The Athletic Releases their Tier List

[SleepingHero]

Thoughts on this?

[BigDirk41]

I think I'd have the Sixers and Kings in the brink of contention row, but I don't have a problem with the list. I think this will change through the season as teams will move up once they get healthy or figure things out.

[omahen]

Thoughts on this?

I think this is coming from a weekly Power rankings covered by Zach Harper. I didn't notice a special piece on a tier list in The Athletic. So pretty misleading aggregation by NBA central.

Harpers weekly power rankings are very fluid and very much depend on results from each past week. I don't put much thought into it. I like to read weekly thought on Mavs in this column, as he covers something different every week.

Btw: you can notice in the tiers he has 7 West teams in the top 3 tiers (playoff or better). Minnesota is currently number one on this list due to their great recent results. I don't think many would put Minny as a serious contender, even with those great recent results.

[HoosierDaddyKid]

I think this is coming from a weekly Power rankings covered by Zach Harper. I didn't notice a special piece on a tier list in The Athletic. So pretty misleading aggregation by NBA central.

Harpers weekly power rankings are very fluid and very much depend on results from each past week. I don't put much thought into it. I like to read weekly thought on Mavs in this column, as he covers something different every week.

Btw: you can notice in the tiers he has 7 West teams in the top 3 tiers (playoff or better). Minnesota is currently number one on this list due to their great recent results. I don't think many would put Minny as a serious contender, even with those great recent results.

Miami and Cleveland are better than a play-in team IMO, and so are the Clippers. Orlando is off to a great start, but I would not put them in as a bonafide playoff team yet.