The annual NBA GM Survey is always a tremendous glimpse into the most important minds in pro basketball. There aren't any surprises at the top: 46% of the GMs who answered picked the Lakers to win the title, and another 19% picked Boston. Both those teams were also favored heavily to win their conferences.
More interesting to me is which teams didn't get love. Only two of the 27 respondents picked San Antonio to win the title. Exactly zero of them picked Utah ... yet Orlando got a vote. Utah came out as the overwhelming favorite to win the Northwest Division (93% to Portland's 7%), but no one picked the Jazz to win the conference.
At least Utah has the league's trust to get a division banner: not a single respondent gave Phoenix (who finished two games out of the No. 1 seed last season) a division title over the Lakers. It's a bit mindblowing that the entire fraternity of GMs would pick L.A. to win the division, isn't it?
Fear not though, fans of the Jazz and Suns: only one GM predicted a Boston title last season, and no one picked the Lakers to win the conference. In fact, the GMs unanimously picked Phoenix to win the Pacific Division. Funny how that works out.
