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The Philadelphia 76ers received sporadic placement in this week's power ranking polls, according to SB Nation, CBSSports.com, ESPN.com and NBA.com.
With rankings as high as No. 10 and as low as No. 18, no two polls placed the Sixers in the same spot.
Currently sitting in third place in the Atlantic Division, the team is 3.5 games back of the New York Knicks for the division lead. The team managed to defeat the Boston Celtics last week in a thrilling overtime victory, but dropped the second game of a home-and-home, in addition to a blowout loss at home against the Minnesota Timberwolves.
At SB Nation, curator Seth Rosenthal dropped the team three spots from last week's ranking to No. 14 overall. Citing the team's struggles to score from the field, Rosenthal offers an outside of the box theory as to the drop in production:
The Sixers' best overall field goal percentage for a game this past week was their 42.2-percent output in a blowout loss to the Timberwolves. A problem, it seems, is that a decent three-point shooting outfit has suddenly started bricking in the month of December. Theory: Doug Collins screwed up his advent calendar order and gave his players calendars filled with tiny fingertip-sized bear traps instead of chocolates. ... Fine, then let's see you come up with a better theory.
At CBSSports.com, Matt Moore gave Philadelphia their highest ranking of the week, placing them at No. 10 overall. Marc Stein at ESPN.com ranked the Sixers at No. 18 overall, which was two spots lower than last week's poll. John Schuhmann at NBA.com also dropped the team two spots this week, but placed them at No. 15.