NBA Western Power Rankings Week 8: Clippers hang onto 4th

December 21, 2015; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Los Angeles Clippers guard Chris Paul (3) reacts for a foul after scoring a basket against Oklahoma City Thunder during the second half at Staples Center. Mandatory Credit: Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports

The NBA’s Western Conference is as wild as ever, and the Los Angeles Clippers continue to struggle when searching for consistency.

It’s Christmas time and the NBA has done nothing but give us plenty of entertainment over the first couple of months of the season. We’ve now seen the Golden State Warriors actually lose a game, the San Antonio Spurs get insanely dangerous with no one noticing, and the Los Angeles Clippers rise before suddenly falling and losing three straight.

As always, the Western Conference is full of drama and many teams are struggling to find consistency, which makes this episode of our Clipperholics power rankings a tough one to call. In fact, there is just one point in our voting system between many of the teams this week.

To form our rankings this week, myself and writers Jose Salviati and Jeff Nisius have combined our thoughts on the West to form a collective ranking for all 15 teams. To achieve this result, we used a weighted point system to see how our personal votes would position each team. For every 1st place vote a team gets, they receive 15 points. For every 2nd place vote a team gets, they receive 14 points, and so on until the worst of the bunch in 15th place earns just one point.

To provide our reasons for each pick and have a look at the current state of each franchise, Salviati, Nisius, and myself have discussed each team’s performance.

As for the Clippers, they haven’t been too convincing. They had won 9-of-11 games over a recent stretch, although they have now lost three straight. That being said, the contests were close ones against some top teams, and NBA officials admitted that they made three wrong calls during the dying minutes of the Clippers’ 99-100 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder.

So, as the Clippers desperately struggle to look like a contender and everyone plays catch up with the Spurs and Warriors, let’s see how our West rankings look as Christmas is around the corner.

Next: Los Angeles Lakers