Last Word on Basketball has taken the difficult task of ranking the top 30 NBA players in the world right now. There were many candidates for the top 30 NBA players and many noticeable names did not make the list. One player who made this list was Kyle Lowry, a guard for the Toronto Raptors.
Top 30 NBA Players
Number 27: Kyle Lowry
Kyle Lowry was drafted 24th by the Memphis Grizzlies in the 2006 NBA draft. Unlike many players on this list, Lowry did not start off as an NBA All-Star. With the Grizzlies for example he did not average 10 points and 4 assists per game. He did improve when he went to the Houston Rockets. For example, in the 2011-12 NBA season, he averaged 14.3 points, 6.6 assists, and 4.5 rebounds per game. This was an improvement from the Grizzlies but still not NBA All-Star numbers.
However, Lowry was the starter of the Rockets according to Manny Navarro of the Miami Herald. However, Lowry got injured for a month and Goran Dragic took over the starting role of the Rockets. Kyle Lowry would remain a back-up on an NBA team even when being traded to the Raptors.
However, according to NBA.com in 2013, then starting guard Jose Calderon was traded to the Detroit Pistons. This allowed Kyle Lowry to become an NBA starter for the Raptors, which has remained to this day.
As a result, Lowry and former Raptor player DeMar DeRozan helped the Raptors make the NBA playoffs in 2014. The Raptors, since 2014, have always been in the NBA playoffs, which is the longest playoff streak for a current NBA team in the Eastern Conference. Lastly, in the 2010s, Lowry had the seventh-highest VORP (Value Over Replacement Player) in the NBA according to Mike Mazzeo of Yahoo Sports.
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Kyle Lowry Strengths
Kyle Lowry is a natural leader that has led the Raptors to seven-straight NBA playoff appearances. He also has a passion and competitiveness for the game of basketball that few players have in the NBA. Furthermore, according to NBA.com, he is ranked third in charges drawn in the 2019-20 NBA season with 0.58 charges per game. He also has a great passing ability, something which is needed for a guard.
Lowry also has a high free throw percentage throughout his career. In the 2019-20 NBA season, for example, his free throw percentage is currently at 86.1 percent. Furthermore, for a point guard, Lowry is a good rebounder. In the 2019-20 NBA season, for example, he is averaging 4.8 rebounds per game.
His career-high was in the 2017-18 NBA season, where he averaged 5.6 rebounds per game. He is also a good three-point shooter, as his shooting percentage is 35.4 percent on 8.3 three-point attempts in the 2019-20 NBA season. Lastly, Kyle Lowry is an efficient shooter even though that number is down this year, he is shooting 41.7 percent in the 2019-20 NBA season.
Lastly, Lowry is an unselfish player. When Kawhi Leonard joined the team, Kyle Lowry became more of a passer in the 2018-19 NBA season. This was a big reason why Lowry’s points per game dropped to only 14.2 points per game.
Kyle Lowry Weaknesses
Kyle Lowry has a few weaknesses. One of them is his scoring ability compared to the others in LWOPB’s top 30 NBA players. Lowry has been in the NBA since 2006 and has only averaged over 20 points per game twice in his NBA career. Taking out the 2018-19 NBA season as that had more to do with Leonard than Lowry, Lowry has not been or was not needed as the primary scorer for most of his career. He also did not average at least 10 points per game in his first four years in the NBA.
Furthermore, while it is great that Lowry is a perennial NBA-All Star, he was a late bloomer. In his first eight seasons in the NBA, he never made the NBA All-Star Game. For example, when looking at the 2006 NBA draft, there were five NBA All-Stars. Lowry was the last one of those five to become an NBA All-Star.
This fact makes it hard to put Lowry above many other players who made it to the NBA All-Star Game in his second or third year in the league. He is also no longer in the peak of his NBA career as he is 34 years old.
Career Accolades
Kyle Lowry is a six-time NBA All-Star, which includes being an NBA Eastern Conference starter in the 2015 and 2016 NBA All-Star Games. He also made it to the All-NBA Third Team in 2016. Lowry won the Larry O’Brien NBA Championship Trophy in 2019 and lastly was part of the 2016 US Team that won Olympic gold in Brazil.
Considered by many as the greatest Toronto Raptor in franchise history, Lowry has stayed loyal with the Raptors since 2012. He is an amazing player who is at the top of many Raptors leaderboards. Looking at the regular season, for example, he leads in many categories.
He is the all-time leader in assists, three-pointers made, and steals for the Raptors. Lowry is also third all-time in points scored and sixth all-time in rebounds for the Raptors. Lastly, Lowry has made the most NBA All-Star game appearances as a Raptors player with six. This includes being an NBA All-Star Game starter in both 2015 in New York City and the 2016 NBA All-Star Game in Toronto.
Kyle Lowry as a Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Famer
This is what Tristan Thompson from the Cleveland Cavaliers, who had faced Lowry many times in the NBA playoffs according to the Cleveland Cavaliers YouTube website last year:
“Kyle Lowry’s a Hall of Famer, he’s a three-time all-star, Olympic gold medalist, an NBA champ. I mean he’s – he’s their backbone.”
Thompson made a mistake of calling Lowry a three-time all-star instead of five-time all-star at the time. However, everything else he said in this quote was correct. This includes Lowry possibly being a Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Famer, which is a bigger possibility than what people give Lowry credit for.
Lowry is given an 85.74 percentage chance to make the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame according to basketball reference. For active players, he is given the twelfth-highest chance to make the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
Also, of the 2006 NBA draft class, Lowry has the highest odds of being in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. However, this statistic might be a bit skewed, as Lowry has been in the NBA longer than players like Leonard and Klay Thompson.
That does not take away though from what Lowry accomplished from his career. He has become one of the elite players in the NBA in the last 10 years. He has also become a fixture in recent NBA All-Star Games. As a result, of all of his accomplishments, he has a very good chance of being in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
Last Word on Pro Basketball Ballots
We believe in full transparency in the top 30 NBA player rankings so we are going to disclose the ballots of our player rankings and where each contributor had each player ranked.
Tyler Marling – Site Manager – 23rd
Chase Gage – Managing Editor – 27th
David Knight – Marketing Manager – 27th
Zack Kircher – Associate Editor – NR
Matthew Waldman – Associate Editor – 24th
David Ward – Author – 29th
Avinash Chauhan – Contributor – NR
Adam Zigner – Contributor – 21
Albert Dadson – Contributor – NR
Dylan Guest – Contributor – NR
Raheem Bashir – Contributor – 14th
Nathan Levine – Contributor – 26th
Bill Huan – Contributor – 29th
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