Clippers: Another year, another NBA GM Survey

For much of the basketball calendar year, all opinions heard are mostly that of the fans who spend their days dissecting everything that’s basketball.

The best players. Best (insert position). Who’s tanking? Who should be traded? Breaking down off-season moves. Predicting championship contenders. Deciding who’ll win what playoff series. Yadda Yadda, if a topic exists, we’ll talk about it — and surely enough, speak on it until the horse is beaten to death.

Next up is writers; it’s their job to do such.

Then basketball analysts, most who once ventured through arenas as former athletes.

And last, but not least, actual NBA personnel. Those are who we’d wish to hear from the most, as their decisions have a greater baring on every day action in basketball than anyone else’s. And that’s why the annual general manager surveys posted on NBA.com interesting, even if most of the opinions probably come from interns of some capacity — I think GM’s are crazy enough to actually believe most of these things though.

So what did GM’s have to say about the Clippers this season? Let’s take a look:

• 34.5% of GM’s believe the Clippers will finish fourth in the Western Conference.
• 24.1% of GM’s believe Chris Paul is the best point guard in the NBA (after years of being first, the Clippers star has been toppled by last seasons MVP Stephen Curry, who was voted top’s by 55.2% of GM’s).
• Blake Griffin was voted by 7.1% of GM’s to be the best power forward in basketball; Anthony Davis grabbed majority votes — you knew that though.
• Rounding off ‘best player votes”, 6.9% of GM’s, shockingly, believe DeAndre Jordan is the best center in the NBA.
• 6.9% of GM’s believe the Clippers had the best offseason, thanks to acquisitions of Lance Stephenson (trade), Josh Smith, Paul Pierce, Cole Aldrich, Pablo Prigioni, Wesley Johnson, Austin Rivers (re-signed).
• Paul Pierce drew ties at 10.3% with Houston’s Ty Lawson and San Antonio’s David West for most underrated player acquisition of the off-season.
• Somehow, DeAndre Jordan returning to the Clippers received the biggest percentage of voters, 24.1%, for “most surprising move of the offseason”, though that may be due to his infamous changing of mind as he reneged the verbal commitment to the Dallas Mavericks to “return” to the Clippers.
• 6.9% of GM’s believe Jordan is the best defender in the NBA, receiving more votes than Marc Gasol, former Defensive Player of the Year, Rudy Gobert, Serge Ibaka, and Finals MVP Andre Iguodala.
• For the second year in a row, GM’s (25.0%) of voters believe no player will make a better head coach than Chris Paul — Redick and Prigioni also received votes in this category.
• 10.3% of GM’s believe J.J. Redick is best at moving without the ball.
• Finishing at the top again, most GM’s believe CP3 is the best passer in the league — surprisingly, in a non-Clippers related comment, John Wall received no votes.
• For some reason, 10.3% of GM’s believe Jamal Crawford makes the biggest impact when he enters the game, over any other bench player in the league not named Igoudala or Isaiah Thomas.
• CP3 and Pierce received votes for which player is the best leader.
• CP3 was pegged as the player with the best IQ in the league (for the second year in a row), ahead of LeBron James, Stephen Curry, and Tim Duncan.

The biggest exclusion despite numerous appearances by the Clippers? No GM picked the Clippers to win the 2016 NBA Finals, which, depending on how you look at the Clippers and their competition, is a good or bad thing — 53.6% picked Cleveland; 25% picked San Antonio; 17.9% picked Golden State; 3.6% picked Oklahoma City.

They’re interesting comments, and you can split the line nearly down the middle when wondering if the assessments are closer to “correct” or “insane”.

For correct, that includes GM’s believing Paul or Griffin are tops in the league at their respective positions (though you’d need a damn good argument to sway me with Griffin being better than Davis). The DeAndre Jordan position rankings? I’d put those closer to insane, thought it’s a testament to his peers instead of tearing down Jordan’s improving talents — hard to see him being the best center or defender in the NBA.

The rest would be wasteful nitpicking.

Let us know what you think of the annual GM survey, and where the Clippers did — or didn’t — pop up.