Toronto Raptors: How Kyle Lowry has improved since the start of the season

Kyle Lowry has been crucial for the Toronto Raptors since arriving in 2012. He started out slow in 2016-17, but he has turned things around for the better. Let’s take a look at his season stats from the beginning of this season to now.

This season has been one of ups and downs for Toronto Raptors point guard Kyle Lowry. When the season started, Lowry saw struggles start to arise.

The Raptors were still playing well and winning some games, so Lowry’s performance was swept under the rug. They started off the season with a record of 4-2 at the end of October.

During the first six games of the season, Lowry struggled to put anything together on offense. Well, by his standards anyway. He was only able to score 13.5 points per game during the month of October.

They only played six games in those two weeks so it is not that big of a deal. Nonetheless, he is expected to come out and perform every night.

Going into the month of November, the Raptors’ schedule was a difficult test for the team, facing off against the Houston Rockets, Boston Celtics, and an Eastern Conference rival, the Washington Wizards.

If the Raptors wanted any chance of coming out of November with a winning record, Lowry had to be on point, and he was just that. When comparing his November stats to October, he stepped up his offensive game.

Let’s take a look at each stat that he improved in during the month of November.

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The first stat is his offensive rating. His October offensive rating was 106.9, which is low for him. In November, he showed what he is made of by improving his rating to 112.0.

His true shooting percentage saw the biggest turnaround. During the month of October, Lowry struggld to hit his shots and this resulted in a true shooting percentage of 49.8 percent. Again, this was only from six games, but was still quite low for him.

In November, Lowry improved by a lot. His true shooting percentage went up by nearly 20 percent to 68.8 percent. Not a bad month for the three-time All-Star.

Because his true shooting percentage improved, this resulted in another improvement in his scoring, the most obvious sign of his improvement.

In October, Lowry was only able to average 13.5 points per game. In November, that number rose to 18.1 points per game for the Raptors.

This turnaround could have come from a variety of things, but a few stand out more than others. For example, his usage rate for the month of October was 19.8 percent, compared to 22.4 percent in November.

Getting him the ball was key for this improvement obviously, but there is one more stat that showed Lowry take control of his struggles.

In October Lowry’s pace was 102.75, which is pretty high. Fast forward to November and he slowed it down to 98.98, which saw his shooting percentage and points per game go up and his assist to turnover ratio go down.

Lowry was calm, cool and collected during November and it was easily noticeable. This resulted in the Raptors having an impressive  9-5 record for the month, with key wins against the Rockets and Wizards.

So far in December, Lowry has continued his great play. He is averaging 14.6 points per game and has still shown improvements in stats like his offensive rating.

Next: 2017-18 Week 9 NBA Power Rankings

The Raptors are currently 18-8 and sit at third in the East. If Lowry can keep improving his game this season, the Raptors could be a true threat in the league.