ESPN.com
Monday, Jan. 21
It's the sort of thing you're bound to say after watching a guy score 52 points, but there's more to it than that. A lot more.
With the NBA's 30 teams either at or about to cross the 41-game midpoint on the regular-season schedule, Oklahoma City's Kevin Durant has the slight lead here over LeBron James in the Most Valuable Player race, since Durant -- on this scorecard -- is enjoying a fractionally better season than the guy in Miami universally regarded as the game's best overall player.
LeBron James has been as individually superlative as anticipated for the Heat, sporting a sparkling PER of 30.30 entering the Martin Luther King Day schedule, but the champs are barely over .500 on the road (10-9) and, in spite of James' nightly brilliance, struggling in a variety of areas. Durant, meanwhile, is not only right there in the PER race at 29.03 but also has the Thunder perched atop ESPN.com's weekly NBA Power Rankings despite the late October departure of James Harden.
Even after losing one of the West's best players -- and losing an OT thriller Sunday night in Denver after routing the Nuggets days earlier -- OKC heads into Tuesday's showdown in L.A. with Chris Paul's Clippers in possession of the No. 1 ranking. Setting the Thunder's just-get-on-with-it tone in spectacular fashion, Durant is shooting 51.6 percent from the floor, 40.4 percent from the 3-point line and 90.9 percent on free throws, all of which has put No. 35 on the brink of snatching the scoring lead away from Kobe Bryant after KD's 52-point eruption Friday night in Dallas.
The rankings, as always, were compiled with peerless assisting from ESPN Stats & Information and the Elias Sports Bureau. Click here to rank the teams yourself.
Also, check out John Hollinger's daily Power Rankings.
| 2012-13 Power Rankings: Week 12 | ||||
| RANK | TEAM / RECORD | TRENDING | COMMENTS | |
| 1 |
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Last Week: 1 | A true privilege to be in the building for Durant's 52 points. A mild surprise, too, even after KD's 40 against Dallas in December, since he showed up with a career scoring average of just 22.4 ppg against the Mavs -- and a FG percentage of .413 -- for his lifetime lows against any franchise. | ||
| 2 |
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Last Week: 2 | Painful as it is for me to admit, this franchise that spent nine seasons as my beloved Buffalo Braves has never posted a 50-win season, something only far younger franchises in Toronto (18 seasons) and Charlotte (nine) can match. At the midpoint of this season? The Clips are on a 64-win pace. | ||
| 3 |
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Last Week: 3 | Saturday night's road rout of Atlanta put a stop to San Antonio's 2-7 skid away from home after an 11-2 start on its travels this season. Last Wednesday's home rout of Memphis, meanwhile, made it a tidy 19 straight wins over fellow Southwest Division tenants at the AT&T Center. | ||
| 4 | 1 Last Week: 5 | Victories over the Warriors and Lakers salvaged something from the champs' long road trip, but concerns about defense and rebounding and size persist. Hence the signing of Birdman Andersen. Also: Miami is 20-2 when scoring 100 points ... but hit triple digits only once in its past eight games. | ||
| 5 | 1 Last Week: 4 | The Nuggets were in for an almighty scolding on this Monday -- harsher than a vintage blasting from George Karl's Furious George days -- after the home loss to the Wiz. Had to reconsider when the Nuggets found a way to avenge their heavy loss at OKC with Sunday's OT win over KD & Co. | ||
| 6 |
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Last Week: 6 | Every time I'm in an airport lately, I get stopped in my tracks by that shot of the Grizzlies' proud starting five on the March cover of SLAM magazine. Since there's obviously no guarantee, as the Feb. 21 trade deadline looms, all five of 'em will still be Grizzlies by the time we get to March. | ||
| 7 |
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Last Week: 7 | Monday's All-Defense Bowl in Memphis launched a tough four-game swing through the West for the Pacers, with stops in Portland, Utah and Denver to follow. Indy hits the road on course to become the first team in the bottom two in scoring to post a winning record since the 2004-05 Nets. | ||
| 8 | 1 Last Week: 9 | Remember that 10-0 start at MSG? The injury-hit Knicks are a mere 4-5 in their past nine home dates entering their Martin Luther King Day showdown with the Nets, missing Raymond Felton terribly and openly grateful that the trip to London meant last week was just a one-game week. | ||
| 9 | 1 Last Week: 10 | Buckle up. The toughest schedule stretch of the P.J. Carlesimo era starts with Monday's holiday visit to MSG and continues with stops in Minnesota, Memphis and Houston before our next batch of rankings ... with a homestand soon after that including visits from the Heat, Bulls and Lakers. | ||
| 10 | 4 Last Week: 14 | What would you say if we told you that only two players in the entire league have averaged at least 20 points and 10 boards per game since Christmas Day? They are: DeMarcus Cousins (22.3 ppg, 12.0 rpg) ... and the Bulls' late-charging All-Star hopeful Carlos Boozer (22.3 ppg and 12.0 rpg). | ||
| 11 | 3 Last Week: 8 | Glass-half-empty: Steph Curry's three-month run with no ankle woes is over and Denver looks primed to bump the Dubs down to sixth in the West. Glass-half-full: Curry missed only two games, he or David Lee should be an All-Star by week's end and Andrew Bogut's return is inching closer. | ||
| 12 | 3 Last Week: 15 | Utahns swamped the committee with Twitter protests Friday when their heroes' modest 44-win pace was pointed out, noting that several home games loom between now and the All-Star break to pick up that pace. Maybe the Jazz can weather Mo Williams' absence better than expected. | ||
| 13 | 4 Last Week: 17 | Now that the Bucks have finally halted a desert drought of 26 years without a win in Phoenix, on to the next: Did you know they haven't had an All-Star since our man Michael Redd in 2004? That'll tie Sacramento for the new league lead if Golden State, as expected, gets an All-Star this week. | ||
| 14 | 2 Last Week: 12 | What were we saying last Monday about how the Blazers' success in close games couldn't last? They promptly lost in OT for the first time all season at Denver, fell at home to the Cavs and Bucks by a combined 11 points and are mired in a five-game skid with all five Ls by six points or fewer. | ||
| 15 | 2 Last Week: 13 | Uh-oh. Just when all of New England needs a pick-me-up after the Pats' failure to reach the Super Bowl, Doc Rivers' Celtics lose three in a row to (A) bring an abrupt halt to all that Avery Bradley savior talk and (B) force Danny Ainge to resume those should-I-just-blow-this-team-up ruminations. | ||
| 16 | 5 Last Week: 11 | That crash you just heard is the sound of the high-speed Rockets, after scoring 115 or more points a league-leading 12 times -- compared to zero last season -- hitting the half-season wall. Seven straight defeats, six of them on the road, is Houston's longest skid since a 15-gamer in the winter of 2001. | ||
| 17 | 1 Last Week: 16 | The allegedly "new" season that began with the home rout of Cleveland is already starting to feel like the same season. Make it a 2-8 record in 2013, five straight Ls on the road and the unmistakable look of a team that isn't just injury-riddled but increasingly unhappy in each other's company. | ||
| 18 | 5 Last Week: 23 | Playing so many close games, especially after Dirk Nowitzki missed the season's first 27, is one reason the Mavs refuse to believe they're as poor as their record shows. The score has amazingly been within three points in the final 30 seconds in 25 of their 42 games ... with Dallas just 8-17 so far. | ||
| 19 |
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Last Week: 19 | Cannot tell a lie: Seeing Austin Daye tweet this, implying that the Pistons' trip to London was in some way either exceedingly taxing or just really long, did not sit well with the committee (of one). Not at all. It was only a couple of days and, yes, we're still highly bitter about being absent. | ||
| 20 | 2 Last Week: 18 | Brave of Larry Drew to admit he's "got to find a way to resuscitate this team," since such comments tend to drive up the temperature on the coach's seat. Losing Lou Williams doesn't help, either, after the Hawks initially responded to the 58-point debacle in Chicago by toasting Brooklyn. | ||
| 21 | 3 Last Week: 24 | Instinct tells me he's going to have a tough time actually snagging an All-Star spot, even in a down year for East guards, but Jrue Holiday is making the most convincing push he can, posting two of his four career 30-point games last week and averaging 21.7 ppg, 9.2 apg and 4.4 rpg in January. | ||
| 22 | 2 Last Week: 20 | Fulfilling as it was to plunge the Lakers deeper into crisis, Toronto couldn't celebrate as robustly as it wanted to Sunday. Not after losing back-to-back OT crushers against the Bulls and Sixers ... including the painful squandering of a four-point lead in the final eight seconds of regulation in Philly. | ||
| 23 | 1 Last Week: 22 | Anthony Davis is working his way back slowly from those ankle woes, averaging a modest 11 and 7 in January while shooting 44 percent from the line this month. The flip side? Greivis Vasquez, over his past 19 games, is at 16.7 ppg, 10.1 apg and 5.3 rpg, second only to CP3 in assists in that span. | ||
| 24 | 3 Last Week: 21 | Starting to think we cursed 'em back in September when we gushed about "the most fascinating pack of Wolves since Sam Cassell left town." As my man Sean Deveney of the Sporting News notes, Rick Adelman has seen Kevin Love and Ricky Rubio in the starting lineup together just 27 times. | ||
| 25 | 3 Last Week: 28 | Promising signs? The wholly unexpected W at Denver was the Wizards' fifth, somehow, against .500-or-better teams: Miami, OKC, Portland, Atlanta ... and the snoozing Nuggets. John Wall has made them watchable again; Bradley Beal is up to 18.6 ppg in January after 11.2 ppg in November. | ||
| 26 | 1 Last Week: 27 | Losing at home to Charlotte was no way to start a stretch of five straight games against sub-.500 foes ... especially after stunning Indy. Really surprised, meanwhile, that Professor Hollinger didn't gloat more before he left us about how emerging Magic C Nikola Vucevic was born in Switzerland. | ||
| 27 | 3 Last Week: 30 | Kyrie Irving is up to six 30-point games this season after just one as a rook. Tristan Thompson is up to 11 doubles in 16 games since Andy Varejao went down. And the schedule, most crucially, eases up in the second half after the young, beat-up Cavs played 26 of their first 42 games on the road. | ||
| 28 | 3 Last Week: 25 | On-court concerns aren't exactly at the top of the list right now, but it certainly can't help the mood when someone brings up the fact no King averages more than John Salmons' 3.2 assists per game ... or the fact they haven't had an All-Star since Peja Stojakovic and Brad Miller in 2004. | ||
| 29 | 3 Last Week: 26 | The state of the post-Steve Nash Suns is such that Alvin Gentry has been receiving congratulations more than commiserations from peers in the coaching biz. With Kings seemingly bound for a renaissance in Seattle, Phoenix might well be the new fallen West giant with the bleakest outlook. | ||
| 30 | 1 Last Week: 29 | Michael Jordan's Bobcats have lost 14 straight home games. The Bobcats play five home games between Martin Luther King Day and MJ's 50th birthday on Feb. 17. The longest home losing streak during the past 25 seasons happens to be Dallas' 19-gamer from November 1993 through January 1994. | ||
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