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Let's face it — the best and most powerful teams in the NBA don't really change from week to week. A handful of results in the middle of winter can only mean so much to a franchise's championship hopes. What does shift regularly, though, is how much interest a squad can hold over the course of a season. Every Monday, BDL's Most Interesting Power Rankings track the teams most worthy of your attention. [ Follow Dunks Don't Lie on Tumblr: The best slams from all of basketball ] THE TOP 15 1. Golden State Warriors (26-1; last week : 2): I adore our man Dan Devine as much as I adore the San Antonio Spurs, and respect the Spurs as much as I respect Dan Devine. However, any “ Interesting Power Ranking ” that leaves the Warriors out of the top spot, at least in this guy’s eyes, needs to have a rather compelling argument. Dan made one with the Spurs , and I get it – this team is as formidable as any other No. 2 that we’ve seen in years. With the Lakers ? I get it – Kobe Bryant and Byron Scott are wack-a-doodle. “Wack-a-Doodle” is probably some game that actually exists that they play after practice. The Warriors are in their own realm, though, successfully pairing panache with precision and potentially making it to the Christmas Day showdown with Cleveland – one we were salivating over in August – having lost one game in 197 days that’s one-niner-seven guys . I’m still trying to figure out how the Warriors made it out of its recent road trip with just one blemish to its name. We’re not here to tell you that this team is better than the greats we’ve seen in the past, it’s too early for that, but … I'm not crying I'm just realizing that this year's Warriors might be better than my favorite team ever. pic.twitter.com/NLbwb6i3Ad — Kelly Dwyer (@KDonhoops) December 17, 2015 2. Cleveland Cavaliers (18-7; LW: 5): Things are about to get even more interesting with this team. Kyrie Irving’s return produced a win over the Philadelphia 76ers, no surprise there, and modest debut numbers of 12 points (on 12 shots) and four assists in 17 minutes. The Cavaliers didn’t need Irving to topple the lowly Sixers – they wouldn’t have needed both Iman Shumperts as long as LeBron James and Kevin Love were around – but it was good for Irving to get some reps in prior to Friday’s showdown with the Warriors. He’ll have another game on Wednesday prior to that pairing. Meanwhile, Richard Jefferson remains the most fascinating single-digit Player Efficiency Rating player in the league to me. He’s not really out there doing anything save for sound and stat-less defense, and yet he looks as if he’s earned every single second of his 23.1 minutes per game. All hail Keith Bogans 2.0. 3. San Antonio Spurs (23-5; LW: 1): The Spurs had themselves a merry, little undefeated week, and if your family asks at the dinner table o Friday why, exactly, they’re still so damn good, here’s the accessible take: San Antonio’s 2003-04 and 2004-05 teams basically laid out the blueprint for how teams should defend in the modern, “can’t shove a point guard” ( sometimes , at least), era. They mind the three-point line, they try not to foul, and they encourage you to take that two-point jumper while you yell “Kobe!” While all your friends were watching that ‘Chappelle Show’ DVD for the 192nd time, they were sweating over game tape, realizing that until the NBA mixes up its rules, this is the way to play things. They’ve literally been doing this since before YouTube. Over a decade later, this is more or less still the game plan. It doesn’t hurt that the team has heady, massive big men on its side, and that the offense has gone through the roof over the last three weeks. 4. Oklahoma City Thunder (18-9; LW: 3): It took a road setting and a regression from the helpers for OKC’s six-game winning streak to fall short this week, as the team fell by four points in Cleveland on Thursday. The loss reminded of some of the Thunder’s more worrying times, as Kevin Durant, Serge Ibaka and Russell Westbrook all scored over 20 (with Ibaka showing off what has become a 41 percent three-point stroke), and yet it still not standing up as enough in the end. This is working, though. The team dutifully responded with a 40-point win over the Lakers on Saturday, and lineups featuring even Dion Waiters are working thus far. This team could be on the verge of a massive run. 5. Miami Heat (16-8, LW: unranked): Mainly for this: The defense has gotten a little softer and the squad lost four of seven prior to Sunday’s win over Portland, but seeing someone like Chris Bosh comfortable in his own skin will forever remain one of the happier blessings of the last five NBA years. 6. Los Angeles Clippers (16-12; LW: unranked): (You and I both know that I’m totally doing a Hubie Brown voice right now.) First, you got your J.J. Redick: “We know where we’re at. We’re not as good as San Antonio or Golden State. Obviously, Monday (against Oklahoma City) will be a test. But, we’re not there,” J.J. Redick said. “We know that.” Then, on the other side of the court , here’s Chris Paul: “We’re not a team that anybody needs to worry about, not right now,” said Paul, whose team plays host to Oklahoma City on Monday night at 7:30 at Staples Center. “I think we still have a lot of work to do. Being how our team was last year, we are behind, as far as figuring out that trust and stuff like that, so we just have to keep building.” They’re not wrong, folks. They’re not wrong! (We’re still gonna stay up to see that late Clipper game on Friday, though. To say nothing of that Thunder game on Monday.) 7. New York Knicks (14-14; LW: unranked): Four wins in a row including victories over a rebuilding team from Portland, the team that had the worst record in the NBA last season in Minnesota, a team that hates the sport of basketball from Philadelphia, and a sniping Bulls team that flew almost halfway across America after a four overtime loss . Don’t care. The idea that the NBA needs the Knicks to be successful in order to thrive is bonkers – the Knicks have been mostly terrible since 2001 and the NBA has improved and thrived in myriad ways in the years since then. It’s fun to watch the team learning how to find seams in early offense after walking the ball up last year. It’s fun to watch Carmelo Anthony in what could be his last All-Star level year. Kristaps Porzingis is adorable and he’ll also dunk on you. It’s fun to watch competent New York Knick basketball in Madison Square Garden. If you don’t linger there with remote in hand, even if the Cavs and whomever are playing just a few channels over, there’s something wrong there. 8. Houston Rockets (14-14; LW: 12): We’re either about to see the complete and total destruction of what was once a legitimate championship contender – a team just seven months removed from the Conference finals – or one of the great re-births in recent years. The Rockets’ upcoming schedule is one of the tougher slates we’ve seen in years, the push-back from one of the easiest starts to a season that we’ve seen in, um, years. The team’s .500 record is in no way indicative of a yin/yang scenario; this team loses to good teams, and it beats bad teams (sometimes barely). Even with James Harden still dropping nearly 30 a night, these Rockets might be done by mid-January. We don’t enjoy this, but it’s still worth watching. 9. Indiana Pacers (16-10; LW: unranked): Listen, I know we tried this already with the Golden State Warriors. The Pacers weren’t just the hip pick to knock a dent into GSW’s winning streak, they legitimately were the team’s best most-recent opponent, and probably the real reason ( we factor a late-game comeback and Klay Thompson injury over a too-long overtime game ) why the Warriors eventually fell in Milwaukee.
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