NBA power rankings: Darius Garland's wonderful bounce-back year

We’re still so early in the season that traditional indicators of a team’s strengths and weaknesses aren’t particularly sturdy, so instead of talking a whole bunch about point differentials and whatnot, I thought it would be more interesting to zoom in on a young player on each roster who has surprised, for good or for ill.

Just to establish an arbitrary cutoff, I’m defining “young” as age 25 or lower. (There is a surprising paucity of such players on several teams, as we’ll see below.) That allows for a good mix, from rookies to superstars.

Again, don’t worry too much about the placement of your favorite team; next time we’re here, we’ll be close to the quarter mark of the season, which allows us to really start taking stock of each team’s respective power level.