Best Home-Court Advantage in the NBA

by Basketball John on Oct 22, 2008 12:37 PM MDT

NBA.com has their now annual GM survey up where they poll the GMs about teams and players. The Jazz have some mentions and take the top spot again for best home-court advantage. Let's look at some of the categories.

Predictions

No shockers here for the Jazz. They’re picked to win the NW handily, but don’t get a sniff at the winning the WC.

Moves

The Jazz didn’t do anything of significance in the offseason. But that could end up being the reason they contend this year.

Rookies/International

With Oden, Beasley, Mayo, and Rose dominating the headlines, Kosta Koufos isn’t going to be in any ROY talk. Not to mention that he’s not likely to get any PT. Kirilenko doesn't get mentioned for international players.

Defense

Um, let’s just skip this part.

Coaches

Sloan is mentioned here with the other top coaches in the NBA. I was surprised to see that he got votes for best in-game adjustments. That’s usually one of the things that frustrate me the most about Sloan. He sticks with his system regardless of what the other team is doing. Ty Corbin also garners a vote for best assistant coach.

Miscellaneous

The ESA. That’s where we shine. And that’s why it’s imperative for the Jazz to get home-court.

Korver gets a little love for best pure shooter. The Jazz get three players in the "Which player does the most with the least?" category. Memo ties for second. Boozer and Millsap are also in there. What’s LeBron James doing in there? I have to assume the GM meant doing the most with the least bit of team around him.

And while I'm not going to argue having Kobe take the last shot, I can't remember the last big shot like that he's taken, at least not recently.

And Harp of course gets mention for one of the toughest players in the NBA. Shouldn’t he be in the "Most with the Least" category?

Take a look at the GM’s survey last year and that might give you an idea of how good they are at this. That backs up Bill Simmons’ point that most of the GMs in the NBA are horrible.

Now, I’d like to see a survey by the players themselves to see how things would be different.

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Comments

I'm glad you mentioned how inept the GMs are in this league generally.

My first thought when looking at the predictions was “Oh, man. Maybe the Jazz aren’t as liked or as good as we think.” Then I thought “these GMs don’t know what they are talking about. Only like 10 teams in the league are headed in the right direction. Look at the list of GM’s and see some of the people that haven’t made a good "basketball decision” in a long time.

Atlanta- Rick Sund
Boston- Danny Ainge
Charlotte- Rod Higgins
Chicago- John Paxson
Cleveland- Danny Ferry
Dallas- Donnie Nelson
Denver- Mark Warkentien
Detroit- Joe Dumars
Golden State- Chris Mullin
Houston- Daryl Morey
Indiana- Larry Bird
LA Clippers- ?
LA Lakers- Mitch Kupchak
Memphis- Chris Wallace
Miami- Randy Pfund
Milwaukee- John Hammond
Minnesota- Kevin McHale
New Jersey- Kiki Vandeweghe
New Orleans- Jeff Bower
New York- Donnie Walsh
Orlando- Otis Smith
Philadelphia- Ed Stefanski
Phoenix- Steve Kerr
Portland- Kevin Pritchard
Sacramento- Geoff Petrie
San Antonio- R.C. Buford
Seattle- Sam Presti
Toronto- Bryan Colangelo
Utah- Kevin O’Connor
Washington- Ernie Grunfeld

Now that I have scoured the list I would say that 14 GM’s out of 30 know what they are doing. And that is being generous in including an unproven Walsh and Larry Bird who seems to have the team in the right direction, but only time will tell. Why should we expect them to know what the season will be like when most of them can’t even evaluate talent correctly (ie: drafts and last season’s trades).

The more you try to erase me, the more that I appear.

by clarkpojo on Oct 22, 2008 4:29 PM MDT reply actions

Wow.

Good work Clark. Either the GMs are complete idiots, or this survey was clearly on the bottom of their list of to dos. Maybe a combo of both, but mostly the former.

by pmannion on Oct 23, 2008 9:30 AM MDT up reply actions