NBA power rankings heading into opening night: Can the Bucks repeat?

It's opening night!

We’ve made it. It’s opening night in the NBA.

All the offseason drama that’s bled into the regular season — hi, Ben Simmons! Welcome back to the Sixers! — is still around, but we can focus on actual basketball being played that isn’t preseason hoops.

We’ve already given you the watchability rankings for the season, and while you’ll note the top team there is also the best of the best heading into 2021-22 (spoiler alert), there will be some notable differences. This is about the best teams on paper.

So let’s run through them, from 30 to 1. We’ll do a little good news and bad news for each team, too.