NBA Power Rankings: Can Anyone Catch the Houston Rockets? - Bleacher Report

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Last week's ranking in parentheses.

      

30. Phoenix Suns (30)

If the Suns don't win a game for the rest of this season (which might be tougher than you think with the Sacramento Kings and Dallas Mavericks still on the schedule), they'll have 66 total victories over the last three years.

The Houston Rockets have to go just 5-2 over their final seven games to match that number.

When's the last time someone pushed the NBA to consider Premier League-style relegation? Just curious...

      

29. Chicago Bulls (28)

Like everyone else in these lower reaches, the Bulls just keep losing. They're on a seven-game slide, and when getting tank commander Zach LaVine back from left knee tendonitis counts as a glimmer of hope on the horizon, you get a sense of just how bad things have gotten.

LaVine is a deeply damaging defender who scores inefficiently while using a ton of possessions. If the Bulls throw big money at him in free agency, it'll be a mistake. Better to build around Lauri Markkanen, who, weeks ago, set the record for most threes made in a season by a rookie 6'10" or taller. In a league increasingly obsessed with floor-stretching size, Markkanen projects as immensely valuable.

...And that's how you do a glass-half-full take on the Bulls.

   

28. New York Knicks (26)

"It was kinda a statement game for him," Bradley Beal told reporters of Trey Burke's efforts against the Washington Wizards on Sunday. "He made it personal"

Burke, who washed out with the Wiz last season, scored 19 points and hit the go-ahead layup (plus a foul) in the New York Knicks' 101-97 victory.

Frank Ntilikina and Burke started that one together, signaling the organization's dissatisfaction with the brief Emmanuel Mudiay experiment. Burke's solid play of late goes to show that tanking teams can use the meaningless stretch run to do more than develop their own young prospects. They can also go out and find distressed assets worth saving—like Burke.

       

27. Memphis Grizzlies (29)

The Grizzlies lost by a zillion (OK, 61) on the final day of the last rankings session, offsetting a win from earlier in the week. But then they went out and won another game, a 101-93 victory in Minnesota on Monday, after which they stunned the Portland Trail Blazers on Wednesday to complete a 2-1 week.

Marshon Brooks, playing his first NBA game in over four years, hit seven of his 12 shots and took over the game in the fourth quarter, drilling four treys in the final 5:56.

This isn't how you're supposed to tank, but the absurd theater of the Brooks explosion was worth it.

      

26. Orlando Magic (27)

Aaron Gordon put up 29 points, 11 rebounds and eight assists in Saturday's win over the Suns, giving him easily his best totals since returning from a concussion on March 20. In fact, it may have been the most complete statistical game of Gordon's career.

He'd never amassed those three-category totals before, and the 29 points tied for the ninth-highest scoring total of Gordon's career. The eight assists? A career high.

Orlando moves up—less because of the win (over Phoenix, so big whoop) and more because Gordon is closing the season on a high note.

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