The Pepsi Center is an extremely difficult place to play, according to NBA general managers.
The NBA's annual anonymous GM survey dropped Tuesday, and the league's decision makers said Denver has the second-best home-court advantage in the Association. The survey didn't ask GMs to elaborate, but I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that Denver ranked so high because #altitude.
Here was how the voting broke down in that category:
- Golden State — 58.3 percent
- Denver — 16.7 percent
- Oklahoma City — 10 percent
- San Antonio — 6.7 percent
- Utah — 5 percent
- Portland — 3.3 percent
Golden State leading the pack by a comfortable margin isn't much of a surprise. They have rowdy fans, are a couple months removed from the best regular-season record ever and just added Kevin Durant. Oh, and they blew a 3-1 lead in the NBA Finals, but that's beside the point.
NBA GMs picked the Warriors to get back to the Finals and win it this year. A whopping 69 percent of respondents chose Golden State to hoist the Larry, while 31 percent picked the Cleveland Cavaliers to repeat.
Aside from the home-court advantage question, the Nuggets didn't show up very much in the poll. Sharpshooter Jamal Murray received some votes for who GMs think will be Rookie of the Year, but he didn't get enough to finish among the top five. Timberwolves guard Kris Dunn came in first in that category with 46.7 percent of the vote, followed by Buddy Hield of the Pelicans and Ben Simmons of the 76ers with 13.3 percent.
The Nuggets begin their season Oct. 26 against the Pelicans.
