John Schuhmann at NBA.com does an annual survey of NBA GMs on a wide variety of basketball topics, and this year’s survey just dropped. Among the interesting tidbits for Denver Nuggets fans and league fans in general:
- Jamal Murray was voted “most likely to have a breakout season” with 20% of the vote, twice as much as the second-place runners-up Brandon Ingram and Jayson Tatum with 10%. Of course since Tatum already broke out in many ways last year it’s a weird place to vote for him, but there are strange votes all over this survey.
- Denver was just an honorable mention with Utah in the “most promising young core” category behind Philadelphia (fine), Boston (okay, how young is the core supposed to be), and Chicago and Phoenix (now hold on a second). If Murray is supposed to break out, and Jokic is a star, how does this work?
- Jokic received votes with many other players (including Giannis Antetokounmpo) for “best center” but finished well behind Anthony Davis, Joel Embiid and Karl-Anthony Towns, and tied for third place in the “best international player” category with rookie Luka Doncic and behind Kristaps Porzingis (argh!).
- Other items of note: Isaiah Thomas got votes for “most underrated player acquisition,” Michael Porter Jr. was third in “biggest rookie steal,” and the Nuggets got votes in the “most fun to watch” and finished third in “best home-court advantage” categories. Will Barton also got votes as a bench impact player even though he’s likely a season-long starter for this team.
Feel free to check out the rest!