Lowry not about to show his hand
Anyone looking for, or hoping for, an indication of whether Kyle Lowry will be back with the Raptors from his year-end interview on Tuesday probably came out of it none the wiser.
Lowry, as always, was as candid as he chose to be and on the question of returning or not, he was not very candid.
At times, he spoke in the past about the Raptors while at others he spoke as if his future was still here.
He didn’t disguise the fact that this negotiation will come down to term and money, and the premium he puts on winning another championship.
“Money talks, and years talk, and all that stuff,” Lowry said. “Let’s be real. I play this game for the love of the game but at the end of the day, I want to make sure my family is still taken care of for generations and the time to come. Even though they are now, I wanna continue to be able to do that for my family, and when I pass away.”
But right behind the desire to provide for his family is winning another championship.
“I don’t want to finish my career, I want more championships, that’s always been the goal,” he said. “Yeah, the money comes with that and you’ll get paid, but championships are a big key into why I play this game.”
Lowry is not ruling out that happening in Toronto, either.
“I think the organization, the team, is still there,” Lowry said knowing full well they’re all coming off a 27-win season. “It still can play at a championship level. It needs to add a couple of pieces here and there, but with the leadership and the coaching staff and the players that the team has, it’s not far off.”
But if there is one thing Lowry made emphatically clear, it is that any talk of retirement from the game for him is a long way down the road. Count on him playing at least two more years, either in Toronto or somewhere else.
“No matter what the situation is, I ain’t retiring,” Lowry said, putting to rest any talk that his season finale tour de force against the Lakers, as fun as that was, would be the final time he stepped on an NBA court.
All that said, the 2020-21 season and the non-playoff finish will not be dismissed altogether by Lowry, even if he accepts some of the conditions that led to it.
“You want to separate it because it was such a sh** year, but at the same time, it’s still a year that counts,” Lowry said. “It happened. I was able to be a professional basketball player. That alone makes me not be able to separate it.