Welcome to The Athletic’s NBA Power Rankings. Every week, we ask all of our NBA writers to rank the teams from 1-30. Here are the collective results after the first six weeks of the 2018-19 season.
For the first time this season, the Golden State Warriors have relinquished their seat atop the board. I’ll throw a SPOILER ALERT into the mix here but they’re not even second this week. Two plucky, title-crazy teams looking to establish themselves as the best in the NBA received higher marks than the back-to-back defending champions. Part of this needs to be graded or viewed on a curve. Or at least, that’s my interpretation of what’s happening in this week’s rankings.
It’s naive to assume the Warriors won’t end up with the championship. Even with the in-house spats between Draymond Green and Kevin Durant, Golden State expects to throw another parade in June. We all expect them to throw another parade in June. If you’re...