(disclaimer: This article's likely to get at least one major update on Tuesday afternoon when/if more power rankings go up around the web, so stay tuned.)
With the All-Star game and related festivities happening over the past weekend, not much really happened since the last run of power rankings. The Minnesota Timberwolves lost to the two best teams in the NBA (Atlanta and Golden State). What are the rankings thinking for the rest of the regular season?
CBS Sports: ???
(full rankings not here)
CBS's rankings have not updated. I'll update this article when they go up.
NBC ProBasketballTalk: ???
(full rankings not here)
See above.
ESPN: #25 (no change)
(full rankings here)
Marc Stein of ESPN kept the Wolves at 25, and Steve McPherson of fellow Wolves blog A Wolf Among Wolves had this comment:
With 60 percent of the Wolves' starters just back from missing around 60 percent of the season, they're far better than the record suggests. The trick now is building some chemistry among the vets and rising star Andrew Wiggins without jeopardizing a top-three draft pick.
SBNation: #28 (up 1)
(full rankings here)
Drew Garrison of SBN continues to be the hardest grader of the columnists, but he had positive things to say this week:
Ricky Rubio and Kevin Martin are back. Andrew Wiggins is playing great. Zach LaVine may have brought the slam dunk contest back to life. Minnesota's trajectory is only up from here.
Summary
While I reserve the right to add comments based on the missing rankings, I think McPherson's comments pretty much said everything that needed to be said: find the chemistry, figure out who's in and who's out of the long term picture, and keep that top three pick to add another piece to the puzzle. The journey should be a bit more fun with the starters back, but the schedule's got a pretty nasty run coming. They start things off with the Phoenix Suns on Friday, who are fighting to hold onto that elusive eighth seed in the Western Conferences over the Pelicans and Thunder. That will be the only game before the power rankings fairy next visits us, so I vote the Wolves get that win and get the second half of the season started off right.