{"id":786888,"date":"2026-07-07T21:29:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T21:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/786888\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T21:29:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T21:29:09","slug":"raptors-welcome-kyle-lowry-home-to-end-iconic-nba-career","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/786888\/","title":{"rendered":"Raptors welcome Kyle Lowry ‘home’ to end iconic NBA career"},"content":{"rendered":"

TORONTO \u2014 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<\/a>\u2019s one-of-a-kind career arc with the Toronto Raptors<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll say this, I will retire as a Toronto Raptor, one-day contract, whatever happens,\u201d 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. \u201cThe connection we have, it\u2019s always been a home to me. It\u2019s where I\u2019ve become who I\u2019ve become.\u201d<\/p>\n

Becoming who he has become was a process. Being a franchise icon, NBA champion and six-time all-star \u2014 all achieved with the Raptors \u2014 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.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u2019t 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Raptor for life? His iconic No. 7 hanging from the rafters at Scotiabank Arena? Lowry didn\u2019t see it. Not then.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was traded to Toronto, I figured I\u2019d do my thing and show my talents, but in two years I would become a free agent and I\u2019d be gone,\u201d the six-time all-star wrote in a\u00a0Players’ Tribune<\/a>\u00a0article in 2016.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Famously, he didn\u2019t even have longtime teammate and best friend DeMar DeRozan\u2019s phone number during the first year they played together in Toronto.<\/p>\n

And Lowry\u2019s bumpy road to becoming the most beloved and respected player in franchise history \u2014 \u201cthe Greatest Raptor of All Time\u201d \u2014 didn\u2019t end there.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen did Toronto begin to feel like home?\u201d 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: \u201cWhen Masai (Ujiri) gave me another contract,\u201d in reference to the former Raptors president (and then-GM), who signed him to a four-year deal in the summer of 2014.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThat 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\u2019t (win the series), they were still cheering when we walked off the floor, and I think things started to turn a little bit,\u201d Lowry said on Tuesday. \u201cAnd 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Which doesn\u2019t mean the prodigal son didn\u2019t 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 \u2014 and kind of hilariously \u2014 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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 \u2014 depending on the answer \u2014 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lowry\u2019s not-so-inside joke when the subject was raised?<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know what you\u2019re talking about,\u201d he said, tongue firmly in cheek. \u201cMe and this organization have always been eye to eye; we\u2019ve always been on the same page. It\u2019s always been great.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not to live in the past by any stretch, and it\u2019s fun to look back at now, but Lowry\u2019s well-deserved ascendance to the status he\u2019s earned in Raptors lore is so compelling, not in spite of the bumps in the road, but very much because of them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u2019t be half as meaningful.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lowry grew into his role and the franchise grew along with him. It wasn\u2019t 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It makes the rewards greater and relationships more meaningful.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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:\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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,\u201d said Lowry, who retires as the Raptors leader in assists, steals, three-pointers, and\u00a0the NBA’s leader in charges drawn<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even before Lowry made his proclamation that he was going to \u2018retire a Raptor\u2019 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think watching him play basketball stirred everybody’s heart,\u201d said Webster. \u201cAnd 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s got even more now. He\u2019s 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He\u2019s got a forever legacy in his basketball home and more to look forward to, with a weekend of events planned in September<\/a> and the retirement of his No. 7 planned for some time after that, the precise date depending on the release of the NBA schedule.\u00a0<\/p>\n

None of it came easily for Lowry, but he did it his way, according to his plan, making the moment all the richer.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the one thing throughout the time that I\u2019ve been here \u2014 and I don\u2019t throw this around lightly in the NBA \u2014 but we were truly a family. I truly believe that,\u201d said Lowry.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Family: ups and downs to be sure, but together forever.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO \u2014 This was always the plan. It just took time for it to take shape and for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":786274,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-786888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=786888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786888\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/786274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=786888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=786888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=786888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}