For the third straight year, Toronto Raptors teammates Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan will go to the all-star game together. But because of the game’s new format, they may not get to play together.
Lowry wants no part of that.
“I don’t know who it is, but I’m gonna send a couple text messages out and say, ‘Listen, I don’t care what y’all do, y’all better make sure me and him are on the same team,’” Lowry told reporters in Atlanta shortly after he was officially named an all-star for the fourth time in his career laughing. “I might just bribe somebody.”
[snippet id=3636937]
The NBA changed the format of its annual mid-season exhibition to more closely resemble a playground pick-up game. The top two vote getters in each conference, LeBron James and Stephen Curry, select the teams, so there’s a possibility Lowry and DeRozan might have to end up guarding each other.
Lowry was named an all-star averaging 17 points, 6.7 assists and a career-best six rebounds on 42.5 per cent shooting and 39.7 per cent from three-point range on a team-best 7.6 attempts per game.
The 31-year-old credits his and DeRozan’s latest all-star selection to their teammates.
“This is more of a team thing than an individual thing,” he said. “It’s an individual thing, but I think my teammates are a bigger part of this than me, and without them me and DeMar wouldn’t be here.”
DeRozan was named to the all-star team as a starter after accruing the second-most votes among all Eastern Conference guards. Lowry’s backcourt partner isn’t the only Raptor he wants to see with him on Feb. 18, however.
Now it’s Raptors coach Dwane Casey’s turn to get the all-star call, Lowry says.
“We’ve had an opportunity to have coach in there before, and hopefully we can lock it in and get coach in there. I think [Casey], with me and DeMar just adds another layer, adds another chapter to the book.
“He’s my guy. I wouldn’t rather be there with no one besides him.”
[snippet id=3360195]
Lowry and the Raptors just have to sustain their current level of play and Casey should get an opportunity to coach one of the all-star teams. Trailing the Boston Celtics by two games in the standings for tops in the East, the Raptors are in position right now because Brad Stevens wouldn’t be allowed to coach the all-star game in consecutive years.
Tyronn Lue is Casey’s only realistic rival at this point, but the Cleveland Cavaliers are 6.5 games back of the Raptors after falling to the San Antonio Spurs on Tuesday.
Toronto need only keep up its stellar level of play over the next 12 games and the city will have a third all-star representative.
The Raptors next play the Atlanta Hawks on Wednesday.
[relatedlinks]
