NBA
NBA Power Rankings: Road Warriors
Jeff Hawkins is an award-winning sportswriter with more than four decades in the industry (print and digital media). A freelance writer/stay-at-home dad since 2008, Hawkins started his career with newspaper stints in Michigan, North Carolina, Florida, Upstate New York and Illinois, where he earned the 2004 APSE first-place award for column writing (under 40,000 circulation). As a beat writer, he covered NASCAR Winston Cup events at NHIS (1999-2003), the NHL's Chicago Blackhawks (2003-06) and the NFL's Carolina Panthers (2011-12). Hawkins penned four youth sports books, including a Michael Jordan biography. Hawkins' main hobbies include mountain bike riding, 5k trail runs at the Whitewater Center in Charlotte, N.C., and live music.
All posts by Jeff HawkinsUpdated15 Oct 2021
After four weeks of NBA play, we have arrived at the first checkpoint of the NBA season. Teams that have gotten off to slower starts than they initially imagined begin fielding phone calls and making a few of their own. Thanksgiving, you see, is the time when most NBA front offices begin to look at the standings and try to determine where their season is heading.
Case in point: the Oklahoma City Thunder. For the second consecutive week, the Thunder are dead-last in the Western Conference, so it comes as no surprise to us that Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook are inching toward a return. For that, the Thunder are thankful.
And us? We are thankful for seeing some early season surprises and high-quality basketball being played.
The Memphis Grizzlies continue to be the darlings of the NBA, with the Toronto Raptors and the Milwaukee Bucks both amongst the early-season surprises.
A few things we are not so thankful for? Derrick Rose’s seemingly endless bout with attrition and Carmelo Anthony’s recently reported case of back spasms.
But in the spirit of the holiday, we shall count our blessings—just like the Golden State Warriors. It is them, after all, who are our top dogs for the second week running.
