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Lowry makes All-NBA 3rd-Team, Raptors get sponsorship award, and other practice notes

Kyle Lowry over everything except five other guards.

Greetings once again from a Greyhound bus with shaky Wi-Fi, this time bound for Toronto. The trip was pretty cool, even with the unfortunate outcome, and I’ve got some Lucha Underground and NXT to catch up on to fill the ride (TM61!). The timing of the bus trip also means I wasn’t at the Toronto Raptors’ practice back at the BioSteel Centre on Thursday, so I couldn’t ask DeMarre Carroll and Cory Joseph whether they split their eights as they were tanking the team’s season. (I kid, of course.)

Here are some notes and quotes from the practice session.

Kyle Lowry Over (Almost) Everything

The NBA announced it’s All-NBA teams for 2015-16 on Thursday, and Kyle Lowry earned a Third-Team nod. I had him on the second team when I did my own (fake) ballot at the end of the season, writing the following at the time:

The Raptors have never had a player land on an All-NBA First Team, and Lowry’s got a shot. But like with the MVP voting, it’s a long one – Curry has a spot locked down, and Lowry’s left to compete with Westbrook, Paul, Lillard, Thompson, and James Harden for honors across the three teams. I’d be surprised if Lowry, an All-Star and the beating heart of a fringe contender, doesn’t make any of the teams, and I think he’s got a real shot at making the second team.

DeRozan’s had a strong statistical season, perhaps his best, and earned the second All-Star nod of his career. Unfortunately, these teams are loaded with candidates, and DeRozan doesn’t have the two-way resume of some of the names ahead of him. (He also doesn’t have the advanced-stats case, if that’s your style, as Win Shares likes him as a top-20 player but DRE and RAPM strongly disagree.) He’ll probably get a couple of third-team votes for the robust scoring with improved efficiency and playmaking.

Lowry becomes the first Raptor since Chris Bosh (Second-Team) in 2006-07 to make an All-NBA team and just the third Raptor overall (Vince Carter did it twice, once on the Second-Team and once on the Third-Team). He received no First-Team votes, 35 Second-Team votes, and 50 Third-Team votes, good for the 14th-highest point total among all players (which seems a little low but is hardly insulting). The guards finishing ahead of Lowry were Steph Curry, Russell Westbrook, Chris Paul, Damian Lillard, and Klay Thompson.

DeMar DeRozan received 26 voting points, as well, which would be enough for All-NBA Fifth-Team, if such a thing existed.

Raptors repeat as award winners

The Raptors repeated as the winners of the NBA’s Sponsorship Activation Award, Doug Smith of the Toronto Star reported Thursday. Last year, the Raptors earned the honor for their Swiffer-related activation. I’m trying to confirm what they won it for this year, but my guess is either something related to Drake Night 3, or their Air BNB Air Canada Centre sleepover. It probably means nothing to most fans but the Raptors have continually received dap for their marketing department’s efforts, from the OVO swag to their sponsorship tie-ins to the great job they did with All-Star Weekend, and that kind of stuff is really important at the corporate level. It’s never a bad thing when the organization is doing well in any regard, even if it’s hard for most to get amped up about “sponsorship activation.”

The Raptors’ entire haul for the award season is as follows:

MVP: Lowry finished 10th in voting
Most Improved: Lowry received a vote
Defensive Player of the Year: Lowry received a vote
Sixth Man of the Year: Patrick Patterson received a vote
All-Defense: Lowry received three votes, Bismack Biyombo received one
All-Rookie: Norman Powell received three votes
All-NBA: Lowry named to Third-Team, DeRozan placed 21st
Coach of the Year: Dwane Casey placed fifth
Executive of the Year: Masai Ujiri placed third
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Media Relations award: Raptors were a finalist
PBWA Rudy Tomjanovich award: Casey won
NBA sportsmanship award: Luis Scola won for Atlantic Division
—
D-League Most Improved: Axel Toupane won
D-League Sportsmanship award: Scott Suggs won

That’s a pretty respectable season up and down the organization. It’s truly been a remarkable year.

Raptors double-down on support for Carroll, Joseph

The obvious talking point from practice pertained to the report that DeMarre Carroll and Cory Joseph were out at a casino at nearly 2 a.m. the night before Game 5. I covered this in detail here – it’s nothing. The Raptors are saying as much in support of their teammates, too.


Wait, he stayed up that late for that garbage?


Man, DeRozan took the worst L of the night, for sure.

And further to the points I made in my column, Joseph was still able to get ample sleep (10-11 hours may be stretching it if the reporting that they were out until 2 is correct, given the 11 a.m. shootaround, but they still likely got a full night).

Carroll and Joseph were given the chance to respond and did as much. You’ll have to check the video at TSN.ca, as this whack WiFi won’t let me on to YouTube to post it directly here.

Maintaining confidence with series on the line

The Raptors seem to thrive with their backs against the wall, so it’s little surprise that they’re keeping calm and confident ahead of Game 6 on Friday.


Again, the Raptors don’t have a tangible feel for what the difference is at home and on the road, and so it keeps coming back to things like energy, physicality, and their favorite, aggression. Those factors are real, but I’m really at a loss for how their level of play swings so dramatically game to game.

We’ve written and talked about all of this stuff enough. The Raptors’ up-and-down play is perplexing, but they’ve repeatedly defied their premature eulogies and bounced back, showing a toughness and resiliency that makes it hard to write them off on any given night. They’re definitely in tough now, but they have a good chance to force a Game 7, and then who knows what could happen?

Assorted

*The Raptors need to find a way to respond to Cleveland’s trap-heavy approach from Game 5, something they failed to do in a similar spot last postseason but have managed around at times this year.

The return of Jonas Valanciunas should help, should the Raptors choose to use him as a pressure-release in those spots. Valanciunas went 4-of-4 for nine points in 18 minutes in Game 5, and while he was held without a rebound and had some rust to his game, the changes he could force on the Cavs’ defense were pretty obvious.

There’s not much else doing, although I guess this is now pretty long so maybe it’s not as light a day as it felt. Shrug. Hope you all have a wonderful day.

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