Another sign that the NBA season is upon us arrived on Thursday with the gift of NBA.com’s John Schuhmann’s annual NBA GM Survey, where he polls the league’s decision-makers on a variety of NBA topics to gauge the pulse of the people who are in charge of every team.
And not unlike some of the player rankings released by several media outlets, LeBron James is no longer the consensus best player. But that doesn’t mean the league doesn’t respect the Lakers, or James. James was voted the “Best Passer” in the NBA while the Lakers received 11% of the vote in the question for “Who will win the 2020 NBA Finals?” The Lakers came in third place in the poll with the Los Angeles Clippers getting 46% of the vote and the Milwaukee Bucks getting 36% of the vote.
LeBron was voted as the second-best small forward in the league by the league’s general manager after being seen as the best in the league by the group last year. Kawhi Leonard received 62% of first place votes for that category.
So, the league clearly respects LeBron and the Lakers. But not as much as they respect Kawhi Leonard and the Clippers.
