NBA Rankings - 3 Jan

It's a new year, and there's a new #1, and with good reason. The Spurs are off to one of the best starts in NBA history, and are currently on pace to tie the 1995-96 Bulls record of 72 wins in a season. Only four other teams in the past 15 years have won at least 29 of their first 33 games, and three of those teams went on to win the championship. So, without further ado, here are the first NBA rankings of the year 2011. Team name is followed by this week's record, overall record, rating, and previous ranking.

1. San Antonio (3-0) (29-4) -8.71 (3)

2. Miami (4-0) (26-9) -8.60 (1)

3. Boston (2-2) (25-7) -7.89 (2)

4. Dallas (2-3) (25-8) -5.25 (4)

5. Chicago (3-0) (22-10) -4.55 (6)

6. Orlando (3-0) (21-12) -4.47 (7)

7. LA Lakers (2-2) (23-11) -4.12 (5)

8. Utah (2-2) (23-11) -3.24 (8)

9. Denver (3-0) (19-13) -3.14 (11)

10. New Orleans (2-2) (20-14) -2.56 (9)

11. Atlanta (3-1) (22-14) -1.86 (13)

12. Portland (3-1) (18-16) -1.70 (14)

13. Oklahoma City (2-2) (23-12) -1.48 (10)

14. Memphis (2-2) (15-19) -1.37 (15)

15. Houston (2-2) (16-17) -0.45 (12)

16. New York (1-2) (19-14) -0.42 (16)

17. Philadelphia (1-2) (13-20) 0.08 (17)

18. Milwaukee (1-2) (13-18) 0.12 (18)

19. Indiana (1-3) (14-18) 0.86 (19)

20. Phoenix (1-2) (14-18) 1.10 (20)

21. Golden State (2-2) (13-20) 2.80 (22)

22. LA Clippers (1-2) (10-24) 3.88 (21)

23. Toronto (1-3) (11-22) 4.02 (25)

24. Detroit (1-2) (11-22) 4.70 (24)

25. Minnesota (2-1) (9-25) 4.96 (28)

26. Charlotte (2-1) (11-20) 5.24 (26)

27. New Jersey (0-4) (9-25) 5.33 (23)

28. Washington (1-3) (8-24) 5.93 (27)

29. Sacramento (2-2) (7-24) 7.60 (29)

30. Cleveland (0-4) (8-26) 8.06 (30)

Life of the Party

The San Antonio Spurs had a very solid week, beating 3 of last week's top 10 teams by a combined 48 points. I'm not sure the Spurs can keep up the pace all season, though, since they've already played 21 home games compared to just 12 road games. Between January 22 and February 22 the Spurs play just one home game, so that's when we will see how good they really are.

The Denver Nuggets bounced back from an 0-3 week with a 3-0 week, and with the return of Carmelo Anthony, they should be able to maintain their momentum. They are only 3 games behind the Jazz for the Northwest Division lead, and with games coming up against Sacramento, Phoenix, and the Clippers, they could close that gap quickly.

Minnesota has now won three of their last 4 games, including a win over the playoff-bound Hornets, and are starting to show some promise. The good times may be on hold for a little while though, as they are set to go through a very tough stretch, playing Boston and Orlando once each and the Spurs and Portland twice each in the next two weeks.

Wallflowers

The Los Angeles Lakers have looked unstoppable at times this year, but those times were not in the past two weeks. They have been blown out by Miami, Milwaukee, Memphis, and the Spurs while only winning twice. They are now at their lowest ranking of the season, and although #7 would be considered decent my most standards, we are talking about the two-time defending champion Lakers. They need to step it up if they intend to three-peat again.

The Oklahoma City Thunder lost to San Antonio and Dallas this week by an average of 18.5 points, while only beating Atlanta and New Jersey. The Thunder are a playoff team for sure, but I don't see them jumping into the championship contender category yet.

The Houston Rockets dropped this week because their wins were both unimpressive and against teams in the bottom 8. The losses to Portland and Miami were expected, so they didn't hurt them much, but they need to take care of the easy teams on their schedule to make a playoff run.

After losing 4 straight games to playoff contenders, the New Jersey Nets had a very winnable game against the Minnesota Timberwolves, but again forgot to show up and lost by 15 points. While they've obviously made progress over last year's nearly record-setting train wreck, there's still a lot of work ahead of them.

NBA Player of the Day

Paul Pierce - BOS - 30 pts, 7 reb, 4 ast, 10-15 FG, 3-3 3P, 7-8 FT

Pierce was able to help Boston forget about Kevin Garnett's injury by scoring 30 points on only 15 field goal attempts before leaving the game in the final minutes with a mildly sprained ankle. His overall effort was very efficient, and much improved over his 12-point line from the loss to New Orleans two days before.

Predictions - 3 Jan

Upset picks are in italics.

NBA

Warriors at Magic - Magic by 10

Heat at Bobcats - Heat by 11

Timberwolves at Celtics - Celtics by 16

76ers at Hornets - Hornets by 6

Rockets at Nuggets - Nuggets by 6

Pistons at Jazz - Jazz by 11

College Football

(4) Stanford vs. (13) Virginia Tech - Stanford by 14

College Basketball

Penn at (11) Kentucky - Kentucky by 31

(13) Georgetown at Saint John's - Saint John's by 2

Nicholls State at (16) Texas A&M - Texas A&M by 17

Savannah State at (17) Kansas State - Kansas State by 24

(19) Michigan State at Northwestern - Northwestern by 4

Belmont at Florida-Gulf Coast - Belmont by 19

Butler at Milwaukee - Butler by 11

Prediction Results - 2 Dec

NFL: 12/16 (.750) 69/112 overall (.616)

NBA: 5/7 (.714) 229/315 overall (.727)

College Basketball: 8/9 (.889) 195/228 overall (.855)