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Welcome back to our NBA Star Power Index -- a weekly gauge of the players who are most controlling the buzz around the league. Reminder: Inclusion on this list isn't necessarily a good thing. It simply means that you're capturing the NBA world's attention. Also, this is not a ranking of any kind. The players listed are in no particular order as it pertains to the buzz they're generating. This column will run every week for the rest of the season.   

Before we get into the players everyone is talking about, let's pour a little out for the guys not enough people are talking about --- starting with Sweet Lou Williams, who remains one of the league's smoothest scorers. Williams has started the last three games for the Clippers since Patrick Beverley was lost for the season, and in those games he's scored 80 points, including the 42 he dropped on the Lakers Monday night. The Clips are also undefeated with Lou starting. Just saying. 

Also, Robert Covington and J.J. Redick. Man, those two have been terrific for the Sixers -- combining to score 31 points per game on a collective 42 percent from three entering Wednesday. But they play with Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons. So they get no love. Except a little bit here. 

Now, onto this week's list:

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Marc Gasol
LAL • C • #14
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By extension, Gasol became the talk of the league on Monday when the Grizzlies up and fired David Fizdale, who feels like the fall guy for a franchise seemingly on the verge of its own kind of free fall. Fizdale, if you haven't been keeping up, benched Gasol for the fourth quarter of Sunday's loss to the Nets. It's no secret the two had often clashed. Gasol made it known he wasn't happy about the benching. 

Less than 24 hours later, Fizdale was out. 

Nobody was shy in reacting to the news. LeBron, who was in Miami with Fizdale, wants answers. So do a lot of other people around the league who think Fizdale got a raw deal with a roster that is riddled with injuries and increasingly composed of borderline NBA talent. Mike Conley is sidelined. Chandler Parsons, too. This looks like it largely comes back to Gasol, who, for his part, denied having anything to do Fizdale's firing, saying that he was "a little bit shocked."

Either way, it's not the first time a star and coach have clashed, and those standoffs don't typically end well for the guy who wears a suit. But Gasol isn't exactly a winner here -- at least not at the moment. For years we've been wondering when the famed "Grit N' Grind" era would come to a close, and indeed, Memphis appears to be circling the drain. Zach Randolph is in Sacramento. Tony Allen is in New Orleans. Memphis owes a grip of money to Conley, who's now on the wrong side of 30 and might well be starting to break down. The Grizzlies have now fired three coaches since 2012, all of which made the playoffs the previous season. 

You're going to start hearing Gasol's name in a bunch of trade rumors. He's clearly still a borderline star player. He started this season on fire. But Fizdale's firing has, at least for now, put him square in the cross hairs of a pretty polarizing NBA story. Gasol isn't used to that kind of attention. Frankly, he's not used to much attention of any kind. Those days of not having to answer a lot of questions as an understated star on a small-market team, at least for now, appear to be over.  

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Russell Westbrook
SAC • G • #18
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Westbrook and his former friend Kevin Durant dominated the attention last week when Durant returned to OKC with the Warriors and they both tried to tell everyone it was "just another game." Sure it was. 

Westbrook was scary dominant in OKC's best win of the season over the Warriors, posting 34 points, 10 boards, nine assists, four steals and one "just another game" dunk that might well have registered on the nearest Richter scale. For everyone who likes to think OKC is a legit threat to Golden State (I'm clinging to this belief against my better judgment), the game was all the validation you could ever want. Melo was great. Paul George was, too. The defense held Stephen Curry and Durant in check and shut everyone else down. 

And then they went out and lost two straight to the Pistons (acceptable) and the Mavericks (not so much). In that Pistons loss, OKC was again a mess in crunch time, settling for six threes over the final two minutes of a one-possession game. Westbrook was forcing shots right and left. He finished 10 for 29 including 1 of 10 from three. It continues to be so hard to buy into this Thunder team, yet equally hard to dismiss them given their talent and occasional stints of collective brilliance. 

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Damian Lillard
POR • G
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Lillard has Portland on a three-game win streak coming into Wednesday, during which he has scored 34, 29 and 32 points, respectively, on 52 percent shooting. A couple things you might not realize about the Blazers this season: They are top-five in both defensive and net rating -- the latter of which suggesting they are even better than their 13-8 record. As for that defense, well, that's not something we've typically associated with Portland in recent years, and it's certainly not something Lillard is known for, yet his 99.4 defensive rating entering Wednesday jumps off the page. 

It's a bit deceiving. When you watch the tape there are a lot of possessions -- or at least more than that defensive rating would suggest -- where Lillard has off-ball lapses or simply fails to maintain his energy through multiple actions, and is simply the statistical beneficiary of someone missing a relatively uncontested shot. But he is making a more concerted effort on that end, in general. In this first clip, watch how he fights over the screen twice before contesting Spencer Dinwiddie's three, never once conceding any space:

That was a big possession for Portland. Dinwiddie had hit a three on the previous trip on a similar stop and pop, and Lillard was clearly determined to dig in. Here again, in a one-point fourth-quarter game, Lillard gets through the off-ball cluster before holding his ground vs. Chris LaVert:

And of course, Dame is still doing Dame things on offense, scoring four points a game in clutch time (sixth in the league entering Wednesday) on 52 percent shooting while cashing 30-plus footers with ease:

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Ben Simmons
LAC • G • #25
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So if you wanted to poke a teeny-tiny hole in Ben Simmons' Rookie of the Year stranglehold, you could, if you so dared, point to the aforementioned Robert Covington and Redick and the impact they're having not just on the Sixers as a whole, but on Simmons specifically. 

For instance, when Simmons is on the court with those two, he boasts an offensive rating of almost 109 points per 100 possessions entering Wednesday, per NBA.com. But when he is on the court without them, that rating falls off a cliff to 94.9 per 100. For what it's worth, the production from Redick and Covington pretty much stays the same when Simmons is off the court. In fact, you'd probably be surprised to learn that among Philly's four starters who have positive net ratings, Simmons' is the worst at 7.8. Covington, just for the sake of comparison, has a net rating of 21.6. 

This makes perfect sense when you think about Simmons' game. He's not a good shooter outside of 10 feet, meaning he requires other players to create the floor spacing he needs to get into the lane and make plays. Few duos in the league provide more off-ball spacing than Covington and Redick. 

It's not to say Simmons isn't terrific. He clearly is. It's just something to consider when you look at the numbers he's putting up. Fact is, speaking strictly about offense, he's benefiting as much from his teammates as they are him. Lonzo Ball, for instance, would love to have a couple shooters like that surrounding him. 

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James Harden
LAC • G • #1
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Here's a question: Who's a bigger runaway at this point, Simmons for ROY or Harden for MVP? The answer is probably Simmons, but if the season ended right now, and anyone was even close to Harden in MVP voting, it would be shocking to me. Harden is dominating every night like he's on auto pilot, leading the league in scoring, assists and 3-pointers made with 90 entering Wednesday. 

In the past week, Harden put up 37 points, 10 boards and eight assists in a win over Brooklyn, then 37 points and 10 assists in a win over the Knicks. Over those two games he was 13 of 26 from 3-point land. Against Brooklyn, he accounted for 30 points via either a bucket or an assist in the first quarter alone. He's now scored at least 20 points in the first 20 games of the season -- the first player to do that since LeBron did it in the first 33 games (whoa!) in 2012-13, per NBA.com. All the while, he's dropping dimes like this:

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Lonzo Ball
CLE • G • #2
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Lonzo's Pops might like to stick his foot in his mouth, but Lonzo has never been anything but a class act. After Lavar said his son (while he was still in college!) was better than Curry, Lonzo responded ahead of Wednesday's Lakers-Warriors tilt with this:

Curry was also quick to take up Ball's defense in light of all the criticism the Lakers' rookie has received in the early going. 

I've done a lot of Lonzo evaluating myself of late, and really, there isn't much more to say at this point. He's still struggling to shoot -- less than 25 percent from three for the season, barely over 30 percent from the field. He did go 3 of 5 from beyond the arc in a loss to the Kings last Wednesday -- a game in which he posted 11 points, 11 assists and 7 boards. He fell off again in a loss to the Clippers on Monday, just 1 of 6 from deep and 1 of 8 overall for five points, but look at this play that won't show up anywhere except for an unheralded secondary assist that nobody will pay attention to:

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Derrick Rose
MEM • G • #23
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It's a tough pill to swallow that the only way Derrick Rose can end up on any kind of star list these days is for something off the court, but here we are. The game isn't there anymore, the injuries keep piling up, and now Rose has stepped away from the Cavs as he ponders whether continuing his career is worth the mental and physical toll he appears to be paying. 

We're all interested in his decision -- not because it's going to make or break the Cavs' season by any stretch, but simply because it wasn't that long ago that the Derrick Rose story was almost certain to end in the Hall of Fame. He was an MVP at 22. A generational, Vince-Carter-in-his-prime, Russell-Westbrook-now type of athlete. Personally, I think he was even more impressive than those guys, which is crazy to say out loud. 

If Rose decides to walk away, he would reportedly forfeit the $80 million left on his Adidas deal, so for that reason only, don't be surprised if he's back in uniform once he's healthy. Either way, the Derrick Rose we once knew has been gone for a while now. I can't imagine how hard that must be to reconcile, to be that good at something, to live your entire life athletically unbounded, to have this historic career doing something you truly love sitting right in front of you ... and then to have to sit back in some kind of cast or brace, on some surgery table or in some rehab room, and watch it all slip away.

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Andre Drummond
PHI • C • #1
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After Detroit went into Boston and knocked off the Celtics, Stan Van Gundy had this to say:

Pretty hard to argue with SVG when you look at those numbers -- which, as noted by ESPN Stats, make Drummond the first player since Wilt Chamberlain to put up at least 25 points, 20 rebounds and five assists as a visiting player in Boston. 

Wilt. Chamberlain. 

So, yeah, Drummond is on a roll right now, adding a 17-point, 14-board performance in that win over OKC to that Boston showing to put together a pretty damn terrific recent stretch. By the way, The Pistons, at 13-6 entering Wednesday, aren't just cleaning up on a weak schedule. They've already notched wins against Boston and Golden State, and are running roughshod over the Western powers. 

DEEEEEEEEEEEE-TROIT BASKETBALL!!!!

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Chris Paul
LAC • G • #3
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For his part, Paul has been superb as a playmaker/passer in his six games with Houston thus far, tallying 65 assists against just seven turnovers. Over his last two games he's got 27 assists to one turnover, which is just silly. He's not shooting it well -- just 3 of 19, including 1 for 8 from three -- over his last two games, but does Houston really need any more scoring? Besides, Paul can shoot. That part will be fine. 

What's interesting right now is that for all of Paul and Harden's success, they're not doing it together so much. What the Rockets have right now is the luxury of having an all-world point guard on the floor at all times, with the two often subbing for one another after they start and finish halves together. Paul, specifically, gets noticeably more aggressive when he's operating without Harden. 

Entering Wednesday, lineups that include both Paul and Harden are barely operating at a positive clip with just a 2.4 net rating, per NBA.com. By contrast, when the ball is in Paul's hands with two shooters in Ryan Anderson and Eric Gordon around him, those lineups are outscoring opponents by 43 points per 100 possessions entering Wednesday. Against the Knicks, Houston trailed 23-5 when Harden first subbed out, and the next time he and Paul were on the court together, about 13 game minutes later, the lead was down to three. 

As I said in the Simmons blurb, don't get too caught up in the numbers. These two are still learning to play together. Paul, specifically, is learning to play in a whole new system at a whole new pace. When they are on the court together, there are signs all over the place of what they're almost certain to become as a tandem, even in a simple play like this:

This is such a vet play by Paul, and it's made so much easier by Harden's presence. First off, Paul in a pick and roll has to be honored. When he's moving toward Harden, attention is going to turn in that direction like sunflowers to the sun. So Paul uses that misdirection effect as he probes toward Harden, knowing all along that Tim Hardaway Jr. is probably going to relax on the back side after his man gives up the ball. Paul feels this kind of action in his bones, and on cue, the second Hardaway relaxes, Paul is on it, whipping a pass back to Trevor Ariza for the triple. So simple. So good. And Harden never even had to touch the ball. 

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LeBron James
LAL • F • #23
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Oh, hello there, best player in the world. Nice of your Cavs to rip off nine straight wins to quiet all the critics. LeBron's last three games: 78 points, 41 rebounds, 25 assists. No big deal. On Tuesday, James put up 21 points, 12 rebounds, six assists and five blocks -- a line only one other player, James Harden, has managed to put up this year. It took Harden 43 minutes. It took LeBron 28. He was ejected in the third quarter. 

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