On Wednesday, Bovada released its first round of MVP odds for the upcoming 2018-19 NBA season. And as is custom, the heart and soul of the Toronto Raptors was blatantly and egregiously disrespected.

Kyle Lowry, a four-time All-Star who has been the best player throughout the only sustained run of success in team history, is pegged as a 325/1 long shot to win the league’s highest individual honour, significantly below the guy who was the second-best player during that same stretch for that same team, DeMar DeRozan, who is a mere 80/1 underdog.

Kyle Lowry, he of the league’s ninth-best Real Plus-Minus in 2017-18, and 10th-best the year before that, and seventh-best the year before that, has longer odds of winning the award than 28 other players in the NBA.

Kyle Lowry, the man who has been the reacting atomic core of a team that has won 50 games three years running, is deemed a less likely MVP than two guys who play for the Wolves.

Kyle Lowry, one of the league’s most accurate, high-volume three-point shooters over the last three years, is believed by Las Vegas to be 9.285 times less likely to be the league’s most valuable player than a certain coward who has yet to shoot a three in his NBA career.

Kyle Lowry, the player who vanquished prior durability concerns with a healthy and effective run through last year’s playoffs, has been slotted lower on the league totem poll than Kristaps Porzingis, whose knee injury will likely keep him sidelined past November, and DeMarcus Cousins, whose ruptured Achilles saw him sign with a team on which he will be the fourth or fifth-best player upon his post-New Year return.

Why has the general NBA punditry once again shat on Lowry’s importance and ability? Has an anti-short guy agenda on the part of the mainstream media soured Lowry’s image unjustly? Why is it that one of the most dogged competitors and prolific game winners in the whole of the NBA is so comically overlooked in conversations of the league’s best players?

It’s probably because the Raptors have Kawhi Leonard now, and he has 11/1 odds of winning the award himself. I know, it’s still hard to fathom.