USA Today polled 30 NBA General Managers about what player they would take to start a franchise and 16 of the 27 responses were votes for LeBron James.
There were only 4 players that received votes in the 27 responses from the NBA GM’s. It shouldn’t be much of a surprise that LeBron was the top vote getter, because he’s still considered the best player in the world. That being said, the reigning MVP still makes a good case to take some more of those votes away from LeBron. James received 16 votes and Durant received 7. Right now, the voting breakdown makes sense because this was Durant’s first MVP award, and he has yet to win a ring. Say he wins the award again this coming season and leads his team to the promised land, well NBA GM’s might start changing their minds.
Another thing to point out about the poll is that Anthony Davis got some consideration around the league. Davis received 3 votes and he’s only been in the league for 2 years so far. After playing for team USA in the FIBA World Cup this past summer, Davis’ stock is skyrocketing. He’s a great two-way player, and people have been mentioning his name in the same sentence with MVP. Last but not least, the San Antonio big man, Tim Duncan, still got some recognition. No surprise that Duncan got in on the conversation, because anyone would love a player with a resume like his.
Voting breakdown graphic below, courtesy of USA Today:
