Welcome to Layup Lines, For the Win’s basketball newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered to your inbox every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Have feedback for the Layup Lines Crew? Leave your questions, comments and concerns through this brief reader survey. Now, here’s Prince J. Grimes.
The NBA’s annual general manager survey was released Tuesday, and most of it was nothing more than confirmation of a lot of opinions the average fan probably already holds or assumes others do.
For instance, the GMs really like the Denver Nuggets — an overwhelming majority picked Denver to win the Western Conference. But that’s not a surprise. They’re the reigning champs. A lot of us like them too.
GMs also really like Nikola Jokic, picking him to win MVP and favoring him as the player they’d start a franchise with. But again, that was always a likely pick. He’s been an MVP finalist the last three years, winning the award twice.
However, digging through all 50 questions, there were a few responses I found a little surprising.
The Boston Celtics were voted as co-favorites to win the NBA title
Though I personally favor the Nuggets, this wouldn’t have been as surprising a few weeks ago before the Milwaukee Bucks traded for Damian Lillard, because at least the Celtics stood alone as betting favorites to win the East. But now, with Milwaukee’s odds matching Boston at BetMGM, I am a bit stunned 33 percent of GMs favor Boston to win the title, matching the percentage of votes Denver received and knocking Milwaukee to third with 23 percent.
It’s especially surprising considering 47 percent of GMs voted the Lillard trade as the one player acquisition that would make the biggest impact this season. Boston’s trade for Jrue Holiday came in at a distant second with 13 percent of the vote.
The Nuggets were voted as the NBA’s most fun team
This isn’t very surprising to me because even if I don’t think they’re the No. 1 most fun team to watch, I still enjoy watching Denver play. But I suspect the Nuggets receiving 30 percent of this vote will surprise some, because there were a lot of people who tried to justify Denver’s lack of national media attention last season by claiming they weren’t interesting — which just wasn’t true. GMs clearly disagree, giving Denver the edge over the Golden State Warriors, who received 23 percent of the vote. The Sacramento Kings came in third at 20 percent.
Victor Wembanyama received the 2nd-most votes of players they’d start a franchise with
I already mentioned earlier how Jokic was the top pick in this category, receiving 33 percent of the votes, but Wembanyama came in second at 23 percent. This is surprising because he was the only player they voted on who didn’t have at least three years under his belt. This was likely due to a philosophy split where some GMs preferred to go young — making Wembanyama the obvious choice — while others preferred proven veterans but couldn’t agree on which. Giannis Antetokounmpo received the third-most votes (13 percent), and six other players also received votes.
In general, the GMs are in love with Wembanyama. He received 50 percent of votes on which player would win Rookie of the Year, coming in ahead of Scoot Henderson at 27 percent and Chet Holmgren at 20 percent. Wembanyama showed exactly why so many people love his potential in his preseason debut Monday.
Cam Whitmore led voting in which player was the biggest steal of the draft
More surprising than Whitmore leading this category is that he led it with 43 percent of the votes. That’s nearly half the league’s GMs who believe the Houston Rockets got the biggest steal of the draft when Whitmore fell to them at No. 20, which is interesting considering many of those GMs likely passed on him. But Whitmore was once considered a top-five prospect before concerns started popping up prior to the draft, so the potential is certainly there.
Luka Doncic is a top-three player at three different positions
I found this to be funny more than surprising, but the GMs apparently can’t agree on which position Doncic plays because he received votes as the best player at three different positions. He received the second-most votes as the best point guard behind Stephen Curry. He was tied for the third-most votes as the best shooting guard behind Curry and leader Devin Booker. And he received the third-most votes as the best small forward behind Jayson Tatum and Kevin Durant. In my book, Doncic is a point guard, but I can see how that becomes a little ambiguous at his size and with Kyrie Irving flanking him on the wing.
Darvin Ham wants AD to be a shooter
AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez
If Darvin Ham gets his way this season, Anthony Davis is going to be attempting a lot more 3-pointers this year.
Ham made his desires public while speaking to reporters Tuesday, saying he wants Davis to take at least six threes per game, and whew. That is a massive increase over Davis’ career average of 1.6 attempts per game and especially his 1.3 attempts from last season, which were his fewest since 2014-15.
And Davis stopped shooting for good reason. Since topping out at 34 percent on 2.2 attempts per game in 2017-18, Davis’ percentages dropped each year until he bottomed out at 19 percent in 2021-22. He did improve to 26 percent on those fewer attempts last season, but that’s still not a number good enough to encourage more shooting. Apparently, Ham is convinced Davis can be better.
You can’t argue that it wouldn’t help the Lakers to have Davis knocking down a few threes each game. It would certainly open up the floor a lot more. But from what we’ve seen the last couple of years, his shooting doesn’t sound like a recipe for much success.
Shootaround
— The Hornets have reportedly cut former first-rounder Kai Jones
— Brendan Malone, the former coach and father of Nuggets coach Mike Malone, died at 81
— Dillon Brooks is up to his old bad habits. FTW’s Cory Woodruff has more
— Cam Thomas and Austin Reeves went on absurd scoring sprees at the same time
And that’s all from me. Catch y’all next week.
