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Tim BontempsESPN
Toronto Raptors guard Kyle Lowry does not know where his future lies after this season or even after this year’s deadline. But he’s sure of one thing: when his career comes to an end, he’s going to retire in a Raptors uniform.
“Let me put it this way: I’ll retire as a Toronto Raptor,” Lowry said after the team trained Wednesday night before the start of the second half of the season in Tampa, Florida, against the Atlanta Hawks.
What Lowry did not want to commit to was to return to Toronto as a free agent when his contract expires this summer, or to even say definitively that he will be with the team in two weeks’ time.
“What I want to see is finish this season as strong as possible,” Lowry said.
“At the end of the day, I, my agent, the organization, have to do everything that is best for them, right? Everyone has to do what is best for them, and that situation.
“Who knows what it is, not true? Who knows what it will be, who knows what that time is going to teach? For me, I know I’m still playing at a good enough level where I can help a team, I can help us and get better. ‘
Lowry’s name has repeatedly surfaced as a potential target for teams over the past few times. The Raptors sit two games below .500 after being among the best teams in the East for the past few years, and the trading market itself is sparse after so many star players either changed teams last season or extended with their current ones. He could be the biggest impact player available.
That is, if Lowry is available. As he has repeatedly done, Lowry praised the team’s young core of Fred VanVleet, Pascal Siakam, OG Anunoby and Norman Powell for their growth.
But he did not elaborate much on his future, other than to point to a recent report that he told people he was leaving Toronto, something he said was not true.
“I don’t get really involved in things, and it does not bother me, because rumors are rumors and they always will be,” Lowry said. “But if something is said that does not come from me orally and I did not say anything, then it’s to the point of, ‘Did you let me say on record? I want to know who the source is, because the source is me. ‘
“Those things are where you defend yourself. I don’t really care about that. It’s just to defend myself for a quick second.”
Lowry, who averaged 18 points, 5.5 rebounds and 7 assists this season, is still playing at a high level to both be a swing for a struggling team on the deadline when he trades and for a solid salary as a free agent. this summer whether he trades or not.
Eventually, however, he insisted that he did not know what could happen to both.
“For me, we’ll see what happens, personally,” Lowry said. “I do not know. We do not know. Like, honestly, I do not know. If I could tell you, if I could look at a crystal ball, I would tell you, but I do not know what the crystal ball does not say. I know not what’s going to happen. I do not know what they think, I think. We’ll just get to a point and find out from there. “
While the Raptors will be without several players – VanVleet, Siakam, Anunoby, Patrick McCaw and Malachi Flynn – due to the NBA’s health and safety protocols, they will get head coach Nick Nurse back who has been since before the All-Star Break.
According to Nurse, although he will definitely train against the Falcons, the five assistant coaches who were also in protocol with him may still not be able to join him for that game.
Nurse took time on Wednesday to defend himself and his coaching staff after a report came out last week stating they were guilty of not following the protocols.
“I don’t think anyone would have any idea what they’re talking about,” Nurse said. ‘It’s really an unfair, very speculative thing to say unless you have video evidence of it, because I think it’s not very cool to say it.
“I think our coaching staff finished their asses and followed the rules as best they could. It’s not easy … the players have a difficult task to do but they do not wear masks. Work to do – they do not wear masks.The coaches have a difficult task to do, and they wear masks.It’s a little harder.
“But I think we started unhappily. It was certainly not that we were not really trying as best we could to comply with the protocols.”