Utah Jazz: Best candidates for 2018-19 NBA awards
By Mason McFee
With the 2018-19 NBA season fast approaching, we take a look at which Utah Jazz players could add some hardware to their trophy collections.
The Utah Jazz are coming off a season where they finished with a regular season record of 48-34, but suffered a second round playoff exit at the hands of the Houston Rockets. While many fans of the team were hoping for a different result, it was a promising year for the young team and general manager Dennis Lindsey decided to run it back.
The Jazz front office re-signed Dante Exum, Derrick Favors, Raul Neto and Georges Niang while guaranteeing the contract of Ekpe Udoh and drafting Grayson Allen in the first round of the 2018 NBA Draft. In other words, it’s been a fairly quiet offseason. That doesn’t mean the Jazz couldn’t make some noise next season.
Rudy Gobert won last year’s Defensive Player of the Year award, while Donovan Mitchell came in second in Rookie of the Year voting. Mitchell obviously cannot win Rookie of the Year next season, but Rudy Gobert could certainly win his award again next year, possibly becoming the 10th player in NBA history to win it in consecutive seasons.
That’s just one of the awards the NBA hands out every year, but what about the others? Who are the most likely Jazz candidates to compete for every individual end-of-season award?