Toronto Raptors: Best candidates for 2018-19 NBA awards

The Toronto Raptors have some serious award contenders this year, largely thanks to their biggest addition of the offseason.

Members of the Toronto Raptors can (and will) talk a big game about how the only accomplishments that matter in 2018-19 are the ones that are accrued as a team.

To a certain extent, that’s true — it’s championship or bust, especially for the current core of Raptors.

But teams are of course made up of a sum of individual players, each with aspirations of their own. Some are motivated by team prestige, others by money, and some just take pride in a hard day’s work.

For many players, however, the mecca of individual success comes when the awards for the season are dished out.

Toronto doesn’t have the best track record in this department; only two players have won Rookie of the Year and the team sports just one Sixth Man of the Year in their record books.

Meanwhile, Toronto has been shut out entirely from Defensive Player of the Year, Most Improved honors, and most importantly, MVP honors every year of their illustrious history.

Perhaps 2018-19 is the year that changes.

Here are the team’s top contenders for each of the NBA’s major individual awards outside of Rookie of the Year, as the Raptors currently don’t have a rookie on their roster.