Power rankings Week 16 – OKC Thunder take a dip

In week 16 of  NBA power rankings lists pundits unanimously view the OKC Thunder as an upper echelon squad. Scribes ranked OKC Thunder with a high of 4th and low of 10th.

Once again the OKC Thunder were uniformly hit by the pundits who weren’t impressed by the losses. Pundits don’t rank based on teams having to travel through six time zones for six games. Although they may take facts like that into consideration the scribes recognize every team will experience trials over the course of 82 games.

That said the OKC Thunder are one club who will be anxious to get to the break. This squad needs to rest – big time.

Week 16 of power ranking lists cover games played at the Washington Wizards and Denver Nuggets as well as the New Orleans Pelicans and LA Lakers at home. The one caveat is Grant Hughes of Bleacher Report who runs his lists on the weekend (so, they are generally two games behind his peers).

NBA.com – John Schuhmann

Stats magician John Schuhmann wasn’t impressed by the OKC Thunder regression dropping them five spots to 10th. Despite dropping the team five spots Schuhmann recognizes the Thunder have suffered an absolutely brutal schedule on top of dealing with losses.

"The Thunder have gone from eight straight wins to four straight losses, perhaps falling victim to a schedule that had them playing six games in nine days, with two road-home back-to-backs. The losing streak has mostly been about bad offense, with players not named Paul George shooting 22 percent from 3-point range and Terrance Ferguson scoring a total of two points in his five starts since Andre Roberson’s injury. But there was also some brutal final-minute execution in Washington on Monday and some bad defensive stretches on Thursday in Denver and over the weekend against the Pelicans and Lakers."

ESPN – Panel

All season the panel has seemingly kept the OKC Thunder at a distance. While they’ve been able to rationalize the Cavaliers terrible defense no slack was given for the Thunder. And, although this weeks article opened focusing on OKC’s win streak the panel still refused to move them into their top five. Instead they moved the team up one spot from 7th to 6th.

ESPN’s panel:

ESPN: Kevin Arnovitz | Amin Elhassan |Ramona Shelburne

The Undefeated: Marc J. Spears | FiveThirtyEight: Chris Herring

"The Thunder play the Warriors for the second time this season on Tuesday. In their previous meeting, Oklahoma City won by 17 points and held Kevin Durant to 21 points on 47 percent shooting, his fewest points and worst field goal percentage against his former team. — Jose De Leon"

Sports Illustrated – The Crossover

Last week Kenny Ducey held the OKC Thunder in third. This week I searched high and low, but couldn’t find an entry on power rankings for the scribe. Perhaps he took his All-Star break early.

CBS Sports:

Chris Barnewell chose to address this week of his power ranking by suggesting if teams should make trades or not. For the OKC Thunder he dropped them from third to ninth citing the loss of Andre Roberson necessitating a trade.

"The Thunder would have been fine standing pat before the Andre Roberson injury. Now, they should be exploring for someone that can fill his role as a perimeter stopper. There’s no perfect replacement out there, but they need a body."

Bleacher Report:

Grant Hughes speaks to the issues of late for the OKC Thunder. In spite of his concerns he holds the squad steady in 4th.

"The Oklahoma City Thunder are effectively treating their tendency toward offensive stagnation, checking in at No. 2 in scoring efficiency over the last month. But 37.5 percent shooting and some familiar gummed-up possessions during Tuesday’s 102-96 loss to the Wizards suggest the condition might not be cured….OKC’s fundamentals on D are solid overall, and it forces turnovers on a higher percentage of plays than anyone in the league. But Roberson’s on-off impact was profound. With him on the floor, the Thunder defended over three points per 100 possessions better than the league-leading Celtics. Without him, they’ve been about even with the Hawks’ 26th-ranked defense."

That wraps up week 16 lists. Next week there are only four days of action in the NBA as teams wind down in preparation for the All-Star Break which runs in Los Angeles next weekend. For the OKC Thunder they’ll week 17 will include just two games in a back to back set versus the revamped Cleveland Cavaliers and the Memphis Grizzlies on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Next: Top 10 Buyout Candidates for OKC

Then Russell Westbrook and Paul George will head to LA to participate in the All-Star festivities while the rest of the team gets some R and R.