Thought Of The Week

For 21 years, the NBA has run a survey on the state of the league and solicited answers from actual team general managers and presidents. It’s a revealing glimpse into what the (theoretically) smartest people in the room think about the present and future NBA landscape.

As always, there were a few interesting nuggets and conclusions.

1) Luka Doncic was voted the second-best point guard, second-best shooting guard, and third-best small forward, but Giannis was voted the best player overall

The league’s GMs love Luka, but they have no idea what position he plays, understandably so. Not much more analysis is needed here.

2) The GMs are much higher on the Cavs’ trade for Mitchell than Minnesota’s trade for Gobert

These same GMs also picked Minnesota to finish tied for sixth in the West, which is on the pessimistic side of what I’ve seen and certainly lower than I have them.

Gobert is such a polarizing figure; very few people are so good at the things they’re good at (defense, rebounding, screen-setting) and so bad at the things they’re bad at (doing anything whatsoever with the ball). The general public is generally less enamored with Gobert than the media, particularly those writers and podcasters who are fluent in more advanced analytics (which tend to love Gobert). Still, it would seem that the GMs are not as high on Gobert as I’d have thought, particularly at the high price point required to obtain him.

Meanwhile, the Cavs were voted the team that made the best moves in the offseason, and Donovan Mitchell was voted the new player likeliest to make the biggest impact. The Cavaliers were also the team with the “most promising young core,” so it’s safe to say the GMs love what President of Basketball Operations Koby Altman and his staff were able to accomplish this offseason.

3) The GMs have wildly disparate opinions on the rookies