Everyone loves power rankings! Before each season, I like to zoom way out and sort teams into buckets. It helps capture where every team fits within this distinct season, and along the years-long team-building continuum.
So here we go: Our ninth (!) annual Tiers of the NBA. The order within tiers does not matter!
Yeah, these dudes, again.
Warriors have to try their hardest
Searching for the proper paperwork to move up one tier
Most projections favor Toronto over Boston. Toronto finished four games ahead of the Celtics last season, and doubled Boston's per-game scoring margin.