NBA power rankings: Thunder rule, Bucks crumble

Welcome to HoopsHype’s bi-weekly power rankings! I’ll be here every other Monday to look around the league and rank teams based on a proprietary blend of championship potential, recent performance, secret spices, and more.

While these power rankings are heavily correlated with the actual NBA standings, they are a little more forward-looking. For example, the 76ers are off to an atrocious start, but we know they’ll be better when their stars take the court.

This is, of course, a subjective exercise. Things are bound to change dramatically in each iteration, particularly early in the season. Little conclusively separates the vast majority of teams this early in the year, so if I have your favorite team ranked eight spots too low in your mind, I won’t argue with you!

Truthfully, the actual rankings are secondary to the meat of the article (even though I know the little number next to each team’s name is the only thing people care about). I want to use this space to write something interesting about each team. To kick things off, I looked at early season X-Factors for each squad, an outsized reason for a team’s initial success and failures. The small sample caveats still apply – we’re not even 10 percent into the season yet –  but wins and losses are actualized results. If a player shot 90 percent from three and helped his team steal a victory, that obviously won’t last, but it does still matter.