On the NBA Beat Ep. 160: Blake Murphy: "There's a Million Things to Say" About Kyle Lowry's Raptors Impact - a podcast by Lineups

Blake Murphy of The Athletic joins the show to delve into the performance of the Toronto Raptors during Las Vegas Summer League, especially regarding the newly drafted Scottie Barnes. Additionally, we discuss the Kyle Lowry trade, what he meant to the city and the Raptors franchise, and how they will move forward next season and beyond.

9:10-10:08: "[For Scottie Barnes], the playmaking on the move is real. … Barnes' defense is gonna be his calling card early on. I think he's been pretty good on that end. The processing speed there is really high level and they've had him picking up full court, they've had him guarding across positions. So I think he's going to be a real player from day one defensively as hard as that is as a rookie, but the offensive game is gonna take a little bit of time."
18:48-20:20: "The Raptors haven't had a lot of guys stick around nine years. They haven't had a lot of guys win a lot in Toronto also. So I think the fact that Lowry's […]ascension kind of parallels the franchise's own rise to being a more legitimate franchise in the NBA, and being a pretty consistently good team and eventually a championship contender. The growth of Lowry and the growth of the team as a whole are kind of hand in hand. … Lowry has always really fit kind of what Raptors fans are about. And what I mean by that is, you know, the "We The North" campaign from back in 2013-2014 kind of tried to get at this like: 'Hey, there's an entire country here that's obsessed with hockey, but, hey, pay attention, there's a bunch of us basketball fans too.' And hey, there's 30 markets in the NBA, and 29 of them get what Raptors fans feel like is preferred attention. … They kinda had this level of othering with the fan base where you could kinda get people to buy in more by pointing out that they were...underdogs too. And I think that Lowry really represented that with his career path and his general attitude and the chip on his shoulder."
27:30-28:18: "Even with the COVID and the shoulder injury and the clutch struggles, I thought [Pascal Siakam]improved. I thought he improved as a playmaker, he improved his shooting from every area of the court inside the arc, so that's an important consideration. … Having said all that, he needs to keep going. He got paid, not the full supermax, but the 28 percent kicker on his max deal, and he needs to continue to improve to deliver on that. He's not that level of player yet.”
40:27-41:06: "If you tier out the Eastern Conference, they're probably in the 6-10 or 7-11 range. They're certainly not a team that is for sure going to avoid a play-in game. They're not a team that for sure is gonna make a playoff run necessarily. But I think a lot would have to go wrong for them to be bad. You look at last year, displaced from home, COVID outbreak wipes out half the team and half the coaching staff, including three starters, and even then, after all that, they still had to intentionally bench guys down the stretch to make sure that they didn't make the play-in game and could get a better lottery spot."Sponsor: Use code TBPN during sign-up at DraftKings.com to claim your free shot at millions of dollars in total prizes.

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