5 craziest answers from the annual NBA GM survey

Breaking news: The Boston Celtics have repeated as NBA champions.

Okay, that's not true because the season hasn't started yet but an overwhelming majority of NBA General Managers believe the Celtics will bring home the Larry O'Brien trophy again in 2024-25, according to the NBA's annual GM Survey which was released on Tuesday. Here are the most surprising answers from the league's GM's.

Most general managers want Victor Wembanyama long-term

Victor Wembanyama is about to take over the NBA, and GMs are prepared. After a historic rookie season, 77 percent of GMs say they'd pick Wemby if they were starting an NBA franchise today and could only sign one player. That may not sound too crazy, but picking an incoming second-year player over a three-time MVP in Nikola Jokic (who is only 29), Shai-Gilgeous Alexander (26 years old) and Luka Doncic (25) is a pretty big vote of confidence.

Wemby was also voted best defensive player in the NBA, as 40 percent of GMs already think he's captured that label. Bam Adebayo, Rudy Gobert and Jrue Holiday all received 10% percent of the votes. Again, it's pretty crazy that three players with a combined 18 All-Defense selections all received a quarter of the votes that a 20-year-old did.

Only three teams were picked to win the NBA Finals

It's not stunning that GMs think Boston will go back-to-back, but it's a little surprising that only three teams were chosen to win it all; Boston (83 percent of votes), Oklahoma City (13 percent) and Dallas (3 percent).

OKC is a popular pick to win it all, and it makes sense; each player in the Thunder Big 3 (Shai Gilgeous Alexander, Chet Holmgren, Jalen Williams) are still improving, and the team added Isaiah Hartenstein, filling pretty much the only hole on the roster. With star power and bench depth, OKC is understandably a popular upset pick.

Apparently, even with the major additions they made this offseason, the 76ers and Knicks aren't viewed as title contenders by the decision-makers around the league. Neither team received any picks to win the title, though 60 percent of GMs do think that Paul George is the offseason acquisition who will make the biggest individual impact on his new team.

Rockets rookie Reed Shepard gets a lot of love

He wasn't the top pick in the draft, but Houston's Reed Sheppard is viewed as the most likely rookie to produce immediately, as he received 50 percent of votes as the most likely to win Rookie of the Year and 43% of the votes for which rookie will be the best player in five years. He won't start from day one in Houston, but Sheppard will likely play consistent minutes in Houston's backcourt behind Fred Vanvleet and Jalen Green. He fits perfectly in H-Town, and rookies who play well on good teams always have a leg up on rookies who are stuck on terrible rosters.

Memphis Grizzlies are primed for a bounceback season

The Grizzlies are finally healthy, and GMs are buying into the bounceback year for Ja & Co. 67 percent of GMs voted the Memphis Grizzlies to be the most improved team in the NBA this season, and that seems like a safe bet; after a 27-win season, even a .500 year would be a huge jump. And Memphis (barring more awful injury luck) should easily eclipse the .500 mark.

San Antonio was second in this question, receiving 13 percent of the vote. The Spurs will be better, in large part because new addition Chris Paul gives Wemby an established point guard, something that was glaringly lacking from last year's Spurs team. But the rest of San Antonio's roster is still pretty thin, and there's a pretty clear limit to what this team can accomplish until it fills out its lineup, no matter how good Wemby is.

Anthony Edwards has surpassed Devin Booker as the league's best shooting guard

But it was a close vote! Ant received 33 percent of the vote for "best shooting guard in the NBA" while Devin Booker received 23 percent. Strangely, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander received 20 percent of the vote in the shooting guard category, and it's interesting that so many GMs see him as anything other than a true point guard (SGA also received 30 percent of the "best point guard" vote.)

Last season, Devin Booker got 63 percent of this vote, but a stellar season from Ant helped him leapfrog Book in the minds of general managers. Booker, if anything, acted as Phoenix's point guard last year, posting a career-high 6.9 assists per game.