What better way to celebrate another exciting NBA season than starting up a new blog?

The Newsday.com sports team’s fearless leader, Mark La Monica, recently handed me the keys to the website’s brand new NBA blog, Double Dribble.

I’ll be musing about the NBA over there now, found at newsday.com/doubledribble. You’ll find plenty of analysis, highlights, news and much more daily.

That said, I won’t be linking to, or posting, NBA content on my Tumblr page anymore. This will be reserved more for other topics, including the NFL and, if I ever get around to it, pop culture.

Enjoy the reads, though, and be sure to bookmark the blog!

Each Monday, many of the finest national basketball minds release their weekly NBA power rankings. I do too. So why not take a look at where each team falls across the different media, and where the outliers are.

I’m using the rankings from the following outlets:

ESPN (compiled by Marc Stein)
NBA.com (compiled by John Schuhmann)
SB Nation (compiled by Tom Ziller)
Inside Hoops
Sheridan Hoops (compiled by Chris Sheridan)
Newsday (compiled by yours truly)

(Notes: You can read each author’s rankings by clicking on the links above. Also, note that Sheridan releases his rankings on Sundays.)

Here are the aggregate rankings, with comments below:

(Yellow highlight indicates the highest (or best) a team was ranked. Green highlight indicates the lowest a team was ranked. Blue highlight indicates all outlets ranked the team the same. Orange item is the biggest outlier on the high side, red item is the biggest outlier on the low side.)

Obviously, the Heat are the consensus best team in the league. That shouldn’t really come as a shock. They are outscoring opponents by nearly 12 points per game, beat the Hawks without LeBron James or Dwyane Wade in the lineup, and are first in the league in assists per game at 24.6.

Everyone has Bulls and Thunder second and third in some sort of order other than John Schuhmann, who had 2-3-4 as Bulls-Blazers-Thunder. Schuhmann wrote about the Blazers:

Gerald Wallace’s offense has come and gone, but his defensive impact has been huge. The Blazers have allowed just 89 points per 100 possessions in 263 minutes with him on the floor, compared to 109 in 121 minutes with him on the bench. Portland’s improved D will host the Clippers’ No. 2 offense Tuesday.

Conversely, I had the Blazers ranked the lowest at seventh. For me, 5-through-8 was tight, and I went Spurs-Nuggets-Blazers-Pacers. They could have easily leaped been fifth, but right now, I just like the depth in San Antonio and Denver a little more.

I was also on the low end with both the Sixers (had them ninth, average was eighth) and the Magic (14th, 11th). I’m concerned about the strength of schedule of both teams, and would like to see Philly and Orlando against tougher opponents. Remember, the Magic are 6-1 against teams with losing records and 0-2 against teams with winning records, while Philadelphia’s four-game winning streak has come against the 25th, 26th, 27th and 23rd ranked teams above.

That being said, I love the 76ers — namely what Lou Williams is going to bring to the table the rest of the season — but I don’t think Orlando will keep up this 6-3 start.

Tom Ziller of SB Nation had the two largest outliers, ranking the T-Wolves nine better than the field, and the Rockets five lower.

On Minnesota, Ziller wrote:

I don’t care how many times you lose to the Cavaliers. If you end two long losing streaks to the Mavericks and Spurs and punk a team — even the Wiz — by 20 on the road in an early Sunday game — the definition of a “flu-like symptoms” game in most cities, you get a big ol’ totally important NBA Power Rankings boost.

And on Houston, Ziller wrote:

Next to the Knicks, the Rockets have been the league’s biggest disappointment. Houston has faced the No. 3 toughest schedule, but a playoff contender needs to peel off one game against the slate the Rockets faced last week.

I totally agree with Ziller on Houston. They had a chance to make a statement last week, but lost a quartet of games against the Lakers, Thunder, and twice to OKC. Minnesota definitely seems high, but they are one of the teams in the NBA that can seemingly beat any team on any night.

Sheridan’s ranking the Cavaliers 15th when they came out 21st in the aggregate seems high, but remember, he released his before Cleveland lost by 20 to Portland on Sunday night.

I’ll come back with this feature each Monday afternoon. In the meantime, what are your rankings? And what team do you think is in line for the biggest change?

My NBA preview hits newsstands on Saturday. If you can’t wait, here’s your reading material leading up to opening tip on Sunday:

Five on five: Western Conference preview

Five on five: Eastern Conference preview

Top 2011-12 NBA story lines

Western Conference preseason power rankings and predictions

Eastern Conference preseason power rankings and predictions

I posted in the Steel Cage at Newsday.com earlier today about Curtis Granderson’s affinity for the WWE, and tomorrow on Newsday.com, you’ll find a feature on Granderson and his new children’s book, “All You Can Be: Learning & Growing Through Sports.”

In the meantime, some of the interview didn’t make it to “print” — or whatever you’d call its online counterpart. Here’s the best of the rest of the soundbites:

On the personalities in the Yankees clubhouse:

“I’m probably not the goofiest guy. You know you have Swisher who is obviously one of the most outspoken guys, he’s always talking and always upbeat and spirited. So I kind of hang out with him from time to time. Then you have Jorge Posada. Me and him always constantly joke day in and day out. It’s amazing to hear CC laugh because he’s such a big guy, when he starts laughing it’s a big laugh.”

On how he thinks Nick Swisher is dealing with trade rumors:

“I don’t think it’s necessarily difficult, I think it’s what comes with [being a baseball player]. You can’t let it consume you or else you’ll be worried about it so much.”

On seeing Justin Verlander firsthand as a teammate when the two became full-time fixtures in the Detroit Tigers lineup in 2006:

“I think right away in ‘06 when we had a chance to see him go out there day in day out, step up to every challenge, every opponent, especially in the postseason when we opened up against the Yankees, [we knew he had “it”]. We were the underdogs, and he came into Yankee Stadium and pitched the way he did against one of probably the best offensive lineups with Gary Sheffield, Jason Giambi, Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez; he was able to calm them down and give us an opportunity to win the ballgame. Sure enough from that point on, he continued to get better and better.”

On what he’s looking to improve on in 2012:

“It’s not a statistical thing I’m trying to do. Be a little more aggressive on the base paths, try to put the ball in play a little more, cut down on strikeouts.”

On his hoops prowess:

“I was pretty decent. I had some Division II and Division III offers. I had an opportunity to play at my university but ended up breaking my thumb, and ended up playing baseball.”

Full disclosure, my knowledge of this venture by Sachem East is very, very limited. In fact, all I know about their pitch to get a community member on ABC’s “Extreme Home Makeover” is from the information section on their Facebook group. (The group name is Extreme Makeover for Kevin O’Reilly if you want to search for it on Facebook.)

I won’t get into the details of the pitch here. You can read about it (begin shameless plug) in my latest blog post on Long Island Now at Newsday.com (end shameless plug).

The cool part about the project, though, is how fast support has poured in on Facebook. When I first stumbled across the group thanks to a Twitter link around 8:45 p.m. the group had around 2,400 members. Now, at 9:17 p.m. the group has reached 2,599 members, and quickly counting, with an incredibly busy wall.

I always question the integrity of reality shows that promise a better life for those they chronicle. But in this case, Sachem East is showing that the journey to get the O’Reilly family a new house will prove to be even more important than the end result.