher than us when we absolutely destroyed them this regular season is a joke.

If Pistons are so bad and we absolutely bitched slapped the Knicks in multiple games, then why are they ranked high?

Okc had a bad slump earlier in the year and got through it l. Every team has it. Unfortunate the pistons happened in Feb/march. But we just went 5-5 or w/e and still are 4 games ahead of 2nd place.

Detroit will make it further than LA, Pistons will make it to the conference finals look at who they face.

Detroit can get past any team in the East except Boston or Cleveland. Those series would be real tough. 

Theyre number 1 in steals and blocks.

2nd in point differential behind okc

Top 5 in opponent fg and 3p%, rebound diff and turnover diff

People will need to step up on offense besides Cade, but defense wins championships and this team does a lot that gets overlooked because they don’t have prolific scoring

We have the potential to go far. We have scorers other than Cade. In fact despite narratives, we do have 3pt shooting, but we’re bad at making use of it by getting guys open looks. When Cade gets doubled we haven’t run any plays to punish it and we basically just end up turning the ball over. That’s on coaching/planning, not player talent.

In any case, I don’t disagree with the power ranking, as we’ve been lackluster for the last several weeks. But we do have a positive record against every team above us in the rankings other than the Spurs, so we have that going for us at least.

his back is already giving out

Yeah its definitely not something to get angry about but just slightly too high imo. I agree with your assessment. Its not inconceivable.

Its falls in that camp of that one time I saw the Spurs at 1 on one of these. I get the snapshot argument and its probably just preference but a power ranking should never fully throw out the records either. The context of the full season should matter to some extent.

Didn’t we smoke you twice this year and have a better record?

Pistons are at worst #5 and Lakers are at best after Cleveland

The Knicks have beat up on Denver for the last 3 seasons it makes no sense

How would a team that beats oklahoma not be a favorite to beat lakers too?

That’s totally fair but at some point 10 games is 10 games. It’s really hard to win 10 games in a row, and the Pistons lost to the wizards and the nets recently so it’s not like they’re total gimmes. Honestly it’s just annoying because the first half of our schedule was fucking brutal, plus we were super injured, and everyone said we were super disappointing. Now our schedule has lightened up and we’re healthy and we still can’t get credit.

0-10

Then why are the nuggets 5th? Or the Hawks (10 straight) behind the raptors (4-6)?

They should be moving up, I just disagree with them being above the Celtics. Lakers are 9-1 in their last ten with two wins against sac and ind which are the worst teams in the league. Celtics are 7-3 in their last ten with two losses against OKC and SAN which are the best teams in the league.