It seems that NBA general managers can’t decide if the Lakers are going to be good or bad this season.
The annual survey conducted by John Schuhmann of NBA.com was released on Thursday with some mixed opinions
on the Lakers that don’t really mesh with one another.
The Lakers received plenty of consideration for various topics, but the most jarring finding from the survey is that NBA GMs think Los Angeles will end up back in the play-in this year.
What makes this so perplexing is that the Lakers won 50 games last season and were the No. 3 seed. And they accomplished that with JJ Redick being a rookie head coach and Luka Dončić joining the Lakers for essentially just the final quarter of the season.
Why are they falling in the standings despite bringing back all of their main guys, adding a starting center in Deandre Ayton and a defensive guard in Marcus Smart?
Sure, the West is tough, but it’s hard to argue that the Lakers didn’t improve on an already good team.
At the same time, those same voters project Luka to be the runner-up for MVP this year. The Lakers are going to be bad enough to be in the play-in but Luka is going to be good enough to be fighting for an MVP? Make it make sense
There seems to be a lot of buzz around the NBA regarding Luka as a top MVP candidate. League executives also named him an MVP contender. Luka received 10% of the vote for MVP, but the overwhelming favorite was Nikola Jokić, who 67% of GMs voted for.
How Luka will be second-highest in MVP voting while the Lakers are in the play-in will be an interesting thing to witness this year.
Luka was in the top five in voting for best point guard and shooting guard. He was No. 1 in the best small forward category and earned 10% of the vote as the player who forces opposing coaches to make the most adjustments.
LeBron James was also peppered throughout this general manager survey. He got the second-most votes for the player with the best basketball IQ and earned 7% of the vote in the best leader category.
Lakers rookie Adou Theiro got some love as he received a vote for the biggest steal in the draft. Lastly, 7% of GMS think the Lakers were the hardest team to predict their level of success this season.
Don’t worry. We could tell.
You can follow Edwin on Twitter at @ECreates88 or on Bluesky at @ecreates88.bsky.social.
