Annual NBA survey tabs Thunder to repeat, Nuggets' Jokic as MVP - ESPN

The annual NBA.com survey of all 30 of the league's front offices has tapped the Oklahoma City Thunder to defend their title.

Like in ESPN's annual offseason survey last month, the Thunder were runaway favorites to win the title, with 80% of general managers across the NBA picking OKC to win for a second straight year — which, if the Thunder are able to do so, would mark the first time since the Golden State Warriors repeated in 2018 that a team would manage to repeat as champions.

The Cleveland Cavaliers and Denver Nuggets each got a couple of votes, while the Houston Rockets and New York Knicks each received a single selection.

The annual survey — which goes out to all 30 teams and doesn't allow teams to pick themselves or anyone from their own rosters, meaning no player or team can ever get better than 97% of the vote in a category — also had Oklahoma City and Cleveland as the heavy favorites to win their respective conferences. Besides the Thunder — who were first on 87% of ballots, and second on the remaining 10% — the Nuggets received 10% of the first-place votes and the Rockets received a single one.

They were followed, in order, by the Minnesota Timberwolves, Warriors, LA Clippers, Los Angeles Lakers, Dallas Mavericks and San Antonio Spurs.

In the East, Cleveland and New York both were unanimously selected to finish in the top three spots in the East, with the Cavaliers getting 63% of the votes for first place, 27% for second place and 7% for third. The Knicks, meanwhile, received 30%, 53% and 13%, respectively.

The only other team to receive any first-place votes was the Orlando Magic, who received 7%. The Magic were also picked to finish third overall, followed by the Atlanta Hawks, Detroit Pistons, Milwaukee