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NBA Power Rankings January 14, 2022

By Zach Hales, CouchGM

CouchGM’s weekly NBA power rankings. Our power rankings consider the season as a whole but weigh the last three weeks more heavily.

This week we made a few adjustments to the way we consider power rankings. Up to this point, we’ve simply been presenting the team’s rank in championship probability as the power rankings. This seemed fine until teams caught fire and didn’t rise in the power rankings an appropriate amount (looking at you, Memphis). To correct this, and because power rankings at their heart aim to rank teams that feel the most powerful right now, we’ve introduced the Heat Index to our power rankings. The Heat Index is calculated in the same way as our overall, season-long championship score, but it only accounts for data from the last 3 weeks (which is on average 10 games). We then weigh the Heat Index more heavily than the full-season championship score (60% Heat Index, 40% full-season, to be precise) to get the power rankings. In the data presented below, we’ll include a team’s power rankings, the change vs the last week (there will be a lot of movement this week because we changed the way we’re doing power rankings), and the team’s current championship probability, which is based on the full-season ratings.

The Top-5

Power Ranking	Team	Change	Championship Probability
1	Chicago Bulls	+3	8.57%
2	Memphis Grizzlies	+8	4.37%
3	Philadelphia 76ers	+8	2.52%
4	Utah Jazz	-3	13.74%
5	Phoenix Suns	-2	10.29%

With the updated method for power rankings, we have two new teams in the top-5 and a new #1.

Chicago lost to Brooklyn earlier this week, but they have won 10 of the last 12. DeMar DeRozan leads all Eastern Conference backcourt players in the fan All-Star voting and is nearly double the next closest player (Trae Young)! Chicago Bulls GM Marc Eversley should be the runaway favorite for the Executive of the Year award for his work rebuilding the roster through the DeRozan and Lonzo Ball (tampering notwithstanding) acquisitions. Chicago hangs on to the #1 spot here ahead of Memphis because they are the #1 seed in the East and have won 10 of the last 12 to mostly keep pace with Memphis’s 11 of 12.

At #2 is Memphis, the hottest team in the league and winners of 11 straight. This team is legit. Over the last three weeks (basically since Ja Morant’s return), Memphis has the #4 offensive rating, the #4 defensive rating, and the #1 net rating, per Cleaning the Glass. A couple of other notes about Memphis:

1 - Coming from a Suns fan, there’s a pretty strong argument to be made that the Ja Morant - Desmond Bane duo is the best backcourt in the league. Morant is in line to be an All-Star starter, and Bane is the runaway leader for my (unofficial) most improved player vote. Last year, as mostly a bench player, Bane played 22 minutes per game and averaged an efficient 9 points on 7 shots with 46.9/43.2/81.6 shooting splits. This year as full-time starter, Bane plays 30 minutes per game and has nearly doubled his production while maintaining his efficiency: 17.6 points on 14 shots with 46.6/42.2/89.4 shooting splits. Increased role, increased production, maintained efficiency = MIP. He’s also had more opportunities lately to get turns in isolation and done well. Frequency is LOW (1.9% of his possessions), but he’s in the 97th percentile for isolation scoring. Let’s see some more!

2 - JJJ is shooting well below his career averages overall and from three, so assuming he returns to form the Grizzlies offense (already #2 Offensive Rating for the season) could get better.

Philadelphia is hitting their stride with a nice 7-1 record in the last 8 games and the #2 Net Rating over the last three weeks. Time to cash in Ben Simmons for whatever you can get for him and add another contributor for the second half of the season.

Utah’s struggles lately are mostly due to their COVID struggles. They are just plain BAD without Gobert. The hope was that adding guys like Hassan Whiteside and Rudy Gay would improve the non-Gobert minutes and make them more flexible for small ball, but early returns aren’t great. The Jazz rate very well in our model again this year, but they could be in trouble again in the playoffs if they don’t figure out how to defend without Gobert.

6-10

Power Ranking	Team	Change	Championship Probability
6	Miami Heat	0	5.48%
7	Golden State Warriors	-5	10.65%
8	Milwaukee Bucks	0	3.74%
9	Charlotte Hornets	0	3.18%
10	Dallas Mavericks	+3	2.32%

Miami has also won 10 of it’s last 12 even though it has been without Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo. You can look through recent Miami box scores and see that Miami is playing 4 actual NBA players and still winning. Everybody is dealing with 10-day players and COVID issues, but it seems like Erik Spoelstra is better than anybody else at taking a roster of unknowns and convincing you that it’s an actual NBA team.

One big dunk aside, Klay Thompson’s return hasn’t done much to help the Warriors (perhaps unsurprisingly since he hasn’t played NBA basketball in two years). Losers of 4 out of the last 5, Golden State is in danger of losing the #2 seed in the West to the Grizzlies any day now.

11-20

Power Ranking	Team	Change	Championship Probability
11	New York Knicks	+12	1.50%
12	Los Angeles Lakers	+4	1.91%
13	Denver Nuggets	+1	2.48%
14	Cleveland Cavaliers	-7	3.75%
15	Brooklyn Nets	-10	3.75%
16	Boston Celtics	+1	2.00%
17	Toronto Raptors	+2	1.59%
18	Minnesota Timberwolves	0	1.66%
19	Washington Wizards	+2	1.59%
20	Los Angeles Clippers	-5	2.25%

The New York Knicks are the biggest risers and appear to be finding themselves over the last three weeks. They are the #1 defensive rating, which surely makes Tom Thibodeau happy. I’m not convinced that the recent trade for Cam Reddish moves the needle much. He struggled playing third-fiddle to Zion and RJ Barrett at Duke, so why should I think he’ll be good playing third-fiddle (or less) to Julius Randle and RJ Barrett? At this stage he’s still an inefficient chucker that doesn’t defend, things that Thibodeau won’t like. Sure, there’s upside given his size and athleticism, and there are flashes of what could be. But you could say the same about Josh Jackson, and he hasn’t made good on it yet either.

The real surprise in this group is that the Lakers, while only 5-4 in the last 9 games, have the #1 offensive rating in the league over the last three weeks. For reference, the Lakers are the #23 offensive rating for the season as a whole. The LeBron-at-center lineups seem to have opened up the offense, but the defense is suffering (#26 over the last three weeks vs #18 on the season as a whole). I still think the Lakers would have been better served making the rumored trade for Buddy Hield instead of Russell Westbrook, but they are stuck now.

Brooklyn has cooled considerably, and a lot of it has been due to serious regression on defense. After being above-average for defensive rating into December, they've fallen to #27 over the last three weeks.

The Bottom-10

Power Ranking	Team	Change	Championship Probability
21	Portland Trail Blazers	+1	1.53%
22	Atlanta Hawks	-10	1.58%
23	Sacramento Kings	+2	1.16%
24	New Orleans Pelicans	+4	1.07%
25	Indiana Pacers	-5	1.40%
26	Houston Rockets	0	1.19%
27	Oklahoma City	0	1.06%
28	San Antonio Spurs	-4	1.18%
29	Detroit Pistons	0	0.94%
30	Orlando Magic	0	0.95%

Portland is in trouble without Dame. And McCollum for that matter. I wonder if the Lillard surgery is what will finally force them to make a big trade. I highly doubt they ever trade Lillard, but I wouldn’t be too surprised if they trade McCollum at this point. He’s expected to rejoin the team in the next few games, so maybe he’ll be the featured guy for a few weeks just in time to be sold high at the February deadline.

Otherwise, mostly status quo at the bottom of the league.

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