NBA Basketball Power Rankings

Coming into this NBA season the defending champion Los Angeles Lakers looked like they had legitimate shot at repeating with the addition of defensive specialist Ron Artest and the resigning of both Lamar Odom and youngster Shannon Brown.

With all the pieces in place and Andrew Bynum coming back healthy and motivated with his goal of being an All-Star, the Lakers were on their way to possibly building another Lakers dynasty in Los Angeles. Not only did the Lakers have all the right pieces to the puzzle for another championship run, but the most important piece to the Lakers title defense in Kobe Bryant is content and extremely happy to still be wearing purple and gold after winning his fourth title in Los Angeles.

The only problem the Lakers were facing coming into this season was the health of forward Pau Gasol who suffered a hamstring injury just before the start of the season. Without Gasol in the paint the Lakers had to change up their gameplan and be ready for opposing teams to attack their now weak frontcourt.

NBA Betting Power Rankings

30. Memphis Grizzlies

Get out your ten foot pole. I wouldn’t touch them without some real signs of early-season life.

29. Minnesota Timberwolves

No Ricky Rubio and Kevin Love is injured.  Bet against them if you can get any kind of odds.

28. Sacramento Kings

Nice infusion of youth to add to Kevin Martin’s scoring prowess. But they’re still going to be brutal.

27. New York Knicks

David Lee is their best player. Next.

26. Milwaukee Bucks

They should’ve hired Bill Simmons as GM. Brandon Jennings should be fun to watch. But don’t waste your money.

25.  Charlotte Bobcats

Speaking of Simmons, he wrote that coach Larry Brown asked a friend of Michael Jordan’s to tell him that he wanted to talk to him. Brown works for Jordan. That’s a shitty organization.

At the end of the NBA season it was pretty obvious that the Los Angeles Lakers were the number one team in the league and that the Orlando Magic were arguably the second best in the NBA and the top team in the Eastern Conference.

This time the top two teams are in exactly the same spot coming into this NBA season, but both of the Orlando Magic and the Los Angeles Lakers made upgrades to their already dominant squads to maintain their number one and two NBA power rankings in the preseason.

Not only did the Lakers and the Magic make some upgrades by adding defensive specialist Ron Artest in LA and Vince Carter in Orlando, but the rest of the league didn’t just stand by and watch the two best teams better as they made upgrades of their own to complete with the two top teams in the NBA.