NBA power rankings 2024-25: Thunder take over top spot behind MVP-worthy Shai Gilgeous-Alexander

It’s Christmas in Las Vegas with the NBA Cup this next week, and one of the teams in Sin City for the final four has taken over the top spot on these NBA Power Rankings.

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1. Oklahoma City Thunder (19-5, Last Week No. 4). Shai Gilgeous-Alexander added to his MVP case by dropping 39 on Dallas in Tuesday’s NBA Cup win (the Thunder are on to Las Vegas). Here, SGA talks about how his game evolved into something unlike the other stars of the NBA: “I was always taught how to play really well. So that foundation and then being smaller, growing up, I had to really figure out how to score and play using angles. And then my game is just rounded out through work and picking spots that I can get to, and trying to be able to make shots from those spots. And then just being confident from there.”

2. Boston Celtics (19-5, LW 2). It’s the thing everybody is talking about with Boston, but it still hits hard watching this team play: Just how many 3-pointers they get up a game. Boston averages 51.4 3-point attempts a game, 56.5% of their shot attempts total. The next closest team to them is the Bulls at 43.5 attempts, almost eight fewer 3-pointers a game. Leading the way is MVP candidate Jayson Tatum at 10.5 attempts a game, followed by Derrick White at 9.1 (he’s hitting 39% of those). While Boston didn’t advance in the NBA Cup it was kind to them, their makeup games this week are Detroit and Washington.

3. Cleveland Cavaliers (21-4, LW 1). Cleveland has been incredibly fortunate with health this season among its top four, so it was concerning Sunday in Miami when Evan Mobley rolled his ankle, but he said postgame it’s nothing serious. Another part of Cleveland’s hot start is its shooting — the Cavs don’t launch as many as the Celtics (38.2 a game), however Cleveland is hitting a league-best 40.4% from beyond the arc. We’re far enough into the season to say that’s not a fluke, and it should only get better with Max Strus set to return to the lineup Friday after being out all season with an ankle issue.

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4. Dallas Mavericks (16-9, LW 5). The Mavericks have been the second-best team in the West this season — they had won seven straight heading into Tuesday night — but that NBA Cup loss to Oklahoma City may be a sign that the gap from first to second is pretty large. Part of that loss was the Mavericks were without P.J. Washington, who is critical to their defense — Dallas is 1-5 this season in games Washington has missed. The Mavericks’ defense has looked better with Dereck Lively II in the starting lineup, and it is 9.7 points per 100 possessions better when Washington and Lively are both on the court.

5. New York Knicks (15-9, LW 6). If one thing concerns me about this team — outside of their obvious inability to defend — it’s the letdown games where the Knicks lose to lesser teams. The latest was the Pistons on Saturday, but all that points back to the defense. For the second year in a row the Knicks have advanced to the quarterfinals of the NBA Cup and are the favorites against the Hawks, but a bad defense giving Trae Young space to do his thing inside Madison Square Garden is a concern. Still, New York should be bringing its high-octane offense to Las Vegas. Should.

6. Memphis Grizzlies (17-8, LW 9). Memphis is shooting up these Power Rankings — and this spot almost feels too low. The Grizzlies have won 9-of-10 and have the best net rating in the league over their last seven games (+12.6). For the season, the Grizzlies are in the top five in offense and defense if you filter out garbage time (as Cleaning the Glass does, the Grizzlies are seventh in defense if you leave it in). All this is with some things still not clicking for Memphis — Zach Edey remains out and Desmond Bane has struggled from 3 this season (32.3%, well off his career 41% average). Fun test in Los Angeles against the LeBron James and the Lakers on Sunday.

PLAYOFFS OR BUST

7. Houston Rockets (16-8, LW 3). Houston sees its NBA Cup game Wednesday night against Golden State as a bit of a dress rehearsal for the playoffs — a place this core has yet to go. With the NBA Cup quarterfinals, there is a brighter spotlight and something the players want — a larger bonus and a trip to Las Vegas — on the line. The Rockets love this core and want to see what it can do in the postseason, which is why all the trade speculation (like them going after Houston native Jimmy Butler) is outside speculation that is not going to happen. Eventually, the Rockets will have to make a trade, but not until this summer at the earliest (and they don’t want an older, expensive player back).

8. Golden State Warriors (14-9, LW 7). There has been a divide among Warriors fans and within the organization: Is Jonathan Kuminga the star who can lead this team into the future, is he the No. 2 who can help win a ring next to Stephen Curry, or is he just not that guy? It’s a big question in a contract year and Steve Kerr is giving Kuminga the chance to prove it by moving him into the starting lineup. As a starter the last four games, Kuminga had a big night dropping 33 points on the Rockets, but in the other three games he’s averaged 17.3 on 44.9% shooting and 3-of-10 from 3. Can Kuminga put up another big night against the Rockets, who the Warriors face Wednesday night in an NBA Cup knockout-round quarterfinal game?

9. Orlando Magic (17-10, LW 8). The basketball gods can be cruel. They have been to the Magic, who have now lost Franz Wagner for an extended period to the same fluke injury that sidelined Paolo Banchero — a torn oblique. Their NBA Cup loss to the Bucks showed just how gritty this team can be, with Mo Wagner stepping up his offense off the bench and Jalen Suggs scoring like he’s back at Gonzaga and taking on UCLA. The Magic’s elite defense will help the team keep its head above water, but points will be hard to come by, and with that so will wins until the team’s shot creators return.

10. Minnesota Timberwolves (12-11, LW 15). Early in the season the Timberwolves were getting run off the court, literally. Through Thanksgiving they had given up the fourth most fast break points in the NBA and it showed in their record. Playing with pace — and getting back in transition — has been the secret sauce to turning things around. When they blew out the Clippers a week ago, the Timberwolves had a 20-0 fast break point advantage. The Timberwolves had won four in a row before falling to the Warriors Sunday, but watching this team in person the eye test tells you they have righted the ship after a slow start (following the trade that shook things up before camp).

11. Denver Nuggets (12-10, LW 11). Somebody get Nikola Jokic some help. He is playing at an MVP level and it’s not enough. The best example of that is the loss to the Wizards, where Jokic scored 56 points with 16 rebounds and the Nuggets still lost to a team on a 16-game losing streak coming in. If the playoffs started today, the 2023 NBA Champions would be in the play-in, that despite Jokic averaging a triple-double of 32.3 points, 13.6 rebounds and 10.2 assists a game.

12. Miami Heat (12-10, LW 14). Miami seems to be awakening from its traditional early season slumber and has won 5-of-7, with a couple more winnable games on the schedule this week (shorthanded Toronto and Detroit). Jimmy Butler trade rumors are flying around because he and the Heat did not work out a contract extension, and Butler might be open to it if it is a contending team willing to pay him with his next contract (he has a $52.4 million extension for next season), but here is where the new CBA sucked the joy out of something fans love — with Miami and every serious potential trade partner dealing with hard caps or tax apron restrictions, putting together this kind of deal is more complicated than ever. There’s a good chance Butler is with the Heat past the deadline and into the playoffs.

13. Milwaukee Bucks (13-11, LW 13). I’m still a little hesitant to say, “The Bucks are back.” Their win over Orlando in the NBA Cup is a perfect example of that — Milwaukee got a big night from Giannis Antetokounmpo (he continues to play at an MVP level) and it was Dame Time in the final minutes, sending the Bucks to Las Vegas for the NBA Cup semifinals. Yet it took all the Bucks had to beat a very shorthanded Orlando squad. Milwaukee has won 9-of-11 but against a soft schedule, and when last week they faced another NBA Cup squad in Atlanta plus Boston, the Bucks lost. Las Vegas could give us a better sense of just how good Milwaukee really is.

14. Los Angeles Clippers (14-11, LW 10). Kawhi Leonard is nearing a return. There is no official timetable, but Leonard is practicing with the team and a return in the next week or two seems likely. That should only help the Clippers’ 6th-ranked defense, which is a credit to Tyronn Lue and Ivica Zubac, the center who has become a strong deterrent in the paint plus is cleaning up the glass (the Clippers defensive rebounding is quietly a strong part of their defense). This Clippers roster with a healthy Leonard is not winning a ring, but nobody would want to see them in the first round.

15. Atlanta Hawks (13-12, LW 18). Trae Young has a flair for big moments and there might be none bigger this season for these Hawks than the NBA Cup quarterfinal knockout game in Madison Square Garden. If so, Young needs to find his shot because he’s been ice cold the past couple of weeks — in his last 10 games he is shooting 25% on 8 3-point attempts a night, and just 39% overall. Despite that, Atlanta comes in hot, they had six straight games (including over the Cavaliers twice and the Bucks) until they ran into Denver on Sunday.

16. Sacramento Kings (12-13, LW 19). Mike Brown wanted to shake things up and went with something kind of radical — starting Malik Monk. How has that worked? Monk’s offense has taken a step forward scoring 19.4 points a game and it’s not just the added six minutes a night, he’s shooting 42.9% from 3 as a starter (8.4 attempts a game) up from 35.7% off the bench (5.4 attempts). His assist ratio has also increased, and Monk is averaging 6.4 assists per game as a starter. The Kings have won two of those three games, including two in a row now for the first time since early November.

17. Phoenix Suns (12-11, LW 12). Here is the only thing that seems to matter with these Suns: Kevin Durant could return Friday against Utah from his sprained ankle. It’s this simple: The Suns are 11-2 with Durant playing and 1-9 in games he misses (that one win was against Utah, so if he doesn’t play Friday it still should be a Phoenix victory). Phoenix needs Durant back in part because he represents the threat of someone who can score in the paint — Phoenix is 27th in the league in points in the paint, which is an indictment of Jusuf Nurkic and the bigs as well as showing how much Durant, Devin Booker, Bradley Beal and everyone else happily settle for midrange jumpers.

18. San Antonio Spurs (12-12, LW 16). Slow starts are killing this team — the Spurs have lost the first quarter in 10 straight games (still going 6-4 in those games) and lost the first quarter in 10 of their 12 losses this season. It was great this week to see how emotional and grateful Chris Paul was to his teammates after passing Jason Kidd to become second all-time in assists in the NBA — he was clearly moved and you can see how much he enjoys this roster and team.

19. Los Angeles Lakers (13-11, LW 17). It’s one of the more stunning stats of the season: The Lakers have a -7.1 net rating when LeBron is on the court and a positive one when he is off. Most of that is due to the Lakers’ defense being worse with LeBron on the court. It’s a -6.4 net rating when LeBron and Anthony Davis share the court. While one can fixate on the other three players on the court to get a good rating — things are positive when it’s Austin Reaves and D’Angelo Russell with LeBron and Davis — it’s a red flag that the Lakers are losing the minutes with their best players on the court by so much. It’s a bigger red flag (but not a surprise considering the Lakers are 24th in the league in defense once garbage time is filtered out, via Cleaning the Glass) that the defense is the duo’s weak end.

PLAY IN HOPEFULS

20. Philadelphia 76ers (7-15, LW 25). Joel Embiid is back — and he dropped 31 in his return. That return came after missing seven games due to everyone’s favorite “left knee injury management” — the reasoning used for all 16 games he has missed this season — and he looked a little rusty to start missing his first seven shots. From then on he looked sharp, shooting 13-of-21 on his way to a 31-point, 12-rebound game. The 76ers have won 4-of-5 and if Embiid can stay healthy the team has plenty of time to turn this season around.

21. Chicago Bulls (10-15, LW 21). The Chicago Bulls are 27th in the NBA in defense, but the 123 points a game they are giving up is the most points a night the Bulls have given up in team history (hat tip to Law Murray of The Athletic). Expect a lot of Bulls trade rumors to fly around the next couple of months — Chicago would like to move their big-money contract players such as Zach LaVine, Nikola Vucevic and Lonzo Ball, but other teams likely will have interest in guys like Coby White and maybe Patrick Williams. The good news for Bulls fans is the front office is trying to get a deal done, not following a mandate from ownership to chase a play-in spot.

22. Brooklyn Nets (10-14, LW 23). Dorian Finney-Smith sums up the contradiction of the Brooklyn Nets well. On one hand, Finney-Smith is taking and making the most 3-pointers of his career — 43.2% of his 5.5 attempts a game — and with that has the highest true shooting percentage of his career at .617. On the flip side, he is committing a career high 3.1 personal fouls a game, a problem for all the Nets as no team allows a higher free throw to field goal percentage than does Brooklyn (they struggle to defend the paint and end up fouling to cover up mistakes).

23. Indiana Pacers (10-15, LW 20). Watching the NBA Cup unfold has been a reminder about what is different with Indiana this season: The defense has been bad for a couple of years (and needs to be addressed, eventually), but a dynamic, fast-paced offense covered it up. That offense is gone, the Pacers are 19th in offensive rating and sixth in pace. Part of that is Tyrese Haliburton has gone from All-NBA good and an Olympian to just good this season: His scoring, assists, and shooting percentage from 3 are all down. How do Rick Carlisle and the players turn that around?

24. Detroit Pistons (10-15, LW 22). Cade Cunningham says he feels like he is an All-Star, “I believe I am. Whenever I’m on the court every night, I feel like I’m the best player… I’m just trying to help my team win and we’ll see what happens with it.” The raw numbers back Cunningham up: 23.9 points, 9.4 assists, and 7.3 rebounds a game. The question becomes, will the Pistons win enough games that the coaches will vote him in as an East reserve (there’s little chance the fans vote him in as a starter).

CAPTURE THE (COOPER) FLAGG

25. Toronto Raptors (7-18, LW 24). The Raptors will be without Scottie Barnes for a few weeks with a sprained ankle — which isn’t good but looked a lot worse when Karl-Anthony Towns landed on him. Barnes is averaging 20.6 points, 8.4 rebounds, and 7.4 assists a night, and the Raptors are +4.1 better with him on the court. While not good news, it doesn’t hit the Raptors as hard as the franchise’s focus has already started to pivot to the stacked 2025 NBA Draft.

26. Charlotte Hornets (7-17, LW 26). The Hornets are 1-5 since LaMelo Ball went out, with the win coming against struggling Indiana (that win snapped an eight-game losing streak). With Ball out it has been the Brandon Miller show: In his last five games he’s averaging 28.6 points a game and taking 13.7 3-point attempts a game (hitting 37.7% of them) while grabbing 5.4 rebounds a night.

27. Utah Jazz (5-18, LW 28). It’s hard to pinpoint one problem with this Utah team, but if forced to pick just one I’ll take the league-worst 18.4 turnovers a game. The one time they took better care of the ball, just 14 turnovers, they crushed the struggling Trail Blazers. With that win Utah is 1-2 to start a stretch of 8-of-9 on the road.

28. Portland Trail Blazers (8-16, LW 27). Portland has dropped four in a row (including one to Utah) and 8-of-10. As trade rumors start to heat up around the league, expect to hear some Jerami Grant talk as other teams take a look at the veteran forward. Robert Williams III also can draw some interest if he stays healthy.

29. New Orleans Pelicans (5-20, LW 29). Losing Brandon Ingram to a severe ankle sprain that is going to have him sidelined for a while was another gut-punch injury in a season of the. With the Pelicans pulling the rip cord on the season, teams will be calling about everyone on the roster, but if New Orleans trades Herb Jones, they better get a haul back. I would not let that guy go.

30. Washington Wizards (3-19, LW 30). Washington snapped its 16-game losing streak at the expense of the Denver Nuggets despite Nikola Jokic dropping 56 — that win helps keep the spotlight off this team. Jonas Valanciūnas’ rock-solid performance in that game going up against Jokic (20 points, 12 boards, five blocks) is why a lot of teams have an eye on him as the trade market starts to heat up.