DeRozan, Lowry lead elite push
Raptors stars have put city on NBA map
The Toronto Raptors are a force in the NBA and you don’t have to look much further than the two guys representing the team in this weekend’s all- star game to understand why.
Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan will be the first to tell you they are not a twoman team. Fifteen strong isn’t just a catchphrase they utter, it’s the way they view their team.
And that’s just the players. Dwane Casey and his coaching staff, Masai Ujiri and his front office staff — all receive and deserve credit for the transformation of this team from a solid NBA club to one that is on the verge of busting down the door that separates them from the true elites of the NBA.
But the NBA is first and foremost a player’s league and you don’t go anywhere without stars and for the time being there are no bigger stars on the Toronto roster than Lowry and DeRozan.
Friday morning, the two were separated by about 60 feet of carpet opposite one another at tables that circled a ballroom at the Sheraton Centre. At each table was sat an NBA all-star. To have two from the same backcourt is an NBA rarity. To have two players from the same Raptors roster just playing in the game at the same time is a first ever.
“You’ve got two guys in your own city representing the organization,” DeRozan said. “That’s for the history books.”
And it’s a barometer of how far this Raptors team has come. The NBA chose Toronto to become the first ever market outside the U. S. to play host to an NBA allstar game. You have to be relevant league wide to get that opportunity and DeRozan and Lowry together are the biggest reason why this team has become relevant.
“For me it means a lot for how far I’ve come with this organization, watching it grow year in, year out to where we have the all- star game, it’s definitely worth it,” DeRozan said. “The whole city is loving it, the country deserves it, it gives us a chance to really recognize Toronto.”
And it gives us a chance to recognize DeRozan and all he has done.
“I feel like I put in the time and deserve it,” DeRozan said in one of the few moments you will ever hear him even incidentally pat himself on the back.
Contrast DeRozan to Lowry and you wonder how the two can be as close as they are. They are two very different individuals but share a common goal, to be the best that they can possibly be and take the Raptors further than they have ever gone before.
Where Lowry is right at home yelling across a crowded room of NBA all- stars to his good buddy DeRo, DeRozan is equally intent on not bringing any attention to himself.
“DeRo, What’s up dawg? Y’all right?” Lowry blared into the mic set before him early into his 45- minute sitdown with the assembled media.
DeRozan smiled f rom across the room, but waved off the unwanted attention. Lowry would not be denied.
“DeMar DeRozan over there,” Lowry continued. “The official host of the 2016 All- Star Game. Go talk to him,” he yelled into his mic.
DeRozan just continued to wave him off, before Lowry finally gave up with a “whatever.”
This has become a running gag between the two, only this time on a much bigger stage.
DeRozan may not co-operate with everything Lowry wants to do, but there’s no denying the bond is strong and both ways.
“I have no clue how we became cool or how we got cool or anything,” DeRozan said. “It just came about genuine- ly. That’s my man.”
Lowry believes their differences just make them that much closer.
“I think basketball is one of the reasons we are friends, but the paths we have taken have been different,” he said. “Our backgrounds are friends and family and how hard you have to work to be special.”
There is no denying the two men who will play Sunday set the tone both on the floor and in the locker-room for the Raptors.
DeRozan, who has done the proverbial Drake climb starting from the bottom as a 19- year- old, knows just how far the organization has come and he’s intent on enjoying every moment of this honour coming in the city where he became an NBA mainstay.
“When you go through adversity with anything in life, it brings you closer to a situation and I just feel close to this situation,” DeRozan said. “I’ve been through so much here, my mindset has never been anywhere else.”
And to be able to share it with Lowry just makes it that much more special.
“It’s big, it’s something you can never take away from us,” DeRozan said.
“This organization has been through it all and you see the progression with the players, the team, the coaching staff and you have to attribute this ( two Raptors in an all-star game at the same time) to all that.”
Perhaps at the root of what makes this relationship between Lowry and DeRozan so strong is the fact that they both want the same thing and neither really cares how they get it.
“There’s no egos at all, no hidden agendas at all,” DeRozan said. “I want to see him do well and he wants to see me do well, as well. When you’ve got that going, it’s perfect.”
And that perfection is the biggest reason the Toronto Raptors are the force they are in the NBA today.