Did the Raptors learn nothing from employing Kyle Lowry?
For almost a decade, Kyle Lowry dominated the court for the Toronto Raptors. He was one of the premier point guards of the NBA during the 2010s, perhaps not quite as league-defining as Steph Curry or Damian Lillard, but in the tier just below them. He was a pioneer of the pull-up 3-point shot, again, not to the caliber of those two, but an outlier compared to the remainder of his peers. He was an extraordinary passer. And, like all the best guards, he drove the basketball deep into the paint, the lair of the lions, and was comfortable with the ball in that physical, handsy, meaty middle of the floor.
From 2013-14, when NBA tracking data begins, to 2016-17, Lowry ranked every season in the top 30 for drives per game and top 10 among high-volume drivers for assist rate on those drives. In 2015-16, he sandwiched right in between John Wall and Dwyane Wade for drives per game. When his drive rate slipped in 2017-18, his assist rate on those fewer drives jumped. In 2018-19, he led the league in assist rate on drives.
He represented an elite shooter, passer, and driver. And ever since he left, the Raptors simply have not been able to cobble together a single player who could combine those three skills even remotely to the same extent.
Let’s look at Toronto’s starting point guards since Lowry. It’s not a long list. Fred VanVleet, very briefly Dennis Schroder, and finally Immanuel Quickley.
VanVleet was an elite shooter, a solid passer, and a relatively poor-for-a-guard driver. Schroder was a poor shooter, a mediocre passer, and a good driver. Quickley is an elite shooter.
And Toronto’s half-court offence ranked 15th in first-shot points per chance in the half-court in Lowry’s final season. He was no longer fully himself over the marathon of the full season, really only able to dial it up for stretches at a time (like the playoffs, for example, when he became a star again against the Boston Celtics). But without Lowry, Toronto’s first-shot half-court offence ranked 20th the following season, then 26th, 25th, 26th, and 25th again.
The NBA is a guard-driven league. Samson Folk and I wrote four years ago that it was no longer a wing’s league, but a guard’s one. That has only become more true now. Or at least, a guard’s-skillset league. The best teams are driven by guards who can dribble anywhere on the court, score before, during, or after those drives, and use the defensive attention such skills entail to slither unique and creative passes to all four teammates at any point during those drives. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Jalen Brunson. Cade Cunningham. Luka Doncic. Tyrese Maxey. Donovan Mitchell. Jamal Murray. De’Aaron Fox. Many, many more. (Sure, the Houston Rockets don’t have a player like that. But they score their offence specifically by missing their shots. It’s a different approach, to be sure.)
Toronto doesn’t have a single player who can combine those skills, guard or otherwise. Usually it’s guards. And Quickley is more or less as good a shooter as Lowry ever was. But he can’t transmute that skill into the other components of guard offence. Quickley’s drives don’t reach very deep in the paint, and he hasn’t been a good passer on the move in drives, particularly when creating interior looks for teammates. He has been significantly better this season — and he told me that he is feeling much more comfortable in that middle of the floor this year — but significantly better still hasn’t brought him to the level of a traditional starting guard in the NBA. He’s had some drives end with finds to cutters, some lay-downs, even a few lobs. The best guards create such looks multiple times a game.
Scottie Barnes is a remarkable passer, perhaps as good already as Lowry at his peak. Barnes is as good at creating layups for teammates, when he is on the move, as anyone in the entire league. But he isn’t able to get his hips past defenders on his drives, meaning he doesn’t beat his man entirely, meaning he doesn’t draw rotations as long across the floor (if at all), meaning those passes aren’t really available all the time. (And his turnover rate on drives is higher because digs can really impact his dribble.)
Ingram is a very impressive shooter who draws attention everywhere on the floor, and he is a strong driver, but his passing just hasn’t translated at all as a Raptor. His passing looks on the move have generally been resets, or bail-outs from his shooting motion, with very few of his passes being reads of the defence, manipulating the floor based on the advantages his driving creates. Perhaps the passing will come. But it’s been a long, long way away from where it would need to be.
RJ Barrett is the best driver on the Raptors, and he is no slouch as a passer on the move. He’s not as strong as starting point guards there, but he has a variety of passes on the move in his tool kit, and he runs a nifty pick and roll (especially in the simplified setup with an empty corner). But the mechanics of his jumper don’t allow for efficiency pull-up shooting whatsoever, so he is always playing against a defence multiple feet lower than most on-ball guards see. That has cascading impacts.
Ultimately, the Raptors won’t ever be a strong pick-and-roll team unless something changes. That something could be internal improvement or a roster move. And this isn’t to say that the players on the roster aren’t good or helpful. They are. Quickley is a very strong player, and adding a guard like Coby White who could handle initiation or play off the ball wouldn’t necessarily be to supplant Quickley as much as to complement him. The team simply lacks a player archetype that has become omnipresent around the modern NBA. One that the Raptors helped pioneer.
The Raptors can punch their way into a being a strong half-court offence, and they did for much of the season. But playing offence the way they did requires precise attention to timing, sequencing cuts and screens, and much more. It takes a mental toll. It is precarious, subject to slippage, particularly if one key rotation player is out. As we have seen. It is much easier to give the ball to a Kyle Lowry and simply expect good offence.
You’d think Toronto would have learned that lesson half a decade ago.
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