Columnist image

TSN Raptors Reporter

| Archive

TORONTO – “Snakebitten” was the word forward Patrick Patterson used to describe the Raptors' season late last month.

A knee injury had cost Patterson 10 of 12 games and, immediately upon his return, Toronto's leading scorer, DeMar DeRozan, went down with an ankle ailment. DeRozan would go on to miss seven of the next eight contests but, just as he was working his way back, Patterson re-injured his knee, sidelining him for another three weeks.

The Raptors, who lost expected starter Jared Sullinger to foot surgery early in training camp, have only had their full 15-man roster healthy in one of the 59 games they've played this season.

Such is life in the NBA. Things happen and you have to figure out a way to roll with the punches. However, things seemed to be looking up for Toronto of late. Masai Ujiri pulled off a couple of heists ahead of the league's trade deadline, acquiring Serge Ibaka and P.J. Tucker, who have both made an immediate impact on their new team. After dropping 11 of 15 games, Toronto has won three in a row, including last week's big win over the division rival Boston Celtics.

So this latest setback is their most devastating yet.

Kyle Lowry, the Raptors' best and most irreplaceable player, will undergo surgery to remove loose bodies from his right wrist on Tuesday, the team announced late Monday afternoon. They hope he'll be able to return for the playoffs in mid-April, the key and worrisome word being “hope.”

This is a crushing blow, and also an unexpected one. It appeared the team had dodged a bullet when head coach Dwane Casey called Lowry “day-to-day” ahead of Sunday's win over Portland.

“The images weren't significant. There was no significance shown,” he had said. “So it's going to be day-to-day, treated symptomatically. Swelling's gone down, so that's a good sign. So we'll see. He'll be a day-to-day thing.”

Somehow in less than 24 hours, “treated symptomatically” became surgery, “day-to-day” turned into out indefinitely and, as we try to make sense of it all, the optics are not good.

Lowry believes he sustained the injury against Charlotte on Feb. 15, the game before the All-Star break. He's not quite sure how or when it happened, but woke up with some pain the next morning. He says he didn't think much of it initially, which isn't hard to believe. Lowry prides himself on being a tough player. He's accustomed to fighting through various bumps and bruises, aches and pains during the course of a long season and figured this was nothing more.

He didn't tell the team about it at the time, per Lowry himself, and never considered pulling himself from All-Star festivities. He participated in the three-point shootout on Saturday, the main event Sunday night and, according to a report in the Toronto Star, golfed in between. He started to get concerned when he returned to Toronto last Thursday, following a short Turks and Caicos vacation, and had difficulty taking jumpers.

“I have no idea [how it happened],” Lowry told reporters ahead of Monday's game in New York. “I can’t say this was the play or this was this or that. I’ve played through so much stuff. You guys know, I don’t say when I’m hurt. I go out there and play, I do my job. If I can’t do my job, then I say something.
“It’s a constant soreness. If it went up and down, I’d survive but we wanted to find out what it was, why it was sore, why it was hindering me.”

The Raptors ran tests. They sent him to see a doctor in New York City, the same one who performed the surgery on his broken left wrist in 2006, his rookie season. Collectively, the parties involved decided to get it taken care of, although it's unclear when that decision was made and why we were led to believe this was nothing more than a minor ailment. Even for an organization with a long history of secrecy and misleading the media in regards to serious injuries (Sullinger's foot, DeMarre Carroll's knee, Landry Fields' elbow, etc.), this one seems especially egregious.

For what it's worth, both Lowry and the team insist that playing in the All-Star game didn't worsen the injury; it's something that's built up over time, reminiscent of his elbow injury around this time last season, or his back issues the year before.

This is now the third straight year where a late-season injury has slowed him going into the playoffs. That’s the double-edged sword of having a guy that plays as hard as Lowry does. The very qualities that make Lowry the star he is - his motor, his toughness, his reckless abandon - are the things that tend to increase a player's risk for injury.

That, and the fact that he'll turn 31 next month, is why the Raptors will have a difficult decision to make this summer when Lowry hits unrestricted free agency and should command a maximum contract - four or five years for something in the neighbourhood of $35 million annually.

Despite the risks involved, the Raptors want to bring him back and it's not hard to see why. It's the same reason why they'll miss him for as long as he's out. While he may not look the part, Lowry is every bit a superstar. The three-time all-star is averaging a career-best 22.8 points per game on 46 per cent shooting and an impressive 42 per cent from three-point range in this, his 11th NBA season.

His impact extends well beyond his statistics. He makes his teammates better. He makes the Raptors better. Toronto has outscored opponents by 324 points with him on the floor this year, by far the highest mark on the team, and has been outscored by 72 points without him.

In his absence they'll rely on a trio of young point guards: 25-year-old Cory Joseph, sophomore Delon Wright and rookie Fred VanVleet. Joseph, one of the league's premier backups, is averaging 19.3 points and 5.3 assists as a starter in the three games Lowry's been out this season. He and Wright combined for 25 points and seven assists on Sunday. All three players are capable and the point guard position happens to be Toronto's deepest, but to be clear, none of them can replace what Lowry gives you.

With serviceable options at the position, the new additions, a recommitment to defence and DeRozan doing his thing (he's averaging 37.3 points in the three games without Lowry), the Raptors should be able to tread water over these final 23 games but, to have any shot at matching last year's postseason success, they'll need their most valuable player.

Unfortunately, even if they're lucky enough to get him back before the opening round, it may not be enough if he's not in rhythm or close to full strength, evident in 2014 when a banged up Lowry and the Raptors were swept by Washington.

The Vertical reports that he could be back by early April, which would allow him to get in a handful of regular-season games before the playoffs begin. The Raptors are cautiously optimistic but are not putting a timetable on his recovery, which should surprise no one. So the team and its fans will have their fingers crossed as Lowry goes in for surgery on Tuesday morning, and in the weeks that follow, hope his regeneration powers are as strong as he always says they are.