 What's the word, y'all? NBA season is around the corner. This is the best time of the year. The leaves are changing colors. The temperatures drop. I was coming home from the podcast. I saw a dude in a Michael Myers mask already. I think about that might've been him. Scouting, oh, okay. But NBA ball is back, pre-season is on, which means that this channel is back. Y'all know if you've been around for some years, once we get to the dead of y'all season, I usually just use this channel to just chill, focus on some other things. But I'm covering the game of basketball on a whole different level this year. I just have so many outlets, so many opinions, so much basketball to be consumed. And I'm locked in better than I ever been. So yeah, I'm here, y'all. I'm here, I'm here, I'm here. I talked about having different outlets. The Kennedy Beach and Podcast is one of them. We just dropped a new episode this morning. Links will be in the description. We basically broke down a Western conference and tried to figure out what teams are gonna make it, what teams won't, because there are a lot of good teams out west. And I appreciate your support. This is a completely independent project. It's just me as a producer on talent. I'm doing everything right now. So I appreciate your support by trying to become the number one basketball podcast in America. And I can't do that without y'all. Okay, let's get it. Earlier today, the annual NBA GM Survey came out. If you don't know what this is for the last 22 years, they've sent out surveys to all 30 NBA teams, GMs that said, hey, answer this group of questions. There's 50 questions in every year on this channel. We kinda dissect it and make fun of GMs. I'm not in a position to make fun of GMs, but I am in a position to make fun of GMs, if that makes sense. Now, I think we all came to the realization years ago that these GMs don't take this seriously. I'm sure there's a percentage of them that do, but for the most part, they might be delegating this survey to somebody else because it's a completely anonymous and it doesn't hold any water whatsoever. But I always find it real fun and we gonna have some fun together reacting to the GM survey. Shout out to John Schumann again. He's been doing some amazing work kind of putting this together. So I wanna approach this differently. We're not focusing on the top ends. We will talk about them, but more focusing on the other stuff and I'll explain that a little bit. The first question is, what team will win the NBA finals? The Boston Celtics and the Denver Nuggets are tied with 33% of the vote, which is fun. Obviously, the Denver Nuggets didn't make any big time splashes like the number one team, the Celtics or the number three team, the Bucks or the number 14, the Suns, but they hold that respect coming off an NBA championship, even if they've lost some key components. I just think once you win, you deserve it. But I can't lie, if you ask me right now, I'm probably voting this as well. Today, given good health, the Celtics look crazy. I think the super fun part is like, who voted for the Clippers? Listen, could they? Absolutely, they could, they could, they could. I don't wanna act like this team is the bottom of the barrel. But they don't really on paper compete with some of the other teams. It feels like the teams around them have caught up to them. So I don't know if there's a rule in the GM survey that you can't pick your own team. Maybe this in GM at a Clippers and then we got it, you know? Back in 2021, they had 11% of the vote. I didn't realize that the Lakers had 81% of the vote in 2021. Obviously they heavily disappointed, but the Clippers have always been a team that got some percentage. And this is the year where I expected it to kind of go away. But they still have believers, which is fine. That first year of them getting together, almost half of the GM said the Clippers are gonna be it. And as you can see, it went from 40% to 30% to 11% to now, what is it? 3%. But the fact that it's even 3%, they still got believers out there, which is dope. What player win MVP? Nicole Yolkens gets a lot of the praise there, but I like to see the other people receive a vote. So there were GMs across the league that said, hey, this is Anthony Davis this year. This is the year of Shay Gilgios Alexander winning MVP. Again, he was an all NBA first team player and he's nice, but I didn't expect a GM across the association to think that he would have a season that would put him into MVP. So they must be really high on OKC because traditionally to win MVP, you have to be a top player on the top team. Of course, you have the Yolkens here in the Russell Westbrook year where they weren't the top C, but for the most part, you have to be a top C and they might think it's Shay Gilgios Alexander, I guess. If you were starting to franchise, who would you sign Yolkens again on mid 20s? Two MVP's already in the NBA champion. It makes sense for him to be number one. He takes the crown away from Yanis who had dominated this question over the last couple of seasons and then Victor Wimbanyama, of course, he's a 19-year-old stud. And if I'm starting an organization today, I want the guy that has the possibility of giving us seven years of greatness, you know? Full rookie contract, he's that nice? Yeah, I understand that. But again, some people take droll and bees. Shay gives out a zander. Jason Tatum only getting a few votes is interesting because again, he's only 24 years old and he's been really good throughout his career. I know he's had his ups and downs come play off time, but for the most part, I would expect him to be a little bit higher. Anthony Edwards sneaks in at 5th, 7% of votes. Which players most likely have a breakout? Anthony Edwards makes sense, again, the stud. All of these guys make sense for breakouts. What doesn't make sense is why is Karrie Irv, who voted for Karrie Irv to have a breakout like he's not been all NBA multiple times? Breakout? This is why we do this. Gee, I'm sorry, that is a general matter. Not take this seriously. All of the crazy young talent across the association, they say, we think the 31-year-old point guard is gonna break out even though he's been all NBA before. These ones blow my mind every year. Blow my mind every year. Now, I ain't seen it yet, but I promise you, I know it's gonna upset me. Best point guard in the league, we can agree is Steph Curry for the most part. Lucas, Shay, Dane, makes sense. Best shooting guard in the league, Devin Booker, Steph Curry shooting guard. Luca Donch is shooting guard. Jason, there's a GM across the association that looks at 6'9", Jason Tatum and sees who he plays and said, that is a shooting guard in the association. He played with Marcus Smart, Derek White, Jaylen Brown, Tatum, is the shooting guard. That makes no sense. And even to Small Four, Luca Donch, it's Small Four. What is happening? What is happening? Power four, oh, they said, Dan Giannis, dominating that position, and then center also dominating that position. Anthony Davis and Jordan B both get votes, but 93% is crazy. What seems to be the best moves this off season makes sense. If you were asking 100 NBA fans who's gonna win the Eastern Conference, I would assume that 95% of them would have an answer of the Boston Celtics or the Milwaukee Bucks. And that other 5% might be somebody that's hanging on to hope of the Miami Heat after going on their crazy run last season, or maybe they believe that James Harden and B8, if they stay together, they can make it happen. But again, for the most part, a great majority of NBA fans after this off season would look at Boston and Milwaukee and say, that is the team. So it makes sense that they would share the best off season. The Indiana Pacers for best off season, shares Walker, Bruce Brown, Obi-Toppin, all acquired or drafted, which is very interesting. The Dallas Mavericks get in 7% of the vote from best off season. Again, I wanna remind people, the way this works is that you don't give your top three. You're giving the number one answer. So 7% of GMs saw what the Bucks did, they saw what the Celtics did, and they said, Grant Williams and ReSign and Kari Irvin and getting Omax Prosper and Derrick Lively is better than acquiring Porzingis and Drew Holliday. It's better than acquiring Damian Lillard. 7% of GMs said that or believed that. I can understand the Portland Trailblazer one better because again, that game trade looks great on paper. We gotta see what it turns into with those draft picks turned into. But again, it's interesting to see the Dallas Mavericks. What singer player would have a biggest impact? Damian Lillard gets almost 50% of the vote. Yousef Nurkitsch got a vote as a guy that the one player acquisition with the biggest impact, Yousef Nurkitsch. Some GM, I keep on reminding you, these are the people that get paid to build the rosters and make the championship team. There's a GM on the panel that saw the Suns did and said, Bradley Build is dope, but I believe that Yousef Nurkitsch is gonna have a bigger impact. That's crazy to me. This is a good one. This is a great collection of talent, most underrated acquisition. Marcus Marr makes a ton of sense, former DPOW, one of the best defensive players in ball, going to a team that lost their starting point guard for 25 games. He is the embodiment of the idea of Memphis Gritt and Grind. They very similar to Tony Allen, going from Boston to Memphis. The difference is Marcus Marr is well, well better, so much better than what Tony Allen was offensively. So yeah, I like this one. This would have been my pick as well if I was given a survey, but you also got people thinking they're like, OB Toppin, yeah, I can see OB Toppin having a good year. Sasha Vazenkov, who we really like and we watched him in pre-season look really solid. Now it's Bridges coming back, I guess. But yeah, I believe in Marcus Marr as well. Team that would improve the most. Okay, see Thunder, yeah, yeah, yeah. I can see it, I can see it. There's one GM that loves Grant Williams. Simple, simple. Cause he also got votes and what is the most surprising move this off season? I don't think that was very surprising that it all ramped up to end up being in Dallas. You know what I'm saying? Maybe I'm sure of it, but that's what it felt like. Even though I want to talk to him one day because I know the Bulls were in on that and he was close to signing with the Bulls and I want to kind of understand what that was like because he could have been a Bull, honestly. Three percent of GMs think that Sasha Vazenkov is going to win Rookie of the Year over Skut Chat and Victor Wiminyama. He's got the most professional basketball experience out of them. I get, oh man, Victor Wiminyama got a lot of experienced professional ball. Now that I'm thinking about it, but again, I'm a believer in Sasha, but not a believer to think that he's going to win Rookie of the Year. This is the best part. Which rookie will be the best in five years? 90% of GMs say Wiminyama, Skut gets a vote, Chet gets a vote, I'm in Thompson gets a vote, I love that. Five years ago, GMs were asked this exact question and they said Deondre Aiden and Jaren Jackson Jr. That's huge because if you remember, Deondre Aiden was the first overall pick in a draft that had Luka Donchich, Cray Young, so on and so forth. So as of right now, five years into their career, it's not even a question who's the best player from that draft class, Luka Donchich, right? But five years ago, when these guys were drafted, GMs across the association would hire on Deondre Aiden than Luka Donchich. And they believe that in five years, Deondre Aiden will be dominating and he's not doing that. So it is always just fun to kind of have their revisionist history because right now it doesn't make sense to think that Luka would it be better? But in the time, people were very high on the impact that Deondre Aiden could have in basketball. And maybe he still ends up getting that impact that those GMs thought, but obviously it's been Luka Donchich and Jaren Jackson Jr. as a number two, I guess. But that draft also had Shay and some other great players. So maybe it's not Jaren, but still Jaren's in the conversation, to say the least. Which rookie was the biggest deal? Makes a ton of sense to have Ken Whitmore because he was projected to go like number five, he fell a 20. Hey, 10% of GMs, and I'm not even mad at it, says the school Henderson was the biggest deal because most people, big boards had Vickett in school and then Brandon Miller slid into number two and ended up getting drafted number two, but 10% of GMs say, hey, three was too low for school Henderson. He is going to be a stud and I can't be mad at it. I mean, Monty Bates got votes. Okay, Monty, good luck, good luck, good luck. Ah, defense. Now, if you know me, defense is a thing that I care about the most in the game. A basketball, I'm a sicko and I enjoy watching great defense over great offense. I know, yeah, believe me. Who is the best defensive player in the NBA? Giannis makes a ton of sense. Drew Holliday makes sense to get some votes. Draymond, Marcus Smart, Jaren and Kawhi. Kawhi getting 7% in 2023, 2024. He's not in this conversation. Does that mean he's a bad defender? Does that mean he's not well above average? Absolutely not. He's still great, but the question is, who is the best? And if you ask me between Kawhi Leonard and Anthony Davis in 2023, who impacts defense more? I'm saying Anthony Davis. If you ask me Kawhi Leonard or Bam out of bio who didn't even get a vote, Lou Dork got a vote over Bam out of bio. If you ask me, Bam out of bio is a more impactful defensive player today in 2023. There's nothing to do in 2021, 2020, but now today's game. It's Bam over Kawhi and Anthony Davis over Kawhi in my personal opinion. If you still got Kawhi, it makes sense. Kawhi's still great, but I'm just surprised to see Kawhi get the edge above some of the people that have just done it better over the last couple of seasons. Best perimeter defender? Drew Holliday, I think we can all agree there. Leonard and Alex Garousa got some votes. Jimmy Butler, yeah, somebody's really high on Lou Dork. And again, he's a good defender, but I see the best perimeter defender of all, probably not. Best interior defender? Anthony Davis ends up fourth here. Jarron Rudy Gobert, Rudy Gobert still getting a lot of love, which is cool. He had 83% of the votes last year and now he's only down to 17, so he definitely fell off defensively. Even advanced stats say that he's not as good. He wasn't as good last year compared to the previous years, but he had a stranglehold on things last year. And yeah, not anymore. Most versatile sees Bam at three. Okay, at least Bam got his name mentioned, because that's the first time his name's been mentioned all throughout this entire thing. And the best defensive team, 100% Boston Celtics. I'm actually surprised to see the Lakers not be top five. And again, these are other good options. I think that the Lakers probably will be better defensively than the Bucks this season. I'll just look at what they did the second half of last year defensively and say, hey, they can replicate that. The personnel is the same, you know? But yeah, these are not bad options whatsoever. The Nets is actually interesting, but Nicholas Claxton and Mikhail Bridges are two of the top players at their position defensively. So that makes sense. Coaching, it's all Sposter. It's all Sposter. Best coach in the league, Sposter. Best at motivating people, Sposter. Best at in-game adjustments, Sposter. Come on, man. The offense is Mike Brown, which is great. But because Mike Brown, we were signed, Mike Brown has notoriously been a defensive minded coach throughout the entirety of his coaching career. But because he was a part of the Sacramento Kings and their offense was so elite this year, that narrative has completely changed. He's not a defensive minded coach anymore. He's the best offensive coach in ball. And he learned, I mean, he even said it before, he's learned a lot after being an assistant on the Golden State Warriors and a lot of their philosophy. So it makes sense to see the evolution. But it is just interesting to see him be a guy that was known as defensive minded to now be a number one in offense and the defense is Sposter. Again, the domination. The most fun team to watch. Okay, Denver, Warriors, Kings, Sons, great top four. The Celtics, Pacers, Lakers, Bucks, New Orleans, and then OKC. I think they got it right here. There's no team, I'm like, really? All of these teams should be really, really fun this season. Home court advantage, Denver. You saw it on the playoff. They didn't lose. They did not lose at home. And they also got the advantage of being a mile up ahead of everybody, the altitude and all that stuff. Which team would have the most efficient offense? Somebody voted Miami Heat. We got love for the heat, obviously. But the offense efficiency is not where their strengths are. Just isn't. To think that you believe that their offense is gonna be better than any of these teams up here is blasphemy. I don't even know if I'm using that word right. It's crazy. How about that? It's ridiculous. But one of you definitely thought that. Promise and young core, you can't get past OKC. Shay, Giddy, J-Dubb, Chet. That's as good as you could get as a young core. That doesn't even account for the exterior dudes who also are really good. I like that. And I think that's the most versatile player. This one is interesting to me. I would say it's the honest to. If you asked me, I would say honest. But to see some of these other names is interesting because I guess it depends on what your definition of versatility is. Because I believe, and this is maybe untraditional, Yolkic is a versatile NBA player. You know what I'm saying? But he only got a few votes in comparison to some of the other ones. Game and a line who's taking the shot, Steph Curry. Yeah, Jimmy Butler and Yolkic tie for fourth. Luca gets one. I'm actually surprised to see Luca not in the top five. Luca has had a lot of very big clutch moments in his young NBA career. You got the game winner in Portland, his rookie season. Of course, what he did to the Knicks with the miss free throw to get his own boy. Like he's got a lot of clutch moments like that. Playoff basketball gets the Clippers. But to see him not be top five is interesting. But they got two, they got number six and number seven. And then which change will require the biggest adjustment, the player participation policy, 100%. We're going into the era of the anti-rest era. That's what we're going into. You know, five, six years ago, we had 30 to 40 players every season that played 82 games. This year, I think it was like 10. And they're trying to get back to players playing regularly. So it will take a long time to adjust. There will be owners across the association that are willing to pay the fine to have their players be rested. But for how many years? How long before you like my check? But it's not worth it, you know? We'll see. Let me know what you think about the GM survey. What was the craziest thing? And what was the best thing and so on and so forth? Put your own survey together in the comments section. What would you answer some of these questions? I'll be down now.