NBA Power Rankings: Damian Lillard’s willpower and the good time Suns

In this week’s NBA Power Rankings, no one can stop the Phoenix Suns. Except maybe Damian Lillard?

Our new look NBA Power Rankings are back, a non-traditional structure for a non-traditional era of professional basketball. The world is no longer just about wins and losses and teams are no longer the primary crucible of basketball power. So each week we’ll be dissecting how basketball power is presently distributed — between players, teams, friendships, diss tracks, aesthetic design choices, across leagues and whatever else has a temporary toehold in this ever-changing landscape.

Who has the power in this week’s NBA Power Rankings?

The Celtics are looking like a sleeping giant and the two-way chemistry between Brown and Tatum is one of the major reasons why. Boston is outscoring opponents by 13.4 points per 100 possessions when they’re on the floor together, the fifth-best mark of any duo to play at least 150 minutes together in the bubble. Their defense has been swarming and they’re also playing off each other as well as they ever have.

The Storm were going to be a WNBA contender this season even before opt-outs like Elena Delle Donne, Jonquel Jones and Liz Cambage eroded some of their competitors. Sue Bird was back for one more ride. Breanna Stewart was healthy. Jewell Loyd was still a walking bucket and Natasha Howard had blossomed in her season as the offensive focal point. And somehow the Storm have taken those high expectations and absolutely obliterated them.

They are currently 8-1 in the WNBA bubble, with their lone loss an early stinker against the Mystics. They have the league’s most efficient offense and the league’s most efficient defense. Their point differential of plus-14.7 per 100 possessions is threatening to lap the field — the difference between them and the second-place Las Vegas Aces is as big as the difference between the Aces and the fifth-placed Chicago Sky.

The Storm have FIVE different players shooting better than 40 percent on 3-pointers on at least three attempts per game, six different players averaging at least two assists per game and five scoring in double-figures. Breanna Stewart is playing like an MVP again but even if she has an off night the rest of this roster just comes at you in waves. They are an absolute juggernaut and, for right now, playing every bit as well as the dominant Mystics did last season.

This whole season has basically been one long eff you to Russell Westbrook and Thunder fans are going to get a chance to see out play out even further. The Thunder will take on the Rockets in the first round of the playoffs and it’s been reported that Westbrook will miss the beginning of the series because of a nagging hamstring injury.

The Thunder currently have a better win percentage than they did in any of the seasons Westbrook was leading the team without Kevin Durant. And after essentially swapping Westbrook for Chris Paul, the Thunder have a better win percentage than the Rockets. Chris Paul gets to show Houston what they’re missing, taking it right to James Harden. The Thunder have a chance to build up a series lead while Westbrook sits and stews. And then they can welcome him back at the end of the series just in time to put the hammer down. They’ll definitely want him on the floor while they celebrate.

It’s all happening exactly how they planned it.

Barring another global catastrophe, the Suns should have an eternal hold on the greatest August record in NBA history. They weren’t just the best team in the NBA bubble by wins and losses, they had the best point differential by an enormous margin, 4.6 points per 100 possessions better than any other team. They had the second-best offense and the fourth-best defense. Seven of their eight wins came against teams who will be in the postseason. They looked like the team they’re supposed to be two or three years from now, when this young core finally aged into its championship window.

So much of the basketball discourse is focused on potential, hypothetical ceilings, high-end outcomes and what-ifs. Maybe it’s just the way out optimistic fan-brains are wired but it’s so much easier to envision a young team like the Suns with all ten of their biggest question marks breaking the right way, rather than all going wrong, or the most likely scenario — some win-some, lose-some split. But while we’re consumed with the power of the ideal, we so rarely actually see it manifest. Nobody ever has everything go their way, every developmental arc touching the clouds in unison.

That the Suns did is, was an incredible sight and also a product of an artificial timeline. A playoff run might have been better for their long-term growth but it would have been worse for their legend. Honestly, I kind of love the way things worked out.

When the season was suspended, FiveThirtyEight gave the Blazers just a 14 percent chance of fighting their way into the playoffs. Now, with one win in two chances over the Grizzlies as the final hurdle, the odds stand at 93 percent. All of the Blazers have had their moments, from Carmelo Anthony to Jusuf Nurkic to Gary Trent, but, for the sake of emotional rhetoric, I’d like to attribute that swing of 79 percentage points primarily to Damian Lillard.

In the bubble, he played 41.7 minutes per game, averaging 37.6 points, 9.6 assists, 4.3 rebounds and 1.4 steals. He shot nearly 50 percent from the field and 43.6 percent on 3-pointers on nearly 13 attempts per game. He got himself to the line 10 times per game and missed just 9 og his 80 free throws. According to Inpredictable’s definition, he posted a clutch effective field goal percentage of 61.8. And he didn’t shrink from the moment. He had 15 more clutch shot attempts than any player from another team.

The Trail Blazers are on the verge of the improbable because Damian Lillard wrestled the laws of probability to the ground and subjected them to his own iron will.