2019 NBA Awards Roundup: Heavy Favorites All Around

The NBA’s regular season may be in the rear-view as we progress closer to the wrap-up of the NBA playoffs but there’s still curiosity on who will take home the regular-season awards such as Most Valuable Player, Rookie of the Year and Coach of the Year. Oddsmakers have released updated projections for who will take home the hardware with a lot of odds-on favorites in each category.

Online sportsbook BetOnline has updated its oddsboard with all of the NBA awards for its third annual show on June 24 and it shouldn’t be a surprise to see candidates for each category listed as huge faves.

Giannis Antetokounmpo is the -500 favorite to win Most Valuable Player, Rudy Gobert at -400 to win Defensive Player of the Year, Luka Doncic at -900 to win Rookie of the Year, Pascal Siakam at -1600 to win Most Improved Player, Mike Budenholzer at -400 to win Coach of the Year and Lou Williams at -800 to win Sixth Man of the Year.

With such heavy favorites, it’s hard to justify going against the fave but here’s the one prop I’d jump on:

Coach of the Year Award

Mike Budenholzer would be a great choice to win this award as he led the Milwaukee Bucks to the best record in the NBA this season. He also helped reconfigure an offense built around Giannis Antetokounmpo to become the highest-scoring team in the league. However, this award doesn’t always go to the team with the best record as it’s only been awarded four times since 2006-07 (12 seasons) to that head coach.

This is why I think there’s a great chance for Doc Rivers with the Los Angeles Clippers to win the award because of the narrative. A lot of coaches win this award because of how they turned around a franchise from a basement-dweller to contender or how they dealt with adversity due to an all-star missing a chunk of time.

Well, Rivers kind of did both of those things this season with the Clippers, who were pegged to miss the playoffs again. He led them to a 48-34 record and still pulled that off despite the Clips trading away Tobias Harris to the Sixers at the deadline. At +300, it’s worth a shot because voters love a good story.