Dallas Mavericks moving up in NBA rankings across media
By Kohl Rast
The Dallas Mavericks won five straight games prior to last night and the national media took notice. In the weekly NBA rankings, several different sources have moved the Mavs up significantly.
Prior to the game against the LA Clippers last night, the Dallas Mavericks were one of the hottest teams in the NBA. Sitting on a five-game win streak and coming off a convincing win over a West playoff team in the Houston Rockets, everyone recognized the Mavs as a team that could start to make some noise.
This was largely because of the performance of Luka Doncic over the past week, who proved that he belongs in the NBA MVP conversation. After averaging over 37 points and nearly 12 assists for a week, Dallas was crushing people on the offensive end so badly that the defense was doing better too.
This all came crashing to an end last night as the Mavs bad shooting combined with the Clippers Intense defense sent Dallas hard into the loss column for the first time in 12 days. The Clippers were able to prove that Luka really is human, if only for a brief moment. Don’t let this detract from what Luka has been able to do, though, as he is still averaging nearly a 30-point triple-double on the season.
Despite this setback, the NBA media had already done their weekly power rankings prior to this game, so it is not relevant. Instead of thinking about last night, remember the good times when Dallas beat the Rockets in convincing manner.
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There are four major media sources that have done their own power rankings: ESPN, NBA.com, Bleacher Report and The Athletic. Each of these sources had the Mavericks outside of the top 10 in last week’s rankings.
According to ESPN, the Dallas Mavericks are now the 9th best team in the NBA. Among the four outlets, ESPN now has the lowest opinion of the Mavs, who were ranked 12th last week. The top four teams are pretty well a consensus this week with the Los Angeles Lakers, Milwaukee Bucks, LA Clippers and Denver Nuggets holding those spots in some order. After those four, the Boston Celtics, Houston Rockets, Utah Jazz and Philadelphia 76ers also ranked ahead of Dallas.
Based on the rankings from The Athletic (subscription required), Dallas is the 7th best team in the league. The six teams ahead of the Mavs are close to what ESPN had with the same top four squads. After those four, they put the Toronto Raptors and Philadelphia 76ers in front of Dallas as well.
Bleacher Report has Dallas moving up another spot into sixth overall, up from number 12 last week. This one has some familiar faces to The Athletic’s rankings, with the small difference of having the Raptors ahead of the Nuggets. Overall, sixth does sound high for a team that was reeling a week ago, but the spot is deserved based on just how dangerous this team can be.
Lastly, there is NBA.com, the only source that has been fair to the Mavericks in their rankings so far, albeit very unfair in the MVP ladder prior to this week. NBA.com vaulted the Mavs all the way up to number five, only behind those same top four in every other list. Dallas probably won’t sustain this high of a ranking, especially after last night’s performance, but they have proven that they can compete with anybody when they are on their game.
Dallas has a long way to go still before they will be ready to contend for any title. That said, you can already see the pieces falling into place for the Mavs to make the playoffs and to even create a scare for some of the other playoff teams.