Inside the mind of the boss

The annual survey of what the NBA's general managers think came out today. The most important vote is clearly Deron Williams, who officially and for the first time surpassed Chris Paul as the best pg in the league, at least according to the guys who pay. This indicates that the Jazz had better be willing and able to shell out a max deal in a few years, because some other people certainly will. Interestingly, the GMs went with the general trend of jumping on the OKC bandwagon, first picking Durrant as the most likely MVP and second by picking the youngsters to win the Northwest division. They still agree (at least 68% of them) that LBJ is the best small forward, strangely enough. I'll say it right now, and you can mark it down for later: OKC is overrated. Durrant is amazing. They are a fun and explosive team. But I would be very surprised if they win the division and if Durrant wins the MVP. They are not great defensively and this division is home to the Jazz, Nuggets, and a potentially healthy Portland team (that owned them last year regardless). Sports fans (and apparently owners too) fall into a peculiar trap year after year. They choose the team that surprised everyone last year by making a small splash in the playoffs to be the best, or an up and coming star to really take over. I haven't seen an empirical analysis of this yet, but I would bet it is very rare that such a team (e.g. the Packers in the NFL this season) actually lives up to the hype. So in the meantime, we will welcome the Thunder anytime to SLC and it's best-in-the-league home court.