Kyle Lowry Is The Paragon Of Toughness
By: Ryan Fan
Tags: Sports, Love, Life Lessons, Inspiration, NBA

From kyle_lowry7 on Instagram

“You’re an animal, dog.” Paul Pierce told Kyle Lowry five years ago. “You’re an animal.”

The words came after Game 7 of the first round of the 2014 NBA Playoffs of the Toronto Raptors against the Brooklyn Nets, where the Raptors fell to the Nets. Lowry, along with his best friend DeMar DeRozan, recently led the Raptors to a resurgent and franchise-best record of 48–34 after a putrid 6–12 start.

The Raptors were down by one point with six seconds left. Greivis Vasquez inbounded to Kyle Lowry five feet from the three-point line, and Lowry is closely guarded by Deron Williams, and then double teamed by Williams and Kevin Garnett. But Lowry brilliantly splits both defenders and seems to get a clear shot and easy layup to take the game and the series for the Raptor…and then his shot is blocked by Pierce at the basket.

It’s essential to note how far Lowry and the Raptors had come that season. They hadn’t made the playoffs since 2008, and the team trading away Rudy Gay at the 6–12 mark of the season was supposed signaled the start of a rebuild.

But it didn’t.

Now, Kyle Lowry and the Raptors are champions. And the journey for the Raptors here was rocky, and, at times, incredibly disheartening, so it is essential, for me, to account for how Lowry became an NBA champion.

At the start of the 2013–2014 season, it seemed like Lowry’s career may have been done. A journeyman who clashed with his coaches in both Houston and Memphis and couldn’t seem to find a home, no one ever doubted Lowry’s toughness as a player. He was stubbornly confident, always willing to go for a loose ball and likely win every 50–50 ball. And although that confidence was his fuel, it was also, in the words of Jonathan Abrams, former Grantland writer, “the hindrance that threatened him from reaching his potential.” And on most teams he’d been on, the hindrance outweighed the fuel. Teams didn’t trust him as “the man.”

And the only time a team did was when the Raptors did after the Rudy Gay trade, in an attempt to tank the season. Rudy Gay, a ball-dominant player, wasn’t the right fit to be on the floor the same time as DeRozan and Lowry, leading to no spacing on the floor, as the start of the season was evidence to.

“It just didn’t work out,” Raptors owner Masai Ujiri said about the trade. “he was the fall guy. It was tough for everybody. It was really tough for me. I was close to Rudy. I was having a good time, too, kind of mentoring Rudy and taking him through it. He was a victim of our business in some ways.”

But right after the trade, DeRozan approached Lowry, with the knowledge that Lowry an DeRozan’s names often surfaced in trade talks, too. But DeRozan told Lowry that the team had two weeks to decide “if we’re going to go up or going to go down.” If the two of them didn’t make the postseason, it was “all or nothing,” in the words of DeRozan.

And Lowry would then play so brilliantly to establish himself as one of the best point guards in the East, widely regarded as one of the biggest snubs on the All-Star team. But DeRozan would get the vote and Lowry was happy for his best friend.

Meanwhile, Lowry and Coach Dwane Casey would build their relationship of trust and dependency. Casey knew that Lowry was an edgy, tough, and hardheaded player. In no way did Casey want to change that. He fashioned the way he coached Lowry in the same way his mentor, George Karl, coached Gary Payton, another brash, talented, and talkative point guard on the Seattle SuperSonics. “Casey appreciated how Karl coached and coaxed Payton, how the coach allowed Payton to be himself in a way that didn’t take away from the team,” and Casey wanted to give the same space to Lowry.

Lowry would re-sign with Toronto that summer for a four-year, $48 million contract. The stones were set for a bright future and for Lowry, DeRozan, and the Raptors to be perennial contenders for the Championship.

“I tried,” Lowry said of the Paul Pierce block. “I did what I was supposed to do. It just didn’t work out. Next time, I’ll make sure it works out. And if that fails, I’ll try again.”