Colin Maruscsak, Staff Writer |
Everyone has been talking about the Minnesota Timberwolves since the start of the NBA Season. Their strong start to the season has been thanks to the stellar performance of Karl-Anthony Towns. In the first week of games he is averaging 32 points, 13 rebounds, and five assists. This strong performance has been noticed by not only Timberwolves fans, but all of the NBA, as Towns was named the Western Conference Player of the Week. The question that remains however is how long the good times will last for the Timberwolves as their 3-0 start was against all Eastern Conference teams.
Over on the Eastern Conference side of things, Trae Young and the Atlanta Hawks have been notable, having a strong start to the season going undefeated in their first week of games. Time will tell how it holds up for them, but with Trae Young averaging 38.5 points, seven rebounds, and nine assists, they look to be in good shape so far. Due to Trae Young’s performance, he was named NBA’s Player of the Week for the Eastern Conference.
While some teams go up, others must go down. The regular playoff powerhouse team, the Golden State Warriors, were winless throughout their first week of games. While it is too early to make any playoff speculations regarding this team, they have dropped 11 places in the overall NBA Power Rankings. Not only that, they failed to hold a lead in either of their first two games, falling behind 14-0 against Oklahoma City and 8-0 against the Clippers.
Joining Golden State in the freefall is the Sacramento Kings. They rank dead last offensively compared to all other teams, also going winless in their first week of games. Coupled with the injury of Marvin Bagley fracturing his finger, it will be a hard sell to put the Kings anywhere but last place on the overall power ranking, dropping a whopping 11 places since the beginning of the season.
Some other teams to watch out for are the Utah Jazz and the Phoenix Suns. After being ranked last defensively in the preseason, the Jazz have stepped up their defensive play and are currently ranked number one in the league. However, they will be facing tough teams early on in their schedule so it will be interesting to see how the team holds up against some of the league’s high caliber offenses. As for the Suns, they have not only played better offensively this season, but have also had some outstanding defensive play, improving from previous seasons. In the past three seasons, Phoenix was a bottom three ranked defense, now they are ranked eleventh. They will also be a team to watch in the coming weeks to see if they can keep up their offensive and defensive presence shown early on.
Leave a Reply