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Pete Schwadel/Bleacher Report

The first rule of NBA Power Rankings is to never get carried away with short-term results. That's especially true in this edition, which comes after our first set of games in the 2017-18 season. Following a summer of speculation, it's so easy to dismiss everything we thought about for months and judge teams entirely on a handful of early contests.

That doesn't mean we ignore surprises or obvious trends, particularly when they appear to be the product of genuine strategic changes or player improvement.

We've seen some intriguing examples of both so far, and that'll impact the rankings.

As always, the goal is to organize all 30 teams in order of present strength. Recent play matters, but we have to weigh that against longer track records and, unfortunately, injuries. Several prominent players are already down, with Gordon Hayward's grisly opening-night fall resounding as the biggest landscape-alterer.

We've got one in-season set of power rankings in the can and (this is the important part) many, many more to go.