The curious case of Kyle, part 1.

[Lunchpailhero1]

I think adding a player coach is going to be valuable with Lowry. And masai has also added complimentary toughness in demarre that will support Kyle's style of play.

Lastly, other than sitting Lowry for that home game, I personally believe he was burnt out. I remember one stretch where dd was out and raps were up by like 15 with 3 minutes left and Lowry was not taken out early enough. Hopefully our back ups will step up this year to avoid this.

[knickerbocker2k2]

Lastly, other than sitting Lowry for that home game, I personally believe he was burnt out. I remember one stretch where dd was out and raps were up by like 15 with 3 minutes left and Lowry was not taken out early enough. Hopefully our back ups will step up this year to avoid this.

How can a player burn out from playing 34min per game? He is only 20th in the league in min played. If you are your teams best player, you are expected to play the most minutes on the team. He already is playing at light load compared to other teams #1, and he only played 70 games last year.

If this is "burning" him out, than he has conditioning issues that aren't going get better with little reduction in time.

[Raps in 4]

Lowry was the single biggest reason why we got embarrassed and swept in the 1st round of the playoffs vs the Wizards.

Through the first 3 games he was HISTORICALLY bad.

Yet, you're right, no one talks about it here.

He was also the only reason we got into the playoffs.

That team last year wouldn't even win 35 games if not for Lowry's first half surge.

And we would have gotten swept, with or without him on the court.

[Northface82]

Great thread.

At the end of the day, KL is what is he is: an older PG who is slowly starting to show signs of wear and tear/decline.
I feel like his peak was the AS game. I hope he proves me wrong this season however (he's in great shape this summer).
Masai knows this, and that is why we brought in 2 insurance replacements, in case he wets the bed again.

As a team "Leader", he has been given 2 playoff opportunities to carry this team.
Brooklyn series showed promise.
Washington series showed the complete opposite.

Another thing, is that the Playoffs are an entirely different beast.
A "healthy KL" would not have made that much difference in the Wiz series, in my opinion.
He did decline heavily, but that wasn't the only reason we got swept:

-Washington had our defensive rotations exposed.
-Our inefficient offence was critically flawed when it mattered.
-Lack of bench depth, just to name a few big issues.

I will go ahead and say this: IF we had a healthy KL during the playoffs, Raps would still have lost 4-1, possibly 4-2.

This season will ultimately be KL's do or die situation.
If he underachieves when it matters the most (playoffs), expect him to be moved in the offseason.

[Lunchpailhero1]

Lastly, other than sitting Lowry for that home game, I personally believe he was burnt out. I remember one stretch where dd was out and raps were up by like 15 with 3 minutes left and Lowry was not taken out early enough. Hopefully our back ups will step up this year to avoid this.

How can a player burn out from playing 34min per game? He is only 20th in the league in min played. If you are your teams best player, you are expected to play the most minutes on the team. He already is playing at light load compared to other teams #1, and he only played 70 games last year.

If this is "burning" him out, than he has conditioning issues that aren't going get better with little reduction in time.

Overall he wasnt playing crazy minutes through the year when comparing with the rest. I was trying to point out the stretch of games where Kyle had more minutes played than his average. Which could have contributed to burn out. I'm sure conditioning at some impact here as well, not trying to minimize anything. Both nonetheless, even with his conditioning considered, he might have benefited from more of a break during this stretch.

35.4 in Dec
36.3 min in Jan - This is pretty high

There was a stretch in December where he played 3 straight 40 min games, which included a back to back 40 min game.
Back to back 40 minute games in Jan on the road as well.

[Kabookalu]

Lastly, other than sitting Lowry for that home game, I personally believe he was burnt out. I remember one stretch where dd was out and raps were up by like 15 with 3 minutes left and Lowry was not taken out early enough. Hopefully our back ups will step up this year to avoid this.

How can a player burn out from playing 34min per game? He is only 20th in the league in min played. If you are your teams best player, you are expected to play the most minutes on the team. He already is playing at light load compared to other teams #1, and he only played 70 games last year.

If this is "burning" him out, than he has conditioning issues that aren't going get better with little reduction in time.

It's not conditioning issues, he just doesn't have the body capable of carrying the load of an entire offense night in night out. Not many players are built that way, especially if they're 6'ft. The likes of Chris Paul and Allen Iverson are modern marvels, not the standard.

[MasaiLegs]

Personally, I think there was more to it than just nagging injuries. We'll likely never know what happened behind closed doors... But the chemistry just looked to have fallen off a cliff since that Portland game in December. Lowry's end of season interview didn't exactly ring out to be a glowing endorsement for Casey either. He seems emotional to be honest and I think whatever happened mid season had a big affect on him. He hasn't exactly been the greatest ambassador for the Raptors since then either. He plays with his heart on his sleeve and he had none in the latter half.


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[Reg00]

I don't think we're ignoring the issue. But when it comes to debating player usage and role, he is so clearly penciled in as a starter it's not really a debate worth starting. Although I am sure if the Raps start slow we'll see lots of "trade insert every player" threads.

It's also a undebatable fact that his play defined the team last year, for better or worse. At the start of the season his per was running over 25 and the Raps were rolling. The playoffs his Per was under 10 and it was an embarrassing display.

Even him finding some solid middle ground all season should keep the team in a good position playoff wise, the offence depends so much on his will.

[GreatWhiteStiff]

Just this out, but have you seen the new kyle lowry? The kyle lowry of the past may have had conditioning issues that the new kyle lowry may not.

[Dalek]

I have a hard time believing Kyle was too hurt during the second half of the season. I think he was a bit psychologically beaten because the team's defense was so poor and that they had to shoot themselves out of their poor defensive habits. His decline was team-wide. It is just worse when your leader is not performing, but Demar, Amir and everyone kind of sucked since Jan. 1.

[knickerbocker2k2]

It's not conditioning issues, he just doesn't have the body capable of carrying the load of an entire offense night in night out. Not many players are built that way, especially if they're 6'ft. The likes of Chris Paul and Allen Iverson are modern marvels, not the standard.

I guess we have different definition of carrying load. Lowry usage is pretty low for supposed #1 option. DD carries more offensive load than Lowry. He is not even in top 30 in usage. People are confusing 10 game stretch without DD as the standard for whole season.

Blaming his performance on conditioning and burn out factor is wishful thinking. There were underlining issues that will probably resurface at some point in the future.

[Basketball_Jones]

It's not conditioning issues, he just doesn't have the body capable of carrying the load of an entire offense night in night out. Not many players are built that way, especially if they're 6'ft. The likes of Chris Paul and Allen Iverson are modern marvels, not the standard.

This. Kyle doesn't exactly take the most efficient looking shots. Degree of difficulty is quite high with what he does, mainly considering his size. It's extremely hard for a small guy to average 20 ppg and carry a team like Lowry was doing. He needs to do better on those spot ups, and continue attacking off pick and roll action. He was doing a lot of one on one stuff in the playoffs I noticed and was just awful. DD should probably do the same come to think of it lol.

[TheDoctor]

His season numbers in totality aren't very meaningful. The season broke down into:

- good beginning
--- DeMar went down ---
- great rest of December
- sluggish January as he wore out, especially after the push to the all-star selection, and things were out of sync when DeMar came back
- banged up and exhausted horrible February
--- rested three games to start March ---
- great after the rest
--- hurt his back ----
- toast the rest of the season, other than one good effort just before the playoffs when the opponent didn't care

If we can maintain reasonable to reduced minutes and offensive usage, and he's not in a 3 point shooting slump come playoffs, then maybe we can get all-star level Kyle when it matters.

And that's really what matters.

[Potential]

He played terrible last season. I hope Wright or Joseph becomes good enough.

[ontnut]

Not part of the Kyle discussion, but that chart really makes me wonder at the sanity of making a 29 year old our highest paid player.

At least with Carroll he has super low mileage on him. So hopefully he will be an exception to the trend on the chart above. Majority of the guys in that data probably played at least 7 years of 82 game 30+ mins plus possibly playoffs before hitting their downward trend. Carroll has basically only been playing starter mins the past two seasons?..

Well technically, if you look at the graph, one could argue that years 29-33 are roughly similar in production to years 23-27ish, which contains at least a couple of prime years. It's just in reverse order. Assuming you only get those 4 years of that player, it's sort of a coin flip which player is more effective in those 4 years. Yes you're likely paying more for a 29 year old than a 23 year old, but that's the free agency game. Plus you get more of a known factor than most 23 year olds. TBH it's really not as bad as most people make it out to be.

[Patman]

Lastly, other than sitting Lowry for that home game, I personally believe he was burnt out. I remember one stretch where dd was out and raps were up by like 15 with 3 minutes left and Lowry was not taken out early enough. Hopefully our back ups will step up this year to avoid this.

How can a player burn out from playing 34min per game? He is only 20th in the league in min played. If you are your teams best player, you are expected to play the most minutes on the team. He already is playing at light load compared to other teams #1, and he only played 70 games last year.

If this is "burning" him out, than he has conditioning issues that aren't going get better with little reduction in time.

I think Lowry knows what the issue is, and he looks like he's addressed it this off-season: his weight.

[Patman]

Lowrys health is a big reason why we have 3 point guards this year I think. Last year you couldn't justify giving him games off because Vasquez defending starting pgs was a lost cause, and Lou running the offence wasn't a good idea. This year, even if our backup pgs don't produce as well in the starting role, they won't give up nearly as much.

I agree with this, but let me play devils advocate.

GV was the best PnR Ball defender on the team last year, and was very good, 78th percentile.

LW was hyper efficient, and if the bench was supported by the 2 Gs having a high USG and playing predominantly ISO ball, it might not have matter who was the PG off the bench, aslong as it was as efficient as it was.

We dont really know what CoJo/Delon/etc.. are going to provide behind KL. I could make the argument that while they might not struggle to defend, there could be some awful offense esp off the bench or more specifically if KL gets injured. Which is why I think hes going to have the biggest impact, playing or not.

I really think this is a high variance team.

I think I'm more confident that most in what CoJo will provide. He played really well starting in place of Parker last year. And while most people would credit the Spurs system, I think CoJo's improvisational skills are under-rated. Mills was the primary back-up ahead of CoJo because he's a better shooter and takes care of the ball better, but CoJo is closer in style to Tony than Mills. Pop likes to have his primary ballhandler be able to have some creativity (usually Tony or Manu), and the rest of the line-up stay w/i themselves.

CoJo is in the line of rare guards who is both unselfish, but can also create offense out of a broken play. A lot of guards are one or the other. For example, Jose Calderon is very unselfish, and runs systems well, but rarely breaks away from the system, even when it's called for. On the other end of the spectrum, you have a guy like Lou, who does need a play run for him to score, but he also stops the flow of the offense. Cory's obviously not as talented as Tony or Manu, but he can do a good enough facsimile of their style of play.

[Patman]

I don't think many people here see him staying here the length of his contract. That's probably why he isn't talked about all that much.

At this point many see him as a temporary fill in at starting PG.

Right, but I'd still like to keep him as a 6th or 7th man. I think if Lowry's ego can take it, he can still be a solid backup as his career extends into his 30's. His game is not based on explosiveness like a Westbrook, Rose, or Wall. He's more of a crafty guy, and as long as he stays in the shape that he's in, he can be a reliable wily vet backup like an Andre Miller.

[vini_vidi_vici]

His season numbers in totality aren't very meaningful. The season broke down into:

- good beginning
--- DeMar went down ---
- great rest of December
- sluggish January as he wore out, especially after the push to the all-star selection, and things were out of sync when DeMar came back
- banged up and exhausted horrible February
--- rested three games to start March ---
- great after the rest
--- hurt his back ----
- toast the rest of the season, other than one good effort just before the playoffs when the opponent didn't care

If we can maintain reasonable to reduced minutes and offensive usage, and he's not in a 3 point shooting slump come playoffs, then maybe we can get all-star level Kyle when it matters.

And that's really what matters.

Honest Q, do you really think youre going to see reduced mins/USG??

First, this team got rid of 2 high USG players, and second, KL had his mins reduced last year because of the depth we arguably dont have this year, esp offensively which were talking (re:USG).

I think theres a strong likelihood, KLs USG/Mins go up.

[vini_vidi_vici]

Not part of the Kyle discussion, but that chart really makes me wonder at the sanity of making a 29 year old our highest paid player.

At least with Carroll he has super low mileage on him. So hopefully he will be an exception to the trend on the chart above. Majority of the guys in that data probably played at least 7 years of 82 game 30+ mins plus possibly playoffs before hitting their downward trend. Carroll has basically only been playing starter mins the past two seasons?..

Well technically, if you look at the graph, one could argue that years 29-33 are roughly similar in production to years 23-27ish, which contains at least a couple of prime years. It's just in reverse order. Assuming you only get those 4 years of that player, it's sort of a coin flip which player is more effective in those 4 years. Yes you're likely paying more for a 29 year old than a 23 year old, but that's the free agency game. Plus you get more of a known factor than most 23 year olds. TBH it's really not as bad as most people make it out to be.

But youre also not considering young(er) players also get much more leeway because they are on smaller contracts and have more reasonable chance to improve. There are alot of busts we are accounting for here.

Consequently as the age skews older, those older vets are squeezed out, as evidenced with guys like Boozer holding out hope he can play somewhere/etc..

Theres alot of context if youre going to compare them that you are neglecting, and I havent even fleshed it all out.