Toronto Raptors: Kyle Lowry–Reflection On A Great Contract

Last summer, the Toronto Raptors had a very different list of priorities set before them. Basically, it was to bring back all of the players who had made magic happen during the 2013-14 season in an attempt to have another, similar run.

The big fish, of course, was Kyle Lowry, who had had one of his best seasons ever and had capitalized on the opportunity to lead his own team. A few other clubs had piqued Lowry’s interest, and he met with some of them, including his former squad in Houston.

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Ultimately, Masai Ujiri was able to sway Lowry back to re-signing with the Raps, and the team locked him up for four years with a $48 million deal. At the time, this deal seemed perfectly acceptable. No one had a problem with it; there were no debates on whether he was getting too much or too little pay.

Now? The deal looks really, really, really good.

As the cap continues to rise, with the television deal set to kick in next year, teams are starting to have more room to offer desired free agents larger contracts that make those in years past look like chump change.

Take Toronto themselves for example. Their big offseason catch was DeMarre Carroll, who is a solid 3&D player. He had a good season on a good team last year. The Raptors gave him a five-year, $60 million deal.

Not only does that make obvious the impact the rising cap has, but it also shows the importance of what Carroll can do in this league. In the current small ball era of the NBA, players who can guard any opponent on the perimeter while being able to nail three-pointers are invaluable.

Carroll does this job quite well, and thus he got paid handsomely for it.

But his regular season stats don’t jump off the page at you:

• 2014-15: 12.6ppg, 5.3rpg, 1.7apg, 1.3spg, 48.7 FG%, 39.5 3FG%, 70.2 FT%

Imagine if Lowry had been on the board this summer? Oh, and imagine he hadn’t had one of the worst postseason performances ever in that series against Washington. Just pretend this is peak, midseason Lowry when he was going toe-to-toe with Chris Paul and racking up wins for the Raps even without his co-pilot DeMar DeRozan.

Now, one of the sexier free agent point guard names this summer was Goran Dragic. He ended up re-signing with the Heat for five years, $90 million (with a player option after the fourth year).

Here are their stats for last season:

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• Dragic 2014-15: 16.3ppg, 3.5rpg, 4.5apg, 1.0spg, 50.1 FG%, 34.7 3FG%, 77.4 FT%
• Lowry 2014-15: 17.8ppg, 4.7rpg, 6.8apg, 1.6spg, 41.2 FG%, 33.8 3FG%, 80.8 FT%

Those are pretty damn close, though Lowry is a better overall player. It is important to note that Dragic got traded this season, so that certainly impacted his numbers some (though not too dramatically from his breakout year with Phoenix).

Still, the point is this: Dragic got $90 million from Miami because he’s a hot commodity in today’s league and because they were able to offer him that much. Toronto got Lowry for far less than that, knocked off a year (which may be a good thing because Lowry will be 32 when his contract is up) and he’s a superior player to someone like Dragic.

It’s not too often that a team’s best player isn’t also the highest paid. Ujiri is no fool. Toronto’s All-Star is locked up on what will soon be considered (if it isn’t already) cheap.

Just something to reflect on as fans watch one of their franchise’s best ever players take to the floor each night in 2015-16 and for three more years to come.

Next: 5 Potential Partners For A DeMarcus Cousins Trade

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