NBA Power Rankings: OKC Thunder punished for tough week 6
Week six NBA power rankings lists find the OKC Thunder ranked as high as 14th and as low as 20th.
Week six power rankings find scribes dropping the OKC Thunder for their poor performance particularly against the Mavericks. Though some pundits appreciated the win versus the Warriors the elephant in the room (offense) simply can’t be ignored.
Week six featured four games for the OKC Thunder who beat the Warriors, lost close matches to the Pelican and Pistons prior to the embarrassing loss to the Mavericks.
OKC Thunder power rank by scribe:
NBA.com – John Schuhmann
The NBA stats master John Schuhmann drops the OKC Thunder four spots to 14th this week. While Schuhmann appreciates the big win over the Warriors he notes the offensive woes which inexplicably continue to rage on.
"The Thunder seemingly put it all together in Wednesday’s win over the champs, holding the league’s best offense under 90 points per 100 possessions. And then they blew a 15-point, second-half lead to Detroit on Friday and couldn’t make a shot in Dallas on Saturday. They’ve lost four of their last five games overall and six straight on the road. Since Carmelo Anthony missed a game with a sore back, they changed the rotation so that Paul George is the All-Star that plays some minutes without the other two, and they’ve been pretty terrible, getting outscored by 44 points and shooting 4-for-25 from 3-point range, in 41 George-only minutes over the last six games. George’s 1-for-12 on Saturday was the second worst shooting performance in the 422 career games (including playoffs) in which he’s attempted at least 10 shots."
ESPN – Panel
The ESPN panel also moved the Thunder down. The panel drop OKC two spots to 15th.
ESPN’s panel:
ESPN: Kevin Arnovitz | Amin Elhassan |Ramona Shelburne
The Undefeated: Marc J. Spears | FiveThirtyEight: Chris Herring
"The Thunder snapped a seven-game head-to-head losing streak against the Warriors, but have since lost two straight — one perpetuating their clutch time failures this season in a loss to the Pistons and their worst loss of the season by 16 points to a Mavericks team that entered tied for the second-worst record in the league. Oklahoma City is 0-9 in games decided by eight points or fewer and 0-8 in road games against the West. — Vincent Johnson"
Sports Illustrated – The Crossover:
Kenny Ducey has consistently dropped the OKC Thunder every week so it’s not surprising he drops them again. This week it’s a four spots to 18th, which seems a little aggressive.
"I know the Thunder continue to slide in these rankings week after week—and they beat the Warriors last week, which is a huge deal—but they’re not nearly as dangerous as they should be right now. Melo just hasn’t clicked with this unit yet, though he and Russ have improved their play together."
CBS Sports:
A week after Chris Barnewell finally gave OKC a little love he’s back to disliking the Thunder dropping them two spots down to 20th. Ironically he notes the second ranked defense and net rating, but doesn’t seem to believe those caveats are enough to point to their eventual rise up the ladder. Hopefully the OKC Thunder prove him wrong.
"The Thunder have the second-best defense in the NBA. They have the sixth best net rating. They just blew out the Warriors. Why are they this low? Because they let the Mavericks blow them out and have lost four of five. How can a good team be this bad?"
Each week this season TI will share where the pundits rank the OKC Thunder and offer our insight on the trends from the previous week. Week seven just occurred and featured games against the Orlando Magic, Minnesota Timberwolves. Today the OKC Thunder play the San Antonio Spurs, get ready for the game with the full pregame analysis here.