TORONTO — This was always the plan. It just took time for it to take shape and for it to become obvious as the only sensible endpoint to Kyle Lowry’s one-of-a-kind career arc with the Toronto Raptors.
Lowry first floated his intentions before the trade deadline during the pandemic-shortened 2020-21 NBA season, when it appeared the then-Raptors point guard would be traded to a contender as the team he led to a 2019 championship pivoted to rebuild during the “Tampa Tank” season.
He was eventually signed and traded to the Miami Heat before the 2021-22 season, his second-last stop before ending his playing career in his hometown of Philadelphia. But, by then, it was clear what his forever NBA home was going to be.
“I’ll say this, I will retire as a Toronto Raptor, one-day contract, whatever happens,” Lowry said in March 2021, back when post-game media availabilities were conducted on video conference calls and the Raptors played their entire season on the road due to border restrictions imposed as a response to the pandemic. “The connection we have, it’s always been a home to me. It’s where I’ve become who I’ve become.”
Becoming who he has become was a process. Being a franchise icon, NBA champion and six-time all-star — all achieved with the Raptors — did not seem in the cards for most of the first half of his remarkable 20-year career, and certainly not in his early days in Toronto.
The Raptors were his third NBA team when he was acquired in the summer of 2012 in a trade made by then-general manager Bryan Colangelo, who sent the Houston Rockets a first-round pick and Gary Forbes.
His reputation preceded him as a talented but hard-headed guard who had fallen out with then-Rockets head coach Kevin McHale. His first season in Toronto didn’t always go all that smoothly either, as Lowry chafed at occasionally having to come off the bench behind Jose Calderon while playing for then-Raptors head coach Dwane Casey.
Raptor for life? His iconic No. 7 hanging from the rafters at Scotiabank Arena? Lowry didn’t see it. Not then.
“When I was traded to Toronto, I figured I’d do my thing and show my talents, but in two years I would become a free agent and I’d be gone,” the six-time all-star wrote in a Players’ Tribune article in 2016.
Famously, he didn’t even have longtime teammate and best friend DeMar DeRozan’s phone number during the first year they played together in Toronto.
And Lowry’s bumpy road to becoming the most beloved and respected player in franchise history — “the Greatest Raptor of All Time” — didn’t end there.
“When did Toronto begin to feel like home?” he was asked at a no-detail-too-small gathering to announce his retirement Tuesday morning at the OVO Athletic Centre. He was joking but not joking when he answered: “When Masai (Ujiri) gave me another contract,” in reference to the former Raptors president (and then-GM), who signed him to a four-year deal in the summer of 2014.
Turning serious, he went on to add that the success the Raptors had in the 2013-14 season, the first of seven straight playoff appearances Lowry helped engineer, and which ended in a dramatic seven-game first-round loss to the Brooklyn Nets, was when he felt the bonds beginning to form.
“That Brooklyn series showed me a lot from the fanbase. Game 1 was packed. I feel like the floor in the building was rumbling from cheering for us. And, you know, even though we didn’t (win the series), they were still cheering when we walked off the floor, and I think things started to turn a little bit,” Lowry said on Tuesday. “And as you continue to be here and grow, you know, you see the people every single day, the staff members, your teammates, the people that work in the offices, it became every day saying hello, speaking to them. We became like your family, your home.”
Which doesn’t mean the prodigal son didn’t test the limits of those bonds. He explored free agency again in the summer of 2017 before signing a three-year deal for $100 million and, perhaps most memorably — and kind of hilariously — held himself out of training camp in the fall of 2019 waiting for a one-year contract extension, putting a pause on all the feel-good vibes following the championship season to make sure he got his business straight.
And then, of course, there was the trade deadline drama during the championship year when the Raptors had to gauge exactly how committed Lowry was to the process because — depending on the answer — the trade that brought Marc Gasol as the finishing piece to the title team could have been broadened to include Grizzlies guard Mike Conley, with Lowry heading back to Memphis, which was the “maybe trade” Raptors executive vice president and general manager Bobby Webster alluded to while introducing Lowry on Tuesday.
Lowry’s not-so-inside joke when the subject was raised?
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, tongue firmly in cheek. “Me and this organization have always been eye to eye; we’ve always been on the same page. It’s always been great.”
Not to live in the past by any stretch, and it’s fun to look back at now, but Lowry’s well-deserved ascendance to the status he’s earned in Raptors lore is so compelling, not in spite of the bumps in the road, but very much because of them.
Had Lowry arrived as a cookie-cutter NBA guard who simply let his skill, competitive spirit and mind-boggling basketball IQ roll out without incident over a nine-year Raptor career that leaves him as the most accomplished player in franchise history, it wouldn’t be half as meaningful.
Lowry grew into his role and the franchise grew along with him. It wasn’t a steady climb to greatness. It was more like a decades-long graph of the stock market: steadily trending up, but not without some bumps, hiccups and unexpected lows.
It makes the rewards greater and relationships more meaningful.
Then again, the relationship between him and the city and the fanbase got off on the right foot simply because his right foot was always on the gas:
“I think the city and the country, they go on guys that play hard. It was a hockey town, it’s a hockey place, hard work, play through anything, and I think that was a connection. I played through anything. Hard work, I worked hard, I played hard, I did anything it took to win basketball games,” said Lowry, who retires as the Raptors leader in assists, steals, three-pointers, and the NBA’s leader in charges drawn.
“I think (Toronto is) just one of those places that just shows its grit, right? It’s not the warmest place, but you guys still get up and go to work every single day. These people go to work every day in the cold weather, and it’s just about the determination of getting a job done.”
Even before Lowry made his proclamation that he was going to ‘retire a Raptor’ back in 2021, it seemed like the obvious conclusion to a nine-year relationship that changed the trajectory of both his career and the franchise where he had his best seasons.
As Webster said while introducing Lowry, when it comes to Raptors history, there will forever be “before Kyle” and “after Kyle.” Before was a time of tepid highs, deep lows and doubts about the potential for ultimate success. After was nearly a decade of uninterrupted progress punctuated by a championship, and a living, breathing example of what it took to win one.
“I think watching him play basketball stirred everybody’s heart,” said Webster. “And I think he played a brand of basketball that very few in the NBA have matched. Every possession for him was life and death, every opposing player’s drive was a new chance to take a charge. I think every post-up attempt on him was destined to be a miss.
“I think what it led to was my most memorable and happy moment of Kyle was that first half of Game 6 in the NBA Finals. Kyle came out with 21 points, six rebounds, six assists in the first half. I remember thinking at halftime for all the doubters and all the haters and all the people who didn’t think Kyle could win one on the biggest NBA stage with all the all-time greats that were on that court, Kyle rose above, and he’d always have that moment, and he can always look back, and all the years of hard work, and from where he grew up, and he’d (always) have that.”
He’s got even more now. He’s got two thriving sons, a successful marriage to his high school girlfriend, respect across the NBA community and career earnings such that generations of his family will never have to worry.
He’s got a forever legacy in his basketball home and more to look forward to, with a weekend of events planned in September and the retirement of his No. 7 planned for some time after that, the precise date depending on the release of the NBA schedule.
None of it came easily for Lowry, but he did it his way, according to his plan, making the moment all the richer.
“I think the one thing throughout the time that I’ve been here — and I don’t throw this around lightly in the NBA — but we were truly a family. I truly believe that,” said Lowry.
Family: ups and downs to be sure, but together forever.