Blazers Top-12 in Week One Power Rankings

The NBA regular season kicks off tomorrow night, and NBA.com has released their week one power rankings. The Portland Trail Blazers kick off the season 12th in the rankings:

The Blazers’ plan is to do what the Raptors did last year, in two ways. First, the offense is set to feature more ball movement and more 3-poiners. Indeed, they saw the league’s biggest jump in assist percentage (AST/FGM) from last season to the preseason (and it’s 12th biggest jump in the percentage of shots coming from 3-point range). Second, for the first time since C.J. McCollum became a starter three seasons ago, the plan is to sit McCollum and Damian Lillard together, so that five reserves will play together, with Evan Turner running the second-unit offense. Toronto’s changes produced the league’s second-ranked offense and its best bench.

The Warriors and Celtics top the week-one list. The Los Angeles Lakers rank one spot of ahead of the Blazers in the rankings. Portland will take on Los Angeles in the season opener on Thursday night.

Were the Blazers too high? Too low? About right? Tell us in the comments!