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Prematurely Ranking the NBA with SBNation NBA Bloggers

Power rankings mean nothing at all. So let us proceed to debate them!

USA TODAY Sports

It is way too early to predict how the NBA is going to shake out next year, but that won't stop us from trying. As you saw earlier this morning, the SBN NBA blogs compiled their best guess at ranking all 30 teams for an aggregate power ranking list.

For full disclosure I thought I'd post my rankings (compared to the rest of the list). Why? Well, so you can point and laugh and generally make fun of me - that's why. Some additional thoughts below the list:

Jeff's Rank
Teams Final Ranking Average Ranking Best Worst
1 Heat 1 1 1 1
2 Thunder 2 3 2 7
3 Clippers 5 4.7 2 9
4 Bulls 6 6.2 4 9
5 Spurs 3 3.8 2 7
6 Rockets 7 6.7 3 11
7 Nets 8 7.5 3 11
8 Pacers 4 4.4 2 8
9 Grizzlies 9 8.7 7 11
10 Warriors 10 9.4 6 11
11 Knicks 11 11 9 14
12 Nuggets 13 13.9 12 22
13 Mavericks 19 18.3 13 26
14 Timberwolves 12 13.5 12 19
15 Wizards 17 17.4 14 23
16 Lakers 20 19.3 15 23
17 Cavaliers 18 17.9 11 24
18 Trail Blazers 15 15.5 12 18
19 Hawks 14 14.2 10 21
20 Pelicans 16 17.4 13 23
21 Pistons 21 20.5 18 24
22 Celtics 26 25.5 22 28
23 Raptors 22 21.7 18 28
24 Bobcats 27 26.8 23 30
25 Kings 24 24.7 21 27
26 Bucks 23 22.2 16 27
27 Jazz 25 25.3 22 30
28 Suns 29 28.1 24 30
29 Magic 28 27.3 21 30
30 Sixers 30 29.7 27 30

It is very possible that I'm underrating the Pacers. I just kind of feel like you can put teams 2 through 8 into a hat and rank them that way and have just as good a chance of getting it right and the Pacers just happened to be the low team in my hat.

The Celtics have a pretty wide range. Someone put them as low as 28. As you can see, I was the most optimistic of their chances (I was the only 22 vote). So don't tell me that I'm not optimistic enough about the team! Ok, you can tell me that if you want. Bill Simmons is trying to talk himself into predicting 45 wins. Maybe everything will fall right and we'll win the Championship this year. I haven't the foggiest. But I think I'll go with an optimistically pessimistic starting point and be pleasantly surprised and/or understandably disappointed. Or something like that. I think I just confused myself. Let's move on.

I keep coming back to my theory of splitting the league into 3 categories of 10. The contenders are up top, then there's the middle ground, then there's the lottery bound teams. There will of course be movement between the various groupings this year, but for the most part I think it will be shuffling the deck within those categories.

Looking back at this, I think I should have ranked the Pistons higher. Not necessarily because of the Jennings trade (which happened after these rankings) so much as the emergence of Drummond and Monroe to pair with Jennings and Smith. That's not a title contender, but they could be a solid 5 or 6 seed.

I probably ranked the Mavs too high and the Hawks too low, but they both changed so much that I'm not sure I could name you either team's starting five off the top of my head.

So enough about me, what do YOU think about me? Or rather, what are your thoughts on any of the rankings.

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