Ode to Kyle Lowry
I can't believe this wasn't my first post. This blog as of right now is pretty much just a public diary where I write about my sports heroes and thoughts and nobody in the world had a bigger sports impact on me than Kyle Lowry.
Growing up as a white kid in Toronto, we watched hockey. I remember my dad used to call the Raptors "the craptors" and he wasn't entirely off-base. For pretty much my entire childhood, the Raptors stunk. We had some nice stories here and there, Chris Bosh was a home grown all-star, but mostly they weren't worth paying attention to. Basketball wasn't culturally engrained in me and so a struggling team was just not going to get my eyeballs on the screen.
In 2012, everything changed. The Raptors, after striking out on aging Canadian superstar Steve Nash, went to their backup plan: the "lockeroom cancer" Kyle Lowry. Lowry had a history of attitude problems coming from the Houston Rockets. Not a lot of teams wanted to take a shot on a guy with no real flashy skills but a massive head on his shoulders. The Raptors looked like they might be one of his last stops if he didn't smarted up. Lowry's tenure with the Raptors didn't exactly start off on a great foot. He didn't even talk to now best friend and Raptor great DeMar DeRozan, he was benched for long time vet Jose Calderon and he looked like a role player that would be lost in Raptors history. When current president of the Raptors Masai Ujiri took over the team in 2013, he even tried to trade Lowry to the Knicks to spark a rebuild. The Knicks vetoed the trade at the last minute and the rest was history.
2014. This was the year I really started to fall in love with basketball and this was the year that Kyle Lowry broke out. Masai Ujiri traded star player Rudy Gay to the Sacramento Kings for a haul of role players Greivis Vasquez, Patrick Patterson, John Salmons and Chuck Hayes. Most people thought this was the beginning of a rebuild. Lowry and elite scorer DeRozan had other plans. Before the trade the Raptors started the season 6-12. After the trade they went 42-22 securing the 4 seed in the east. I remember my high school was buzzing about the Raptors at the time and I was absolutely enthralled. Many called DeRozan the best player on the team at the time, but hoopheads know that Kyle Lowry was the heart and soul of the organization. Throughout that season he displayed his patented winning mentality, never ever getting out hustled and making winning plays whenever he could. When the game was on the line in game 7 against the Brooklyn Nets in that first round playoff series, Kyle was the one who took the shot. The shot ultimately got blocked by Paul Pierce in the first of many heartbreaks to come.
Playoff failures galore. OOOOOOOOH boy were they ever a frustrating team to love. I used to curse Kyle Lowry for making the team good enough to enjoy just to have our hearts broken at the end of every season. In 2015 the Raptors go up against the Washington Wizards in the first round. Consistent team foe Paul Pierce is on the other side once again, this time claiming to the media that the Raptors just don't have "it." He wasn't wrong, the team got swept in what will go down as probably the most embarrassing playoffs of the team's history. Most organizations would fire the coach, trade some stars or generally do anything to shake things up, but Masai Ujiri stayed patient.
Then came 2016, to that point the greatest season in franchise history. Kyle Lowry had his best individual season as a Raptor. Lowry played phenomenally through the first two series of the playoffs, covering for frequent playoff ghost DeMar DeRozan. Then the Raptors met the eventual champs in LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers in their first ever Eastern Conference Finals, the first matchup against LeBron. The Raptors managed to take 2 out of the first 4 games in the series and actually looked like they had a chance. Lowry even had 35 points in a game 4 win. We don't need to rehash the rest of the series, LeBron tells the media he isn't feeling pressure and they go on to slap Toronto silly before winning the title in the best finals of my lifetime.
Stupid LeBron. Oh man I feel like 2017 and 2018 can be lumped into one big season. The Raptors had high hopes both times. In 2017 they get swept by the Cavs and LeBron. Masai Ujiri joins the end of season press conference and tells the media that the team is going to undergo a "cultural reset." Many thought this meant parting ways with either Lowry or DeRozan, firing coach Dwayne Casey or significantly shaking up the roster somehow. Instead, the Raptors implement a brand new offense featuring more ball movement. The team wins 59 games the next season enough to be first place in the Eastern Conference. Not only that, the Cavs, the boogeymen of years past, are depleted and just finish a 7 game struggle of a series against the Indiana Pacers. All things are pointing to a deep playoff run for the team. Then "LeBronto" was born. I will never forget the game where LeBron seemed like he was toying with the Raptors, taking ridiculous spin-around jump shots all game, falling into the crowd and pretending to sip the beverage of the fan he lands on, spinning the ball in Serge Ibaka's face before hitting a 3 over him. It was humiliating to be a Raptor fan. I watched another Kyle Lowry led team collapse in heartbreaking fashion. But I still loved the team, at this point he had made the team so watchable that I was a fan for life, regardless of the playoff failures.
The payoff for my love was tremendous. Kawhi Leonard, coming off a very weird season in which he played less than 10 games for the San Antonio Spurs, requested a trade. The risks were intense, Kawhi was coming off a major calf injury and only had one year left on his contract. Kawhi made it clear to all suitors that he wanted to play in his hometown Los Angeles. Masai Ujiri made the trade anyway sending franchise legend, and Lowry's best friend to this day, DeMar DeRozan to the Spurs in exchange for Kawhi Leonard. I remember the reports coming out that Lowry wouldn't even talk to Masai Ujiri after the trade and was noticeably pissed off about the team blindsiding his friend. He could have sulked, he could have reverted back to his attitude issue days and been a team cancer, but he saw an opportunity. The first press conference of the season Lowry says that all he cares about is winning a little gold ball, meaning a championship. Oh if only I believed it was possible then.
2018-2019 became the best season for any team in any sport that I follow in my lifetime. Kawhi didn't hold anything back and gave the team his all. To manage his injury risk, the team introduced a term called load management, resting Kawhi for around 1/4 of the games for the season. The team didn't miss a beat without Kawhi going 17-5 without him, led by Kyle Lowry. The playoffs role around and while everyone will remember the Kawhi 4 bounce shot in game 7 against the Philadelphia 76ers, Lowry was a consistent performer throughout. A memory that will be etched into my brain for as long as I live is when the Raptors defeated the Milwaukee Bucks in the Eastern Conference Finals, clinching the team's first ever finals appearance, the crowd wasn't chanting Leonard, they weren't chanting Siakam, the crowd was chanting LOWRY, LOWRY, LOWRY. Kyle's ear to ear smile in this moment was contagious. The crowd in Toronto had been through heartbreak after heartbreak with this man at the helm and finally we broke through, with his contributions being a massive reason why. Lowry set the culture of winning in Toronto in 2014 and finally he was getting over the mountain top. In the championship clinching game 6 of the finals, Lowry came out on fire draining 3s and playing with insane energy to fuel the big win for the city. 2 million people poured into the downtown Toronto core to celebrate this massive achievement and every single one of them knew they had Lowry to thank.
Lowry's legacy was cemented after this, he will always be an NBA champion. He wasn't done there with the Raptors. The next season he led a franchise record 30 point comeback against the Dallas Mavericks in what was probably the most thrilling regular season game I got to witness. I remember seeing that season the team embodied Kyle's spirit, constantly hustling and doing whatever it took to scrape and grind for advantages. Kyle had massive playoff moments in the NBA's COVID bubble that year leading a thrilling double OT win against the Celtics as well as making the pass to OG Anunoby to hit a ridiculous game tying 3 pointer to save the season in game 3 of that series.
Every single time Kyle Lowry comes back to this city I will stand up and cheer. If he never came to the Raptors and helped set the winning culture, I don't think I would even be a basketball fan today. Now I rarely go a day without consuming some form of basketball content. As crazy as it is to say, Kyle Lowry changed my life forever and I am eternally grateful that we get to call him a champion.
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