NBA: Dark horse candidates for 2018-19 awards
By Jacob Doole
The NBA season almost underway, and it’s time to start looking ahead. Who will rise from the pack and challenge the superstars for the major awards?
Ah, how quickly the NBA moves. It seems like just yesterday that James Harden was walking onto the stage with Adam Silver, dressed in a bizarre Hawaiian outfit (but Hawaii after someone poisoned all the flowers), to accept his MVP award.
Now, suddenly, the new season is almost upon us and Harden’s triumph is forgotten. With less than two weeks until the first games tip off, it’s time to start looking ahead at who might rise above the pack over the coming months and win the NBA’s major awards.
Of course, it’s no fun picking the favourites – who wants to see Harden go back-to-back? What kind of maniac is rooting for Kawhi Leonard or Rudy Gobert to win Defensive Player of the Year? How boring would that be?
Instead, we’ll be looking at the dark horse candidates – players who aren’t heavily favoured to win an award, but whose circumstances and talents could keep them in the running.
In my mind, a “dark horse” is someone outside of the immediate favourites to win. With that in mind, each player has their current betting odds listed and, more importantly, where that ranks them among their peers.