Cover Photo by Jim Poorten/NBAE via Getty Images
@sergeibakaNobody want it more. Defending champs. 😈 ##fyp ##nba ##basketball ##mafuzzystyle♬ Ooh Ahh (My Life Be Like) (feat. Toby Mac) – Grits
Sessions with a specialist: Inside the mind of Raptors sharp-shooter Matt Thomas – The Athletic
And so when he was asked last week how it felt to be back working out after such a long layoff, Thomas was unmoved. He spent at least a month in Toronto at the beginning of the league hiatus, when he didn’t have access to a hoop. Eventually, he made the 12-hour drive to Wisconsin, where he had more regular gym access, marking the end of the only time Thomas can remember going even two weeks without shooting. It’s generally believed that high-end shooters rely on feel and rhythm more than the average player. Would the layoff disproportionately affect him?
“I’ve shot hundreds of thousands of shots in my life. That’s not going to go anywhere,” he said.
That’s not to say there’s been no impact. Thomas has focused his attention on film work, visualization exercises and leg strength to help make his path to a renewed comfort level a quick one. It’s not as if the time spent away from normal procedures should be cause for alarm or couldn’t be used productively.
Still, Thomas’ nonchalant confidence is telling. It’s also immensely important to a role that sometimes sees him called on with very short notice for three-second bursts, when his willingness to shoot has to be unflappable.
To wit, while he’s averaging only 9.7 minutes over 33 appearances this year, he’s made the most of it, hitting 46.7 percent of his 3-point attempts. He grades in the 99th percentile scoring in transition, the 91st percentile coming off screens and the 89th percentile on catch-and-shoot opportunities, per Synergy. His 3-point shot makes all of that possible, and that singular skill demands a certain immediacy of confidence.
“A guy like myself, I need to go in and make shots,” he told The Athletic in February. “So it’s just a little different, having that mindset, that regardless of if you’re cold, if you sat on the bench for the whole first half or, you know, 15 minutes, I have to be able to go in the game and be ready to shoot, maybe the first time I touch the ball. It’s not like you can sit and break a sweat and get a rhythm. It’s a very hard role to have, but that’s why there’s few of us out there that can do it at a high level and shoot good percentages and make an impact the way I’ve been doing this season.”
Koreen: Kyle Lowry’s skeptical brand of leadership is what these times require – The Athletic
Lowry is a natural skeptic. His early career was marked by run-ins with coaches, and those were often presented as indictments of Lowry. (They were definitely impediments to his desired career path.) However, those run-ins were also the sign of a man who questions authority and assumes nothing is a given.
Given that police brutality is at the centre of the Black Lives Matter movement, and given that lamentable governmental decisions have contributed to Florida, where the NBA’s bubble is located, becoming one of the current epicentres of the COVID-19 pandemic, those qualities have value. Lowry was involved in the talks between the NBA and the players association that led to the return-to-play plan. He was active in his hometown of Philadelphia in BLM protests. He has been a loud voice as the Raptors, who entered their campus in buses that had Black Lives Matter written across them in huge letters, have decided how they would use the NBA’s return to play as a platform to speak out.
“This time we needed to speak up and needed to do something,” Lowry said. “For me to be a part of that, that’s who I am. That’s how I am. That’s how I grew up. I grew up a Black man in America. It’s definitely a tough thing to grow up that way, because you never know what could possibly happen to you. You never know if you’re going to make it out. For me to be able to talk to you guys is a blessing. So for me to be able to do that, it’s my right, my duty, and my honour to represent the Black culture.
“We need to be heard from. We need to speak loud and clear. We need to understand that things need to be done for the situation to be changed, laws to be changed. Opportunities need to be given for things to be better.”
There are myriad reasons for the NBA to be trying to complete its season, but the primary ones are business-related. Make no mistake, Lowry has a financial stake in this too, as do all the players. Not only will they get the majority of their remaining salaries for this season by trying to finish it, but any revenue that is generated in the next few months will diminish the financial hit that the players inevitably take in the future. Lowry is scheduled to become a free agent after next season, which could very well be played without fans, if not necessarily in another bubble environment.
Rested Kyle Lowry a tantalizing prospect for Raptors ahead of restart – Sportsnet.ca
Since arriving on July 9, Lowry has liked the picture he played a role in creating.
“I’m a big fan of how everything has come together and to see the work that the league has put in and the time they’ve put in,” Lowry said on a conference call from Disney World, his first interview since the NBA season was halted on March 11.
“… [The] protocols are unbelievable. I think [the NBA’s] protocols and our health and safety measures have been top notch, I think this thing will work perfectly, I think the league, the player’s association has done a great job — a phenomenal job — of making sure that we’re doing everything that we can possibly do to make sure that we’re healthy, we’re safe and we’re in an environment where we can be successful and to do our jobs at a high level.”
It’s not a small thing, Lowry’s involvement and his stamp of approval. The Raptors goal is to repeat as champions which will require them to stay in the bubble until the second week of October and spend nearly nine weeks apart from their families – a significant sacrifice for Lowry, a doting dad to his young boys.
If Lowry wasn’t all in, the Raptors chances would be on life support before the ball ever went up. But Lowry is all in and his team is following suit.
“There’s a lot of facets of getting this done,” said Raptors head coach Nick Nurse after his club’s third practice in Florida. “We want to perform at our best and this situation [the pandemic] has put kind of another whole strand of things you’ve got to do if you want to get to where you want to go.
“It’s kind of almost been put in front of everything else, the conditioning, the play and the chemistry and the toughness and riding the ups and downs, whatever, all that stuff that’s kind of normal basketball.
“[But] now you’ve got a strand of taking care of yourself and doing what you’re supposed to do … that if you don’t do then you’re not going to get started on that road.
“[Lowry] was a big part with the Players Association of getting us here and obviously again, he’s a leader and he was a part of that.
“And having him as the guy who’s kind of setting the example — he’ll say to these guys, ‘take this stuff seriously, take these protocols seriously, let’s be smart and let’s do it’ and I think it certainly resonates with the rest of the team.”
It will be fascinating to see how the entire experience resonates with Lowry and carries over into his play.
Nick Nurse: Toronto Raptors in ‘good hands’ with Kyle Lowry’s leadership in bubble – TSN.ca
He’s almost unrecognizable from the guy that arrived in Toronto, via trade, eight years ago this past weekend. Almost.
“My last four months have been great because I haven’t had to talk to any of you guys,” Lowry said over videoconference from the NBA bubble at Walt Disney World on Monday, speaking to the media for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic hit and the league suspended play back in March.
A lot’s changed for the Raptors’ point guard over the years but, bless his heart, his fondness – or lack thereof – for the media and that distinctive Lowry snark remain.
One-by-one he roasted each reporter on the call as they asked their question. He told one of them that their WiFi connection sucked and then asked another if they got taller during quarantine. The good-natured ribbing is a show of affection from Lowry… we think. It’s almost more insulting if you don’t get dunked on.
“He’s great with us,” said head coach Nick Nurse, with a laugh. “I think he’s only thorny with you guys.”
It’s taken some time for Lowry to graduate from class clown to valedictorian but that’s where he finds himself now, firmly entrenched at the forefront of the defending champs as the league gets set to resume its season in Orlando at the end of the month.
For most of his tenure in Toronto, Lowry’s been the team’s most valuable player, its heart and soul. However, after spending seven seasons sharing the spotlight – first with DeMar DeRozan and then next to Kawhi Leonard – there’s no question as to who’s steering this ship.
“I think it’s clearly Kyle’s team,” Nurse said, following the Raptors’ third practice session in the bubble on Monday morning. “His care factor is up there, his intelligence factor is way up there. We’re in good hands with him as the leader of this team.”
In keeping with his regular routine, Lowry has generally been the first player in the gym, whether it was for individual workouts in Fort Myers earlier this month or ahead of the team’s first few practices in the bubble. He’s come into training camp in great shape, according to many of his coaches and teammates, and seems ready to pick up where he left off before the season was put on hold.
Basketball, the love of his life long before he found his wife and had his kids, was on the periphery for a while, but it was still there too.
Lowry, in fact, wound up having a rather large say in how this NBA re-start would go.
Initially, he was a member of the competition committee, but that role morphed into a working group consisting of Player’s Association president Chris Paul along with Lowry, Russell Westbrook, Jayson Tatum and Toronto native Dwight Powell, who worked hand-in-hand with commissioner Adam Silver in developing the health and safety protocols for the recently opened NBA campus at Walt Disney World in Orlando.
“It kind of fell into my lap a little bit with how it happened,” Lowry admitted. “But it was interesting to come up with some of the concepts and to talk that over, and understand (not just) what we’re trying to do but how we’re trying to do it, and make sure that it’s done the right way for all the players, coaches, and it’s safe and in the most healthiest way we possibly can do it.
“I think that we’ve done a good job so far with the safety aspects, the health aspects. I think there’s definitely going to be some adjustments that need to be made, but that’s the one thing about our league and our professionals, is that we make adjustments on the fly and we’re able to.”
Lowry has been on the campus since the team arrived on Thursday and likes what he sees.
“I think Kyle is an incredibly smart, intelligent person, so when something isn’t quite right he’s going to bring it to your attention,” coach Nick Nurse said Monday. “I’m good with that. Listen, this is a partnership and a communication thing. It’s ‘we’ trying to get to some place. Feedback is important.”
Lowry is certainly going to give it. In all matters.
As a member of the players’ association competition committee, he worked with the league in setting up every facet of life for the 22 teams that are now gathered near Orlando for the resumption of the suspended season later this month.
He was involved in developing testing protocols, scheduling, what is allowed and what’s not, and has made it clear to his teammates how important that is. He is the franchise’s conduit to a healthy existence.
“It was interesting to come up with some of the concepts and to talk that over, and understand (not just) what we’re trying to do but how we’re trying to do it, and make sure that it’s done the right way for all the players, coaches, and it’s (as safe as) we possibly can do it,” Lowry said in his first group interview since the league suspended the season in March.
“I think that we’ve done a good job so far with the safety aspects, the health aspects. I think there’s definitely going to be some adjustments that need to be made, but that’s the one thing about our league and our professionals, is that we make adjustments on the fly and we’re able to.”
So far, Lowry’s been more than pleased with how things are going and the Raptors have been more than pleased with his actions — on and off the court.
They want him to lead and they need him to be the same player who helped Toronto to a championship more than a year ago. In the latter regard, they’ve never had a healthier, more rested Lowry going into the playoffs than they have now and they plan to ride him hard.
The Funniest Moments of the Raptors’ 2019-20 Season (So Far) | Complex
Raptors basketball is returning, within the confines of an Orlando bubble, and we don’t really know what it will look like. What we do know is that the team’s 2019-20 season, before the pandemic hit, was a joy to watch. There was a purity to watching this particular group root, fight for, and lift each other through 64 games.
As clichés would have it, the NBA is a brotherhood. Listen to the way Fred VanVleet and Pascal Siakam talk about each other, Kyle Lowry call Siakam beloved, watch Marc Gasol take a little moment on the bench to mentor someone, or Serge Ibaka teach Terence Davis good habits, and all of that helps translate to success on the court. That bond has also helped make for some hilarious moments, so without further ado, here are the 10 funniest moments of the Raptors’ season (so far).
Ranking the 10 Best NBA Teams of the 2010s | Bleacher Report
9. 2018-19 Toronto Raptors
In the future, “But Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson didn’t play…” may be a common refrain when people discuss the 2018-19 Toronto Raptors.
But this team deserves credit, not just for ending the Kevin Durant era in Golden State, but for what it did all season.
In the preceding offseason, the Raptors traded DeMar DeRozan and Jakob Poeltl to the San Antonio Spurs for Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green. The move instantly vaulted them into title contention.
And though Leonard would go on to miss around a quarter of the season due to “load management,” he finished ninth in MVP voting. And when he shared the floor with Green and Kyle Lowry, Toronto was plus-14.0 points per 100 possessions (98th percentile).
The Raptors displayed championship-caliber basketball throughout 2019-20, and they and their superstar ratcheted things up in the playoffs.
Leonard averaged 30.5 points, 9.1 rebounds, 3.9 assists, 2.3 threes and 1.7 steals in the postseason. He had a 61.9 true shooting percentage and totaled 7.8 wins over replacement player (value over replacement player times 2.7).
LeBron James (three times), Larry Bird and Tim Duncan are the only players in league history to pile up more wins over replacement player in a single playoffs.
Throughout that run to the title, Kawhi was accompanied by a feeling of inevitability. Every drive and pull-up jumper seemed destined for the bottom of the net. His lockdown defense led in part to a massive postseason net rating swing of plus-15.9.
The cold, calculated dominance led to a Terminator spot after the season.
“He appears to be a robot built to destroy the NBA,” Ben Cohen and Andrew Beaton wrote for the Wall Street Journal. “A coach once speculated that he bleeds anti-freeze.”
The 2018-19 season did little to prove otherwise.
The Top Storyline for Every NBA Team in Orlando | Bleacher Report
Wondering whether the Toronto Raptors are actual threats to come out of the East is tired. They are. They have the defense to muck up any offense, two stars in Kyle Lowry and Pascal Siakam and an enviably deep supporting cast.
Like most other contenders, the Raptors’ primary concern heading into the season’s restart is more granular, albeit a prospective undoing: the half-court offense.
They rank 18th in points scored per half-court possession, a below-board standing that isn’t so damning during the regular season. They make up the difference with the league’s best transition attack and top-10 three-point volume and efficiency. But a dodgy half-court offense is harder to overcome in the playoffs, when teams have more time to plan and are generally stingier. It takes at least one elite from-scratch option to effectively counteract defenses that neutralize opportunities on the break.
Toronto specifically needs to put more pressure on the basket. As The Athletic’s Blake Murphy wrote:
“While they’re fourth in the league in the frequency with which they shoot at the rim, they rank 24th in field-goal percentage there. Their transition success also floats those numbers a bit, and if we had more finely filtered data, I’d guess they rank even worse finishing at the rim in half-court scenarios.
“In the half court, the Raptors are one of the least-threatening teams to drive to the basket, scoring the third-fewest points off the drive per-game. No team uses the drive to pass more than the Raptors, and while that’s a healthy part of their motion offence, it can lead to stagnation. That’s exacerbated by a pick-and-roll attack that’s designed primarily to get their bigs popping (or passing) opportunities with little roll threat, and two pick-and-roll operators who either don’t go to the rim a ton (Kyle Lowry) or really struggle to finish there (Fred VanVleet). Pascal Siakam and Norman Powell are the only heavy users of possessions who grade well by frequency and effectiveness at the rim.”
Remedy by committee will demand more volume from Lowry and better overall finishing from VanVleet. It might also entail unleashing Terence Davis more often. It definitely includes Powell continuing to play career-best basketball.
On a singular level, the Raptors have Siakam. He cannot replicate what Kawhi Leonard gave them last year. The two-time Finals MVP is the league’s consummate bailout option and has rarely structured his game around high volume at the basket.
Siakam is different. Forty percent of his looks are coming at the rim—and that’s a career low. Maintaining, maybe amplifying, that level of pressure is mission critical to matchup-proofing the Raptors offense. They’ve tried to prepare him for it. The ball is in his hands more than ever, not just to initiate pick-and-rolls and dribble into threes, but to actually manufacture something out of nothing. If he looks more at home in those situations during the restart, it says both a great deal about his ceiling and Toronto’s immediate championship chances.
