I’ve been waiting for Kyle Lowry to show up ever since he was dealt to the Toronto Raptors last summer. In his first season with the Raps, he was neutered by Dwane Casey and the Raps’ system, while this year he was held back by his limited role offensively. If you remotely follow this blog, you will know that I particularly think very highly of Lowry (scroll down to X-Factor) and have always considered him a top 10 PG.
Finally, Lowry has full freedom offensively and has been the main point of attack for this thriving Raptors squad during their recent successful stretch. Since the Gay trade, Lowry has been the Houston Lowry and then some. He’s facilitating for teammates, attacking the rim aggressively, hitting dagger triples which keeps defenses honest, and has been phenomenal defensively.
ESPN released their top 10 PG list (which does focus primarily on advanced stats). As you might have guessed, Chris Paul was first, followed by Steph Curry and Russell Westbrook. Who was next? None other than Kyle Lowry, ahead of PG’s such as Damian Lillard, John Wall, and Kyrie Irving.
Before every non-Raptors fan reading this has a cow, hear me out. Lowry is 12th in PER, 9th in assists, 1st in charges taken, 7th in steals, 13th in scoring, 10th in double-doubles, 8th in rebounding, 3rd in assists to turnover ratio, 7th in Value Added, 6th in Estimated-Wins-Added and 4th in WARP. All stats above are rankings for PG’s league-wide, with the advanced ones courtesy of Hollinger’s stat tool. You will be pressed to find many PG’s that rank this highly across every category. Also, realize his spits since the Rudy Gay trade have him ranked even higher across the board.
While I don’t necessarily believe Lowry is the 4th best PG in the NBA, it’s hard to not consider him a top 10 PG at the very least. The reason Lowry gets overlooked by so many people is because he may not “get buckets” like Uncle Drew, may not have “swag” like John Wall, or may not hit buzzer beaters like Damian Lillard. What people don’t realize is that Lowry is arguably the best man-to-man PG defender league-wide, limits transition buckets due to his charge rate, and is leading his team to 3rd place in the Eastern Conference. While that may not draw bandwagoners at the same rate as electric, high scoring PG’s do, Lowry has pulled this Raptors team together and is playing the best basketball of his career. This is why I was absolutely shocked when I heard the trade rumors of Lowry being potentially dealt for the Knicks’ junk. Now, the rumor on the street is that the Raps believe they will re-sign him.
This is the Kyle Lowry we have all been waiting for. This is the Kyle Lowry that Raptors fans were ready to call the PG of the future when he was acquired. This is the Kyle Lowry that needs to be re-signed. This is the Kyle Lowry that deserves to be an All-Star.
5 thoughts on “Kyle Lowry Finally Showing His True Colors”
DeMar & Kyle both get All Star considerations. But most importantly, Kyle should get much consideration for the Most Improved Player Award.
Kyle was always this good, so it’s not really improvement. He was just inconsistent and now he’s more consistent. If you look back to his time on the Rockets, before he was hospitalised (http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/kyle-lowry-admitted-to-hospital-houston-rockets-030912) he was putting up amazing numbers. When he came back he wasn’t the same, he briefly was doing well in his first games as a Raptor but got injured and then went back to being bad. He’s now slowly returning to that level of explosiveness we know is in him and I’m very happy for him.
Great article. Lowry is a BEAST!
The Raptors are in a niche right now that not many teams have been able to find. For once in a long time you can call them stable or at least “winnable” with pretty much every position on the roster. We’ve got excellent PGs locked in with Greivis and Lowry, DeMar + JV + Amir + TR are doing great in their positions, and we have a commendable bench backup with Salmons and Patterson. I think what Masai needs to do now is find a solid backup centre for JV after losing Gray and since Hayes is old, and to get rid of Fields, Stone, and Buycks and get more depth for Ross and DeMar. Masai is like the Canadian Messiah, or “Messi’eh”