The moment Kyle Lowry climbed up on the stage at Madison Square Garden in a swirl of dry ice for his introduction at the centre of the basketball universe was one that could never have been predicted.
But he never doubted it would happen. And he made sure he’d never forget it when he finally made his NBA all-star debut. Lowry quite literally rose to the occasion as he climbed through the air like he rarely does while in human bowling ball mode as the hard-driving point guard for the Toronto Raptors.
“The best moment of the game? My dunk,” he said.
He got up for a put-back in the first half, something he’s done only a handful of times in his career, rousing his teammates on social media who have never seen him do it in a regular game in Toronto.
“Don’t ever expect it again, ya’all,” he said. “I have no idea what I was thinking. I wasn’t thinking, that’s what happened. You just do things you know that you can do but save for games like this. I felt a little bouncy out there.”
It was the perfect moment for Lowry, whose career has been about bouncing back. His all-star game appearance was the exclamation point for his journey. Lowry understood going in he would be the odd man out among the gathered NBA royalty — a heart-and-soul workhorse among the league’s thoroughbreds.
Yet there he was, an all-star game starter. That’s all that mattered. It took him nine years and three teams. He got beaten out by Mike Conley in Memphis and pushed aside by Goran Dragic in Houston and had to wait his turn behind Jose Calderon in Toronto, but he was finally where he always believed he belonged among the league’s stars, and now he was.
“I thought I was as good as them,” he said of the years his peers were getting the recognition he felt capable of earning on his own, given the chance. “Of course every year I tried to get better and continue to grow as a player – but of course I thought I was as good as those guys.
“Once the opportunity came [in Toronto] I took advantage of it. Before the opportunity came, I was just trying to figure out when the opportunity was going to come. I had some ups and downs along the way, but I knew if I kept working as hard as I knew I could work I’d get here.”
So getting here mattered infinitely more than anything he did on the court Sunday night. The all-star game isn’t made for what Lowry does best, which is fight and scratch and claw and compete. So it was Russell Westbrook who stole the show with an NBA record 27 points in the first half on his way to a game-high 41 points and MVP honours as he led the West to a 163-158 win.
Lowry’s contributions were modest, at least relatively. He started off with a pair of air balls and finally scored on a layup. He finished with 10 points on 4-of-13 shooting and just 2-of-11 from deep. But he led the East with eight assists and made good on his pre-game pledge to not take a charge.
“No I won’t. Don’t worry about that,” he had joked earlier in the weekend. “Take that prop bet out.”
And he dunked.
New York was the perfect place for the Toronto Raptors cornerstone to make his all-star debut – Lowry did it his way. And if what he did on the court Sunday didn’t come close to matching the on-court production with the Raptors the past two seasons that got him here, what he did during his three days in New York tell the story of why he did.
It seemed everywhere he went his son Karter and wife Ayahna were close at hand. He didn’t use his first all-star appearance as a chance to expand his horizons as much as he took the chance to share his new view with those closest to him.
More than his dunk, his highlight was sharing it with his ‘entourage’:
“Just being here with my family,” he said when asked for his favourite memory of the weekend. “Having my son here, sharing the moment.”
It’s not like Lowry started at the bottom, but it was never a given that he’d end up here, dropping into a Manhattan club Friday night with Drake, rubbing shoulders with Justin Bieber and Rihanna or making an appearance on the Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon.
Lowry has all kinds of attributes that don’t necessarily scream “all-star starter” even if they translate into winning basketball. In 2013-14, for example, he was second in the NBA in charges taken, dropping to the wood 31 times to draw a foul and force a turnover. This season he’s second again with 22 charges, trailing the Sacramento Kings’ DeMarcus Cousins by one.
And the dunking. Dunking is the lingua franca of all-star weekend but Lowry doesn’t do it. A story in the Wall Street Journal laid this out nicely, showing the that Lowry leads the NBA this season in points scored without dunking with 975. He led the league in that category last season as well. Before Sunday he said his last dunk was in 2009, or maybe 2008, he can’t be sure.
And the pre-ordained stardom? Lowry doesn’t have that either. Of the 10 starters introduced none had to wait – like Lowry did – until his ninth NBA season to make his first start.
He made it though. He’s already got ambitions of making his second all-star appearance next season when the 65th all-star game comes to Toronto where he’ll very likely play the role of host.
“I would love to host,” he said. “It would be fun. I know it can be a great time; it could be a show … the city is amazing, the fans are amazing, the culture is amazing. It will be an unbelievable time. Everyone is going to get up there and have fun.”
No one could have predicted that would be in his future – an aspiring two-time all-star with the Raptors and future host of all-star weekend.
But Lowry always believed bigger days lay ahead for him, even if early in his career he couldn’t see the path.
“Growing up. Just becoming more mature and more understanding of myself,” he said about how he made it happen. “And just working. Not settling for anything. Never being satisfied.”
Does he wish he made it here sooner?
“Who knows?” he says. “But it definitely makes you appreciate it.”