NBA power rankings 2025-26: Pistons take over top spot, with Thunder sliding to third - NBC Sports
With the Thunder looking human, 5-4 in their last nine, other teams have taken advantage, including the Spurs.
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NBA power rankings 2025-26: Pistons take over top spot, with Thunder sliding to third
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Kurt Helin,
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Kurt Helin
Published January 5, 2026 02:10 PM
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We took a week off in these power rankings for a little family holiday vacation, but we are back — and with a new No. 1 for the first time this season after the Thunder have started to look human.
(26-9, last week No. 3)Detroit may be a team on top of these rankings and on top of the East, but it also is a team with a lot of eyes on it headed toward the trade deadline. This is an elite team, but in playoff basketball, where opposing defenses will load up on Cade Cunningham and make his life difficult, who is the secondary shot creator they can trust? Will they look to add someone such as Michael Porter Jr. at the trade deadline to fill that role? The Pistons need more shooting as well if they are going to defeat the Knicks and other top teams in a seven-game series. That shooting will get tested Monday night when the Pistons face the Knicks on Peacock NBA Monday.
(25-10, last week No. 7)San Antonio is getting up for the big games — beating the Thunder three times, defeating the Knicks — but is letting their guard down against teams like Portland and Utah and racking up losses. That’s part of maturing for this team (the Duncan/Popovich era Spurs were the best at pummeling the bottom half of the league). Victor Wembanyama remains day-to-day after hyper-extending his knee, but that is about as lucky as one could hope for with that injury. San Antonio has four of its next five on the road, including a brutal back-to-back next weekend in Boston and then Minnesota the next night.
(30-6, last week No. 1)The Thunder may have looked human going 5-4 in their last nine games, but they have a +8 net rating in those games (second in the league in that stretch), they have just been a bit unlucky (and the Spurs are a matchup issue). Don’t sleep on how great this team has been. Oklahoma City became the sixth team in NBA history — and the third franchise — to start a se
Rating: 5