In the last seven days the Warriors played four games and they finished with a mediocre 2-2 record. After holding the top spot in most power ranking these last few weeks, the Warriors were bound to lose a few games. They still have the best record in the NBA, which should be good enough to make a case for the number one spot, but other teams have been getting hot lately.
The Warriors will play their next five games at home, which should help them increase their lead in the Pacific Division. However, they will host some tough opponents to start the new year. The Thunder, Raptors and Cavaliers will come to the Bay Area and the Warriors are struggling with injuries to their big men.
Most of the major sports media outlets released their weekly power rankings and we brought them all together to see where the Warriors land:
ESPN:
Thoughts:
Don’t get me wrong, the Bulls are a really good team, but they went up six spots? Yes, they beat the Raptors and Wizards, but they have four more losses than the Warriors and did they forget about the Bulls losing to the Dubs at home? I understand the double digit loss to the Lakers looks bad, but I think the Bulls should be below the Warriors.
Yahoo:
Thoughts:
Interesting, the Bulls don’t even show up in the top five of Yahoo’s power rankings. The Warriors still claim the top spot, which makes sense. Injuries could be looked at as the reason they lost back-to-back games, but they still should have beaten the Lakers. Nevertheless, only five losses in their first 29 games and that should be good enough to hold the number one spot.
Sports Illustrated:
Thoughts:
Sports Illustrated also decided to crown the Bulls with their number one spot, last week they were 14. According to them, two wins against two good Eastern Conference opponents justifies giving the Bulls the top spot. Also, it looks like they are punishing for the Warrior for the loss of Andrew Bogut and they are not sold on Festus Ezeli.