NEW YORK – NBA general managers overwhelmingly expect the Oklahoma City Thunder to be the league’s first repeat champion in nearly a decade, while Denver’s Nikola Jokic is their pick to reclaim the MVP award and Miami’s Erik Spoelstra was once again the pick as best coach.
Those were among the findings of the league’s annual preseason polling of general managers, the results of which were released Thursday.
The Thunder got 80% of the vote — teams could not vote for themselves or their own personnel in the survey — in response to the question of which team would win this season’s title. No team has gone back-to-back since Golden State in 2016-17 and 2017-18.
Cleveland and Denver each got 7% of the vote, while Houston and New York each 3%.
MVP
The GMs were clear: They expect another international player to be MVP — players born outside the U.S. have won each of the last seven MVP trophies — and Jokic is the overwhelming pick to win what would be his fourth in a span of six seasons.
He got 67% of the vote, followed by Luka Doncic of the Los Angeles Lakers (10%), reigning MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander of Oklahoma City (8%), and Victor Wembanyama of the San Antonio Spurs (7%).
Top 4 seeds
If the GMs are to be believed, the top four playoff seeds in the Eastern Conference will be, in order, Cleveland, New York, Orlando and Atlanta.
In the West, Oklahoma City was followed by Denver, Houston and Minnesota.
Best at their position
Gilgeous-Alexander (73%) was the runaway pick as best point guard, with Minnesota’s Anthony Edwards (70%) the top pick at shooting guard, Doncic (40%) the best small forward, Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo (93%) the top votegetter at power forward and Jokic (97%) was the pick of almost everyone at center.
The Nuggets couldn’t vote for Jokic; by process of elimination, that means Denver’s vote for best center likely went to Wembanyama, since he was the only other player to receive a vote as the best center.
And the best pure shooter was nearly unanimous: Golden State’s Stephen Curry (93%) got almost all votes, with his former Warriors teammate Klay Thompson — now with Dallas — getting the other 7%.
Curry was also the pick as best leader, and the player GMs would want taking the shot with the outcome of a game hanging in the balance.
Most improved team
The GMs expect to see big jumps from Orlando (47%) and Atlanta (20%), making those clubs two of the top three votegetters when asked which team will be improved the most this season.
San Antonio tied Atlanta, getting 20% of the voting.
Rookie of the year
To no surprise, No. 1 pick Cooper Flagg of Dallas was the pick to win rookie of the year. Flagg got 97% of the vote, likely meaning 29 of the 30 if all teams submitted an answer.
The only other player to get a vote was Philadelphia’s VJ Edgecombe (3%).
Best defensive player
Again, no surprise: Wembanyama got 80% of the vote, with Minnesota’s Rudy Gobert and Cleveland’s Evan Mobley (7%) a distant second.
Wembanyama was widely picked as the favorite to win defensive player of the year last season before he was shut down in February following a diagnosis of deep vein thrombosis.
Best coach
Spoelstra once again was picked as the best coach in the league, getting 52% of the vote. Oklahoma City’s Mark Daigneault (34%) was second.
Spoelstra was the narrow choice as best manager or motivator of people as well, his 28% of the vote there barely edging Houston’s Ime Udoka (24%), Golden State’s Steve Kerr (14%) and Boston’s Joe Mazzulla (14%).
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