Updated: January 7, 2013, 7:13 PM ET

Power Rankings: Clippers still No. 1

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Team:
By Marc Stein
ESPN.com
Monday, Jan. 7

ESPN.com's NBA Power Rankings committee (of one) has never and will never believe in ties.

Even on those Mondays when it would really come in handy.

And this is certainly one of them. You could make a convincing case for the Los Angeles Clippers, Oklahoma City Thunder or San Antonio Spurs to fill the top slot in our latest weekly compilation, prompting one longtime friend of the committee to ask: Why not just let all three teams share No. 1?

Sorry. We don't do that here.

So the next best option, we reasoned, was leaving the order of last Monday's top three just as it was, opting to give the Clippers one week's worth of latitude at the top after they followed up a whopping 17 consecutive victories with back-to-back road losses to Denver and Golden State … but then atoned for those L's with Staples Center wins over the Lakers and Warriors.

The rolling Thunder and steady Spurs, meanwhile, clearly have no intentions of letting up, primed to pounce on any further slips. Three more West teams are likewise on the rise, with Golden State (No. 4), Denver (No. 6) and Houston (No. 8) all moving into season-high positions.

The rankings, as always, were compiled with rampant assisting rom ESPN Stats & Information and the Elias Sports Bureau. Click here to rank the teams yourself.

Also, check out John Hollinger's daily Power Rankings.

2012-13 Power Rankings: Week 10
RANKTEAM / RECORD TRENDINGCOMMENTS
1
--

Last Week: 1		The Clips bounced back from their first crash since late November about as emphatically as you can with their win over the Lakers and a rout of Golden State. So that's five wins already by 25 points or more ... and a 63-win pace for a franchise still waiting for its first 50-win season.
2
--

Last Week: 2		Tough to move the Thunder up after the shock of (A) OKC getting spanked at home by the Nets and (B) Kevin Durant getting ejected near the end of that spanking. Can't get too worked up about it, though, when KD & Co. are 17-3 in their last 20 games and 23-1 when they score 100 points.
3
--

Last Week: 3		Gregg Popovich tells us over and over that there's no such thing as "happy" in the coaching universe. Yet surely there's some sort of emotion approaching satisfaction after seven straight wins by an average of nearly 19 points. Or the Spurs' rise into the top five in defensive efficiency.
4
1
Last Week: 5		The main knock on the Dubs is that their glorious December came almost exclusively at the expense of teams from the overmatched East. Yet you also can't deny, even if the schedule helped out some last week, that Golden State is the only team going with two wins over the Clips.
5
Miami
23-9
1
Last Week: 4		On top of the ongoing concerns about the defending champs' nightly ability to muster sufficient motivation in the regular season come fresh concerns about LeBron James' own physical freshness. They're still the only Eastern Conference team at the minute that can sniff the top five, mind you.
6
Denver
20-16
3
Last Week: 9		The committee (of one) has long assumed that the Lakers would eventually rise to at least to No. 5 in the West. With all of the home games they've got coming up now, combined with how good they've looked against the L.A. teams lately, Denver seems to be saying: What about us?
7
--

Last Week: 7		Two 40-point games for Carmelo Anthony, one frustrating home loss to Portland, one thumping of the weary Spurs, more of J.R. Smith's hot hand and a lot of rust for Amar'e Stoudemire. That's the quickie summary of Stoudemire's first week back with the injury-laden Knicks.
8
Houston
20-14
5
Last Week: 13		What gets the Rockets through all of the Royce White drama? I'm guessing it's the fact that James Harden, after that ridiculous start of his, is somehow on even more of a roll now, having scored at least 25 points in 12 straight games to move within one of Moses Malone's franchise record.
9
Memphis
21-10
3
Last Week: 6		The Grizz are just a .500 team since that brilliant 14-3 start and a worrisome 0-6 in games decided by five points or less. And thus, they've drifted to where most of us really expected them to be, right in that 4 to 5 range out West ... and thinking hard about trading Rudy Gay.
10
Indiana
20-14
2
Last Week: 12		The Pacers deservedly get dinged for their 4-11 record against .500-or-better teams. And Roy Hibbert's struggles have been mentioned here Monday after Monday all season. So give it up to Indy right now for last Monday's win in Memphis and Hibbert's 20-and-15 game against Milwaukee.
11
Chicago
18-13
--

Last Week: 11		The Bulls' 6-2 record against Miami the past three regular seasons is pretty sparkly, but you can bet they like the look of the Carlos Boozer we're suddenly seeing in 2013. The word on Derrick Rose, meanwhile, continues to be: Don't expect to see him until after the All-Star break.
12
Atlanta
20-12
4
Last Week: 8		The Hawks just endured their worst week of the season thanks to a one-point loss in Detroit and a 33-9 drubbing in the third quarter the next night to blow a big lead at home to Boston. Amazing that it took this long, though, to see them slip out of the top five in defensive efficiency.
13
3
Last Week: 16		Portland is the only team in the West's current top eight sporting a negative nightly average point margin (-2.2). Which suggests that the rebuilding Blazers are in a false position ... until you remember they've won six straight home games and are 9-6 against .500-or-better opposition.
14
4
Last Week: 10		Kobe Bryant's long-awaited arrival on Twitter is the only thing resembling progress in Lakerland. As our own J.A. Adande tweeted, Kobe's Lakers started 18-15 in 2004-05 with Chucky Atkins at PG and Chris Mihm at C. No matter what the circumstances, 15-18 with this roster defies words.
15
3
Last Week: 18		Four of the five victims are lottery-bound, so it's way too soon to say interim coach P.J. Carlesimo's 5-1 start has legitimately stabilized things in Brooklyn. But a win in Oklahoma City, under any circumstances, holds some promise. Deron Williams has looked a touch sharper, too.
16
Utah
17-18
1
Last Week: 17		Everyone around the league had their eyes on the Jazz anyway -- front-office types, we mean -- because of the widespread expectation Al Jefferson or Paul Millsap would be moved before next month's trade deadline to bring in a PG. Mo Williams' injury only ramps up the curiosity.
17
Boston
16-17
3
Last Week: 20		Something about seeing the Hawks, who used to give the Celts such fits in the early days of the KG era, gets Boston back online nowadays. Rallying to win in Atlanta qualifies as legit breakthrough stuff for the struggling C's after those four straight losses by an average of 19.8 ppg.
18
3
Last Week: 15		Another long-term absence for Kevin Love means 'Sota, in this brutal West, faces the real threat of extending the longest active postseason drought from eight seasons to nine. But Love was clearly nowhere close to himself even before re-injuring that hand. Getting him right matters more than anything else.
19
5
Last Week: 14		The Larry Sanders Show has quietly regained the league lead in blocked shots from OKC's Serge Ibaka, but the slumping Bucks have been shredded by everyone they've seen (San Antonio, Houston, even offensively challenged Indiana) since that disappointing Dec. 30 loss at Detroit.
20
1
Last Week: 21		The DeMarcus Cousins on display since his latest suspension? Probably the most plugged-in Cousins we've ever seen in Sacramento. He's been just tantalizing enough, during this 4-2 uptick, to let you know why the Kings are so reluctant to move him. Who knows how long it'll last, though.
21
Detroit
13-23
2
Last Week: 23		Still trying to process which of these developments is wilder. The part about the Pistons needing only a home win over Charlotte to complete a 5-0 homestand that included visits from Miami, Milwaukee and Atlanta? Or the part about the Pistons losing to the Bobcats in OT to finish 4-1?
22
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Last Week: 22		Don't think a 2-6 finish to a brutally long trip did too much damage to Jrue Holiday's All-Star prospects, because the still-Andrew Bynum-less Sixers, in the Leastern Conference, are still playoff material and will play 13 of the next 15 at home. Holiday averaged 19.4 ppg, 9.3 apg and 5.3 on the trip.
23
Toronto
12-22
4
Last Week: 19		Don't want to overreact to a couple of home losses after the Raps' recent 8-2 revival. Just being realistic when we say, with apologies to Toronto and Detroit, that we're still likely down to the current top eight and Philly in contention for playoff spots in the Leastern Conference.
24
New Orleans
8-25
3
Last Week: 27		I'm actually not quite sure, upon reflection, if the proper hipster way to refer to these guys is Horicans or Horlicans. But I do know that they've gotten a bit harder to beat now that Eric Gordon is back to team up in the same backcourt with the ever-improving Greivis Passquez.
25
Dallas
13-21
1
Last Week: 24		Remember when the Mavericks were the NBA's masters of winning close games? Dirk Nowitzki does, which surely helped prompt the face of the franchise to voice his frustration -- loudly -- after a home loss to New Orleans somehow dropped the Mavs to 0-7 in OT games this season.
26
4
Last Week: 30		Call it the first NBA curveball of 2013 that no one you know had in their New Year's predictions: Charlotte, everybody, just completed a two-win week. With a couple of road wins, too, that unexpectedly lifted the Bobcats out of the rankings basement after only a one-week stay.
27
Phoenix
12-23
1
Last Week: 26		If not for a shot at a Philly team in the midst of playing 10 of 11 games on the road and visiting the desert on the second night of a back-to-back after upsetting the Lakers, Phoenix might well be looking at nine consecutive L's since a four-game win streak that must feel like forever ago by now.
28
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Last Week: 28		The good news: Kyrie Irving just posted the first consecutive 30-point games of his NBA life and Tristan Thompson continues to be a regular double-double guy while Andy Varejao heals. The bad news: Cleveland leads the league with an excruciating seven losses by three points or less.
29
Orlando
12-21
4
Last Week: 25		Nikola Vucevic really has played better than anyone dared to imagine, but we can probably scrap the idea that Orlando was the closest thing to a team in the lead in terms of "winning" the Dwight trade. The Magic are winless since Dec. 19. No one is winning that trade right now.
30
1
Last Week: 29		The playoff demise of poor RG III and his Redskins has consequences for the local basketball team, too. The Wiz are 1-15 on the road, stuck on a 10-win pace as they continue to wait for John Wall's return ... and just lost the shield that kept the focus of the D.C. sports fan off them.
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