The Jump Ball NBA Power Rankings will come out the first Tuesday of every month during the regular season! Sorry for being a day late this month.

A ton of changes since the last rankings since the NBA season has finally started.

1. Golden State Warriors	The NBA should be worried, the Warriors have found their swagger again, beating the Clippers by 28, the Spurs by 20, the Nuggets by 19, and the Heat by 17.
2. Boston Celtics	The best record in the NBA and winners of 9 straight, Kyrie dropping 35 in Atlanta to keep the streak going. Jayson Tatum is often a great start for his rookie campaign as he gets big minutes with the Hayward injury.
3. Houston Rockets	With Chris Paul out, Harden is back to putting up amazing numbers just check out his 56 points and 13 assist night against the Jazz. It’s great now but they need to get CP up and running to avoid an April flameout
4. Minnesota Timberwolves	The Wolves are putting together a nice five-game win streak and already have two wins against the Thunder. They are rolling with a top five offensive rating and bottom five defensive rating, very weird for Thibs coached team.
5.        San Antonio Spurs	The Spurs are off to a respectable start at 6-4 despite Kawhi Leonard playing zero minutes so far this season. LaMarcus Aldridge has been playing well averaging 22 points a night, something would be great if he can maintain for when Leonard does come back.
6. Washington Wizards	Hopefully John Wall’s shoulder won’t turn into a season-long lingering injury. It’s tough to take their trash talk serious when they have losses against the Lakers and Suns this season. They are a piece away though from scaring the crap out of the Eastern Conference.
7. Detroit Pistons	The Pistons are a hard team to peg, they are off to a great 7-3 start with their biggest wins coming against the Timberwolves and Clippers. Tobias Harris is making a bid for Most Improved averaging 45.9% from three on nearly 6 attempts a game.
8. Memphis Grizzlies	The Grizzlies, losers of three out of their last four still have a three more games to go on this road trip where they play at Portland, Houston, and Milwaukee. Hard to get excited about their start when they are dropping games to the Lakers.
9. Portland Trail Blazers	It’s no surprise that the Blazers are in the top ten in offensive rating but it is shocking that they’re fourth in defensive rating considering how much they struggled on that end last year. It all starts on the boards where they lead the league in rebounds, also having Damian Lillard, CJ McCollum, and Jusef Nurkic certainly helps.
10. Toronto Raptors	The Raptors one of the most boring teams to watch, not very creative on offense but play hard. They beat the teams they are supposed to but need to start getting the wins against the big boys.
11.   Utah Jazz	The Jazz have been very up and down this season, they go from a winning streak to a losing streak. They have a good opportunity to string together a few wins as their next four are at home before an East Coast swing.
12. Cleveland Cavaliers	To say the Cavs have been terrible on defense would be a massive understatement. They get up for whenever they are playing the Celtics, Bucks, and Wizards or anyone they think might be a threat to them.
13. Oklahoma City Thunder	Last season the Thunder were great in close games but this season they’ve struggled in crunch time. Of course, this is part of growing pains when trying to incorporate three ISO players, they definitely blew a winnable game against Boston last week.
14.       Los Angeles Clippers	The Clippers much like the Grizzlies started hot and raised a few eyebrows, with Teodosic out indefinitely the pressure is on Blake Griffin to be the lone playmaker. Even though it’s a new Clipper team they still can’t beat the Warriors who put 141 points on them in their last matchup.
15. Denver Nuggets	After a slow start, Nikola Jokic has got it going the last 5 games averaging 20.8 points, 11.4 rebounds, with 4.4 assists while shooting 42.9% from 3 and 54.9% from the field. This is the Jokic NBA has been praising all summer long.
16.  Orlando Magic	The Magic have been the surprise team of the East, starting out red hot from three and defending the other end. Here is a piece on their improve, the big question is if this can last.
17. Charlotte Hornets	Dwight Howard has been great for the Hornets so far this season, averaging 14.6 points and 13.6 rebounds with 1.3 blocks a night. This kind of production partnered with Kemba Walker’s scoring could have the Hive in the playoff this year.
18. Philadelphia 76ers	Ben Simmons is wowing every night averaging 18 points, 9.8 rebounds, and 8.2 assists a night to put him as the front-runner for Rookie of the Year. As all the attention goes to him and Joel Embiid, some of the light needs to shine on Robert Covington who is shooting 49.2% from three. The Sixers start a five-game road trip tonight in Utah to try to make it a 5 Ws in a row.
19.    New York Knicks	Kristaps Porzingis is showing everyone especially Phil Jackson that he can carry the load for a franchise with his 30 point average, and the combination of him and Frank Ntikilina are showing the Knicks have two good young prospects to build with.
20.  New Orleans Pelicans	Jameer Nelson has been a good pick up for the Pelicans who are playing .500 ball so far. Anthony Davis and DeMarcus Cousins have found a good chemistry playing together but they’ll need Jrue Holiday to pick up the slack from deep. He can’t keep shooting 22.5% from three, right?
21. Indiana Pacers	Domantas Sabonis and Victor Oladipo have been great so far this season and kept them afloat while Myles Turner was out. If they can maintain this play and the Victor Unleashed tour resumes they could be a surprised in the Somebody’s got to make the playoffs East.
22.      Los Angeles Lakers	The Lakers 5-5 start to the season would probably be better received if they hadn’t done the same thing last year when they started 10-10. They are taking their show on the road the next four games, including a visit with their old friends the Wizards. These games will be a good test for youngins.
23. Milwaukee Bucks	After starting on fire the Bucks have fallen back to earth despite all the MVP praise for Giannis. Losing the last three games was enough reason to make the move for Eric Bledsoe especially when it cost them so little.
24.  Miami Heat	Who had 10 games in for the captains to have to talk to Hassan Whiteside about his effort? It’s very tough when coaches have to worry about the effort they’ll get from one of their top players night in and night out.
25. Brooklyn Nets	They are 2nd in the league in scoring and 1st in pace but unfortunately 29th in points allowed. D’Angelo Russell is struggling with his three-point shot shooting just 26.5% but still averaging 20 points a night for the Run and Gun Nets. The real question is can get his assist to turnover ratio up from 1.3 a night.
26. Phoenix Suns	The first two games the Suns looked like a disaster but since then they have fired their coach, sent Bledsoe to Milwaukee and went 4-5 after those two games. Now all the focus should be on the development of their young guys and surround Devin Booker with as much talent as possible over the next few years.
27. Atlanta Hawks	The one thing the Hawks can hang their hat on, they play hard every night. After crushing the reeling Cavs, they gave the Celtics a great battle that required Kyrie to go off to save the day. Their record doesn’t reflect it but they are a well-coached team and John Collins is a solid rookie, averaging 10 and 7 with a highlight dunk at least every other game
28. Chicago Bulls	The only positive thing for the Bulls right now is Lauri Markkanen’s start to the season averaging 15 points, 8 boards and hitting 38.1% from three. Things will get interesting as Bobby Portis returns from his suspension after destroying Nikola Mirtotic’s face, it will be interesting to see how the Bulls who have always done a good job of handling tough situations deal with this one.
29. Dallas Mavericks	So basically the Mavs are really bad and this is a good year to be bad with a loaded draft. Dennis Smith Jr. is up and down like every rookie point guard. The ageless Wonder Dirk is averaging 41.7% from three just proving that the old guy still has it.
30. Sacramento Kings	Their top scorer is Zach Randolph with 12.8 points a night, it might be time to turn the keys over to the young kids. The Vets were brought in to help teach the young kids how to win and well they aren’t doing much of that so might as well let De’Aaron Fox go.