Everything Kyle Lowry

[Superjudge]

I thought Lowry acted likea petulant little shit in the offseason.

He's winning me back over, I have been folloing the Open Gym series, he seems to have let all that go, embraced his reality, and has gone back to being a decent team leader.

Way to go Mr. Lowry, way to go.

[MixxAOR]

Kyle Lowry has 127 assists this season. No one else in the NBA has 90.

— Faizal Khamisa (@SNFaizalKhamisa) November 6, 2018

[golden]

Kyle Lowry has 127 assists this season. No one else in the NBA has 90.

— Faizal Khamisa (@SNFaizalKhamisa) November 6, 2018

This is like the best possible individual award for Lowry that also benefits the team. He's never led the NBA in any category, so this would be huge feather in his cap. Was DeMar's presence cheating him of assists all these years?

[JimiCliff]

Kyle Lowry has 127 assists this season. No one else in the NBA has 90.

— Faizal Khamisa (@SNFaizalKhamisa) November 6, 2018

I'm sorry I can't help myself 'BUT WE DON'T HAVE THE PERSONEL'

[A.I]

This is like the best possible individual award for Lowry that also benefits the team. He's never led the NBA in any category, so this would be huge feather in his cap. Was DeMar's presence cheating him of assists all these years?

Yes. Derozan is a ball stopper, he needs the ball to score. Replace him with Kawhi and Green, 2 guys who can shoot and play off ball and you get more assists.

[LJ2]

He's been the best Raptor so far this young season. They better get him some help though and soon because he's going get himself injured playing like this.

[DanH]

Now, the Raps have also played a lot of games (11, tied for 1st, some teams as few as 9 games played), but he's also way ahead in APG (11.5 to CP3's 9.4). And he's playing less than 34 MPG! That's the 28th most minutes per game right now. A far cry from the nonsense top 10 minutes he used to carry prior to last season (top 2 in 16-17 at 37 MPG!), and only about 1.5 MPG higher than last season. Kawhi is 23rd with 34 MPG flat, by the way, but he's taking full games off so hard to be concerned with minutes load.

[Nilanka]

He's been the best Raptor so far this young season. They better get him some help though and soon because he's going get himself injured playing like this.

A (finally) healthy FVV and Wright should help.

#NoMoreLorenzo

[planetmars]

We have a top 5 player on our team, yet Kyle is our MVP. He's been amazing.

[Maury]

We have a top 5 player on our team, yet Kyle is our MVP. He's been amazing.

This year... Kyle is playing like a top 5 player. We’ll see if he can keep it up. It seems like he will be able to.

[A.I]

Everything Kyle Lowry

This year... Kyle is playing like a top 5 player. We’ll see if he can keep it up. It seems like he will be able to.

I think he can. He isn’t doing anything fancy, just making good passes and shooting the ball.

[S.R.]

I think he can. He isn’t doing anything fancy, just making good passes and shooting the ball.

It all ties together with discussions in other threads, it's the personnel + systems changes that have opened up the floor. Now Lowry "just" needs to use dribble penetration to shift the defence. A pretty straightforward pass to the perimeter if anyone has helped off a wing, a shovel pass to the roll man or someone near the paint if help has shifted from there - the passes are simple but really smart. They're taking every advantage of how they're set up offensively. Lowry's either going to get a layup off the bounce or you're going to have to help on him and he'll just hand the ball off to a now open teammate. If the help actually rotates the Raps are continuing to make the right pass until the ball finds the open man. The ball moves faster than the defence. Simple but smart + deadly.

[inthepaint]

PIPM is a relatively new metric that takes into account overall offence and defence impact on the court. It's an enhanced, more polished and reliable version of the raw +/-. With most teams with roughly 10-11 games (about 1/8 of the season, these are the top 20 players on that metric:

1. Kyle Lowry
2. Kevin Durant
3. Stephen Curry
4. Damian Lillard
5. Giannis Antetokounmpo
6. Kemba Walker
7. Nikola Jokic
8. Khris Middleton
9. Danny Green
10. Joel Embiid
11. Pascal Siakam
12. Rudy Gobert
13. Draymond Green
14. Marc Gasol
15. Gary Harris
16. Anthony Davis
17. DeMar DeRozan
18. Serge Ibaka
19. Kawhi Leonard
20. Nicolas Batum

A couple of fun facts:
--Raps is the only team in which all the starters are in the top 20 (two are in the top 10).
--Celtics have zero players on this list
--Some other players not in the top 20: Harden, Westbrook, Lebron, Butler, Paul George and Oladipo
--And my favourite: Kelly Oubre has the 3rd worst PIPM at this point, out of 426 players.

[Nilanka]

Lol @ Celtics.

[golden]

Lol @ Celtics.

PIPM ain't easy.