Concern for the Thunder? Plus, Eastern Conference Power Rankings!

The Zach Lowe Show

The Ringer

Basketball, Sports

4.8 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 5 January 2026

⏱️ 108 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Zach is joined by Fred Katz to discuss whether the Thunder have reason for concern after another loss. Then, they update their Eastern Conference power rankings and try to make sense of the cluster of teams at the top. (0:00) Welcome to The Zach Lowe Show! (1:38) Fred Katz joins the show! (4:39) Any reason to be concerned with the Thunder? (13:51) Eastern Conference power rankings (15:50) No. 15 (20:23) No. 14 (25:33) No. 13 (29:13) No. 12 (32:42) No. 11 (35:37) No. 10 (40:37) No. 9 (44:17) No. 8 (45:07) No. 7 (51:09) No. 6 (1:03:33) No. 5 (1:12:05) No. 4 (1:18:16) No. 3 (1:28:55) No. 2 (1:39:14) No. 1 Host: Zach Lowe Guest: Fred Katz Producers: Mike Wargon, Jonathan Frias, and Billy Gil Social: Keith Fujimoto The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	coming up after this on the Zach Lowe show, it's Monday.
0:08.3	We got a lot to talk about in the NBA.
0:10.5	Oh my God, the Eastern Conference.
0:13.3	Where do we even begin?
0:15.2	Philly's on fire.
0:16.1	They just boat race to Knicks.
0:17.4	The Knicks have lost three in a row.
0:18.8	The Cavs, are they back?
0:20.0	Are they not back?
0:20.7	Are they kind of back? The magic, right when you start to get optimistic, Jalen Suggs gets hurt again,
0:26.3	the Boston freaking Celtics, gap year Celtics, boy, was I wrong about them, have the number one
0:33.5	point differential in the Eastern Conference without Jason Tatum. Should they be number one on our Eastern Conference power rankings?
0:40.3	Fred Casimir Athletic is here.
0:42.1	We're going to go 15 to 1 Eastern Conference Power Rankings based on who can actually make
0:47.9	the NBA finals.
0:48.9	So spoiler, like Washington, Indiana did not do very well.
0:53.2	I legitimately, you could order the top five or six in almost any way you wanted.
0:58.4	Maybe not almost anyway, but it was dicey up there.
1:01.4	Who should make a trade?
1:02.3	Who's going to make a trade?
1:03.4	We talk about all of that stuff, plus a little bit at the beginning about the Thunder.
1:08.4	Thunder loss to the suns are six and five in their last 11 games.
	...

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