If you thought this column was taking an All-Star break you were dead wrong.
The NBA is back once and for all after another historic-but-forgettable All-Star weekend break that saw Mac McClung match Nate Robinson’s three Slam Dunk Contest championships, as well as a horrible mini-tournament smacked in the middle of some sort of weirdly cringe TV show featuring Kevin Hart and some other folks.
Anyway, with a few games being played at the start of last week and not quite factored by all pundits ranking squads across the nation, it made sense for them to drop a slightly updated version of the Power Rankings coming off the ASW.
And hey, your Knicks found a way to move up the ranks after putting up a solid back-to-back winning slate with victories over Indiana and Atlanta last week. Yay!
Here’s a roundup of all the power rankings posted at different outlets through Tuesday’s matchups, capturing the national perception of the Knicks among the basketball elite.
Note: I have included a +/- next to each rank, with a minus sign (-) meaning dropping down and a plus sign (+) meaning climbing up X spots compared to last week’s position on that outlet.
NBA — No. 5 — New York Knicks (-)
John Schuhmann of NBA.com wasn’t overly impressed by New York’s back-to-back wins last week, leaving the Knicks right where he placed them a week ago.
The official power rankings will settle once and for all, with New York facing their next three opponents between Thursday and Sunday thus making all three games count for the next update of Schuhmann’s power rankings.
“The Knicks’ starting lineup has played 806 minutes, 278 more than any other lineup in the league. It has outscored opponents by 5.4 points per 100 possessions, a mark which ranks ninth among 20 lineups that have played at least 200 minutes.
“Brunson leads the league in time of possession (8.7 minutes per game) and clutch usage rate (46.5%), with the latter being the highest rate for any player in the last six seasons. He’s one of two players – Nikola Jokić is the other – who’ve shot better than 50% (34-for-64) on at least 50 clutch shots.
“Josh Hart has a career-best effective field goal percentage of 61%, up from 49.3% last season. That’s the biggest jump by a wide margin among 85 players with at least 500 field goal attempts in each of the last two seasons. Mikal Bridges (from 52.1% to 56.9%) has seen the sixth biggest jump, though he’s also seen the biggest drop in free throw rate among that group.” — John Schuhmann
The only change on Schuhmann’s top 10 involved the Los Angeles Clippers moving up a couple of spots from No. 12 to becoming the tenth-best team across the L.
The Athletic — No. 4 — New York Knicks (+1)
Law Murray of The Athletic started the season hating the Knicks with a fierce passion but that feeling started to settle a while ago and now it’s turned into to pure love.
The pundit moved up the Knicks, slotting them in fourth place and rising their stock a bit coming off this Cancun week.
For this edition of the ranks, Murray decided to highlight a moment from the ASW involving each of the NBA teams. You bet he had to find a way to drop some hate on New York, so that was it. Sheesh.
“Whatever tips Jalen Brunson got from 2022 3-point contest winner Karl-Anthony Towns didn’t work, as Brunson was a quick out Saturday night. Towns then went on to get a win over Brunson in the first All-Star semifinal.” — Law Murray
The Knicks moving up meant the Grizzlies had to drop, and they did so one spot taking the final slot belonging to Tier 1: Top Contenders.
What are your thoughts on the ranks above? Where do you have the Knicks ranked after they split their first six games of the season? Drop your hot takes in the comments section below!