NBA Power Rankings: Jazz are dominant again; Lakers are bad bad

Utah Jazz (Jeffrey Swinger-USA TODAY Sports)
Utah Jazz (Jeffrey Swinger-USA TODAY Sports)
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Philadelphia 76ers
Philadelphia 76ers Tobias Harris (Eric Hartline-USA TODAY Sports)

3. Philadelphia 76ers

One of the most interesting storylines that has emerged over the first few weeks of the NBA season has been how well the Philadelphia 76ers have played without Ben Simmons in the lineup. Joel Embiid has not even played at an MVP level yet, but the Sixers simply just keep on winning.

The expectation is that sooner or later the absence of Simmons is going to catch up with the Sixers but with how they’ve looked so far this season it’s hard to envision that it will ultimately have as big of an impact as many predicted it would before the season.

The Sixers have the NBA’s best offense and a top 14 defense. If they can continue to play this good for the remainder of the season, it’ll be interesting to see how they approach the Simmons situation moving forward.