The Raptors’ point guard no longer needs to be his team’s best player. But can he put aside his own self-doubt to once again be the emotional engine his team so desperately needs? If you were going to create a list of the qualities that a great leader has, Kyle Lowry checks a great deal of the boxes. He’s enormously intelligent. He’s hardworking. He has a sense of humour. He leads by example.
At the same time though, Kyle is a prickly personality. And he puts enormous pressure on himself — who can forget his late-night post-game shooting sessions during the 2016 playoffs? After a loss, his press conferences often sound like a philosopher trying to wrestle with life’s great existential mysteries.
There’s a reason philosophers have approximately 500,000 books and precisely zero dunks on their resume: too much thinking is not ideal for the professional athlete.
Your great athlete can come in the LeBron or Kobe mode — clearly as smart as anyone else in the room, but not one to overly vocalize their innermost personal reflections. Or they can be Rob Gronkowski — blessed with physical gifts, but not known much for plumbing the deep questions of our …

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Author: ConorMcCreery / Raptors HQ