Toronto Raptors: Kyle Lowry Deserves MVP Consideration

After rebuilding himself last offseason, Kyle Lowry is playing the best basketball in his career and it warrants major award consideration.

There are roughly six weeks left in the NBA season and it’s the time of year where the award races start heating up.

In some years, how strong a player finishes or drops off in the final stretch of the season can determine the outcome of a major award. While that may be the case for some award races this year, it won’t apply to the granddaddy of them all.

With the Golden State Warriors on the verge of creating history, led by the most transcendent player we’ve seen in a long time in Stephen Curry, the MVP race was already determined in the first two months of the season.

With that said, the race for runner-up and beyond is still wide open and there’s one player that is deserving of serious award consideration based on his play this year. That player is Kyle Lowry.

Partnered with an All-Star player in his own right, Demar DeRozan, Lowry has been essential to the success the Toronto Raptors have experienced this year.

Yet one has to wonder that if Lowry would be in this position in the first place if it wasn’t for how last year ended for the Raptors .

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Last season, Lowry’s play earned him All-Star honors (as a starter, by the way) and the Raptors stood at the top of the East at the beginning of 2015 with 24-8 record.

However, the second half of the season was a different story for Lowry. His play started to fall off due to lingering injuries to his back and it affected the team’s overall performance by the end of the season, including the playoffs.

The disappointing end to the team’s season as well as his own forced Lowry to make some drastic changes to his diet and training in the offseason, which garnered some notoriety as the 2015-16 season starting to ramp up.

Whether the hard work in the offseason is the X-factor behind Lowry’s success this year or not, it’s nevertheless resulted in the best season of his 10-year career and the best season in the history of the Toronto Raptors franchise.

Additionally, what’s made Lowry’s success this year even more notable is how he’s making an impact on both ends of the floor.

Offensively, Lowry’s posting the best shooting season of his career from both the field (44 percent) and from three-point range (39 percent). Lowry’s high efficiency from all areas of the court have resulted in a career-high 21.6 points per game, which also ranks him 13th in points per game around the league. His 6.4 assists per game this season aren’t close to a career high mark, but Lowry still ranks 15th in the league.

On the defensive end, Lowry’s 2.2 steals per game are tied for the best in the league (with Oklahoma City Thunder guard Russell Westbrook) and his individual defensive rating (103 points per 100 possessions) is the best of his career, per Basketball-Reference.com.

His overall performance this season has culminated in the best Player Efficiency Rating (23.7) of his career and it also ranks 15th in the NBA, just behind Hassan Whiteside of the Miami Heat.

Although Lowry’s individual success has been astounding this season, what’s more important is that Lowry’s output has fueled what’s shaping up to be the best year in his team’s franchise history.

At 41-19, the Raptors only stand two games behind the East-leading Cleveland Cavaliers and arguably stand as the only legitimate threat in the East to dash the Cavaliers’ hopes to reach the NBA Finals.

Of course, Lowry isn’t the single driving force behind the Raptors’ success and you can easily build a case for how essential DeRozan is or even one of the more complementary players on the team.

But what boosts Lowry’s case is the fact that this has been the definitive season of his playing career and as he approaches 30, it’s easy to question whether he could keep up this level of play for much longer.

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However, that’s the same doubt that motivated Lowry to transform himself and it’s clearly affected his output this season.

There’s still plenty of time for someone to come out near the top of the MVP race, but what Lowry’s been able to accomplish this year already speaks for itself.

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Toronto Raptors: Why Kyle Lowry Deserves MVP Consideration

By Jordan Treske | Mar 5, 2016

After rebuilding himself last offseason, Kyle Lowry is playing the best basketball in his career and it warrants major award consideration.