Outside of Vince Carter, there are few players who have such an impact on the Toronto Raptors organization like point guard Kyle Lowry.
And although he is now a member of the Miami Heat, Lowry still seems to have strong ties to Toronto.
In an interview with Marc J Spears of the Undefeated, Lowry speaks about his time within Toronto.
“I’m a man’s man, but I know I’m going to be a little bit sensitive and crying that day. I don’t know. I might hold it in,” Lowry told The Undefeated. “I’ve talked to [former Raptors teammate] DeMar [DeRozan] about it. But it’s one of them days where I know it’s going to be a lot of love for me and me giving love back, it’s just going to be interesting how it goes down because I don’t know what to expect.
“It’s different when you got traded from Memphis and you go back. I still get love from Memphis, which is awesome. I still get love from Houston. This is different because I continued to grow as a person in Toronto. So eight years in the city, one year I was in Tampa, but nine years overall with one franchise is a long time.”
Lowry also opened up about his decision to leave the Raptors.
“I still text (general manager) Bobby (Webster). I still text (Raptors President) Masai (Ujiri). There are no hard feelings,” Lowry said. “We’ve all had an open line of communication. And for me, it was very bittersweet because I never wanted to leave. But it was more a sense of: ‘All right, my kids are getting older. I want to be somewhere where they can be stable no matter what.’
“And, yeah, everybody says you could just live in Canada, but you’d have to get Canadian citizenship to live there. And I don’t think I would’ve lived there for the rest of my life. But I’ll be able to go back. That’s still home. Like I’ve said, and I’ll say it now, I will sign a one-day contract and I’ll retire as a Toronto Raptor. That is my everything.”
Lowry has spent nine years with the Raptors, In that process, he was able to become the franchise’s all-time leader in assists (4,277), steals (873), 3-pointers made and attempted and trails only DeRozan in games played and points scored along with leading them to a championship in 2019.
