Everyone’s seen the stats. If you haven’t seen them, because you’ve been too busy decorating the underside of your rock to try and make it fit for human habitation, let me tell you about the stats. Okay: the stats say that Kyle Lowry and Kawhi Leonard don’t play well together. The lineups with both of them aren’t as good as the lineups with not both of them. And remember, stats don’t lie, so if your eye test says something different, disregard it. Also disregard it if your eye test agrees with the stats. Because the eye test is garbage. The best thing to do is to never watch games, or even highlights. Be like me and just watch basketball-reference. It’s a more accurate picture of what goes on in the NBA, and it’s free.
I’m assuming that the stats say that Kawhi plays better with Fred VanVleet than with Lowry. I’m not about to go looking that stuff up, because I don’t want to make you dependent on me for all your statistical needs, but it’s a safe assumption. If that assumption is wrong, then we can assume that Kawhi just would rather not have a point guard with him on the court.
It is with all that said that I posit that the Raptors don’t EVEN need Lowry to be a Finals contender. Boom. Just putting it out there. It almost makes TOO MUCH sense. He’s been kinda assy for chunks of the year, and I mean that in the sense that I think his ass is getting bigger and sorta taking over parts of legs and arms. VanVleet, meanwhile, is looking fit as a fiddle, leading his team to victory over the best defensive team in the league.
With how much I’ve mentioned that such-and-so player has lead his team to victory over the best defensive team in the league, maybe it’s time to stop rating the Thunder as the best defensive team in the league? Everyone’s beating on them these days, like it’s not even impressive to drop 23 and 6 on them.