Marc Stein, ESPN Senior Writer 8y

Power Rankings: Week 4 recap

Every edition of ESPN's weekly NBA Power Rankings comes with a Stein Line Live companion piece to further expound on how your faithful Committee of One arrived at a particular 1-to-30 order after a long Sunday night in the Power Rankings dungeon.

The easiest way to put it on this Rankings Monday would be: new week, same problems.

For the second successive week, finding a team worthy of the No. 4 spot under the imaginary -- but thick -- line under the Warriors-Spurs-Cavs trio was a major challenge. We ended up going with Oklahoma City there ... but probably more because the Thunder are getting Kevin Durant back this week than what we've seen on the court from them.

As we tweeted Monday morning ...

Read on for more of a window into our thinking with each of the three tiers in the latest batch of rankings ‎that posted at lunchtime Monday:

1-to-10: The Thunder, as stated, have risen to No. 4 largely in anticipation of Durant's looming return. Also: Chicago and Miami just couldn't convince us they merit such high billing, especially the Heat after a home loss to Minnesota and a near-loss on South Beach to Philly. Indiana has capitalized on the chaos throughout the West to unexpectedly climb into the upper third at No. 8, while Atlanta narrowly hung on in a top 10 that stunningly contains six teams from the East. We keep saying that can't last ... but it does.

11-to-20: Dallas (up to No. 11) surely would have sneaked into the top 10 had it found a way to pull out a win Sunday night at OKC. I suspect some will say that the Clippers were fortunate to fall only eight slots to No. 14, but the real story here, of course, is Kristaps Porzingis and the New York Knicks rising to No. 15. We probably had them too low last week, which the Knicks duly proved by sweeping their next three games.‎

‎21-to-30: A 10-spot demotion to No. 26 for Milwaukee? An additional five-spot dip all the way down to No. 27 for Houston? Don't even try to talk us out of it for either of those major disappointments. Let's focus instead on the New Orleans Pelicans, who are getting bodies back and rode some ridiculous rebounding from Anthony Davis over the weekend to inch away from the basement up to No. 24.

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