There’s a reason I’m billing this the World’s Greatest NBA Rankings, beyond mere chutzpah. Or cojones, if you know more Spanish than Yiddish. Or, if you don’t understand either, bal–, ah, forget it. I not only rank the NBA teams, according to some rational/intuitive system even I don’t understand, I tell you what it all means. Nothing. Well, not quite nothing, hopefully, or I’m wasting a lot more time doing these than you are reading them. As an exercise, it’s so labor intensive for
They say summer is over once Labor Day is behind us. A few of us know better, but let’s play to the crowd anyway. And if summer is over, it is time to start looking at the upcoming season and ranking the 30 NBA teams – as we will do twice a week, every week, during the regular season. For a look back my final power rankings from last season, click here. And for a view of how senior columnist Mark Heisler’s final
At this point of every season, even 66-game ones, I like to offer a little prayer of thanksgiving: Thank heavens that’s over! If you want to know who I ranked first, instead of copping out again with a 12-way tie, the answer is San Antonio. If you want to know who proved themselves to be best, that would be no one. Not that the regular season was going to tell much about the elite teams, unless one went 60-6. For all the opinions spouted from
Here they are, the last Power Rankings of the season. And I didn’t pull a Heisler and give five teams a No. 1 ranking — although I think we all understood his point when he did that last Wednesday. As painful as it is to write this, watch out for the Hawks and Pacers in the East. Yes, they aren’t all that fun to watch. But you may be watching both of them in the second round. The first round is shaping up
As the drama builds for the ultimate honor that Sheridan Power Rankings (Wednesday Edition) can confer, the leader going into the last week is…. What leader? I can’t think of anyone who should be No. 1, or at least who deserves to have it to itself, so I have a five-way tie for No. 1. No one has led anything lately. Chicago has the best record, plays the best ball night-in and night-out and would be an easy pick… if Derrick Rose didn’t keep
As Mark Heisler continually points out in his Power Rankings (Wednesday edition), we have an actual postseason tournament to properly rank the teams, but placing them from 1-30 on a weekly basis is not only fun, it gives us a chance to check in on the relative strengths and weaknesses of teams we otherwise might pay little or no attention to. For this week’s rankings, I am including two wishes: A Miami-New York first-round series, to give a new generation a
We have a little shakeup at the top of the rankings, or say good-bye to the Thunder (now No. 3), Bulls (5) and Heat (6). And our newest leader, and The New Team No One Wants to Meet in the Playoffs is…. The Spurs? OK, there’s a stipulation. This is only if Gregg Popovich brings his whole team, since he doesn’t always. While the other good teams have been taking it between the eyeballs, the Spurs coach saw his team win 11 in a
We are now being rewarded for what we all endured during the lockout. There are less than three weeks left in the regular season, both conferences have compelling races at both the top and the bottom, and no team is a sure thing in the playoffs (unless somebody gets to play Philadelphia). Yes, we are down on the Sixers, whose swoon has put them in jeopardy of missing the playoffs after they led the Atlantic Division for 80 percent of the season. We