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NBA Players Power Rankings: Steph Curry is back for the Warriors

By Duncan Smith

Jan 3, 2021; San Francisco, California, USA; Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry (30) celebrates after a basket against the Portland Trail Blazers during the fourth quarter for a career-high 62 point game for Curry at Chase Center. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports
Jan 3, 2021; San Francisco, California, USA; Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry (30) celebrates after a basket against the Portland Trail Blazers during the fourth quarter for a career-high 62 point game for Curry at Chase Center. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports /
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NBA, power rankings
NBA, power rankings Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports /

Now that every NBA team has at least a half dozen games under their belts, let’s get started with our first NBA player Power Rankings of the season.

The NBA is well underway now with just over two weeks worth of games played. Every team has played at least six games (most have played seven or more… looking at you, Houston Rockets) and we’re getting a sample with which to work and make some determinations. Today, we’ll kick off our first edition of NBA Player Power Rankings and rank our top 10 players.

This won’t be an exact science as we’re not going to be plugging everybody’s BPM, RPM and PIPM into a calculator and dividing by 36 minutes. It’s going to use healthy amounts of recency bias, popular narrative, team success (or lack thereof) and whatever other elements I choose to incorporate at a given time. It could be messy, chaotic and a bit unpredictable, and it’s certainly going to get flipped on its head every week.

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But hey, that’s exactly why we love the NBA.

So to get started, let’s take a look at some of our luminary snubs. This is a group that has an argument to get into these power rankings but fell short for reasons that will be explained. And of course, each of these players has every opportunity to get into future power rankings.

NBA Player Power Rankings snubs: On the outside looking in

James Harden

It pains me to have James Harden outside the top 10, and I’m quite sure this will age poorly as he rounds into form and does what he does this season. That’s fine. In the early goings, we’re going to hold some of his preseason shenanigans against him, and he also hasn’t looked quite himself so far. He tends to start seasons slow and ramp up, but the Houston Rockets have a -7.4 net rating when he’s on the floor and we’re going to hold that against him in the early goings of the season.

Trae Young

Earlier in the season, Trae Young would have been a lock for these power rankings, but the luster has worn off a bit as things have developed. He isn’t getting to the line nearly as easily as he was to start the season, and life has gotten a bit more difficult as a result. We’ll see how he adjusts to this new paradigm.

Luka Doncic

The preseason MVP favorite, Luka Doncic has gotten off to a rough start. Surely he’ll get it in gear as the season progresses, much like James Harden, but he’s not there yet. Also, he’s shooting 19.5 percent from 3-point range, which is going to need to increase quite a bit.