On loyalty, belonging, and the ache to be claimed.
This is, technically, a basketball story.
But really, it is a story about being chosen.
Even if you do not give a shit about basketball, stay with me.
Because what Kyle Lowry gave Toronto was not just a championship, or toughness, or leadership, or the greatest era in franchise history. He gave us the feeling of being claimed by someone who could have chosen elsewhere.
That is why this moment reached somewhere far beyond the court for me.
Because in my own life, in my own work, in the quiet, private, psychologically charged relationships I build with the men who choose me, I understand the weight of being chosen.
And I understand the responsibility of choosing back.
As I write this, it is the seventh day of the seventh month, and all of Canada has paused to celebrate 7.
Kyle Lowry signed a one-day contract and officially retired as a Toronto Raptor. The franchise announced that his number 7 will be retired and raised to the rafters at Scotiabank Arena this coming season.
It feels right. It feels inevitable. It feels like a circle closing exactly where it was always meant to close.
Kyle Lowry came home.
And because this is Kyle Lowry, because this is Toronto, because this is Canada, because this is a love story that was never simple, the moment felt bigger than basketball.
He sat there, emotional and stubborn and beloved, and said what he has said in one form or another for years.
“This place, I call it home through and through.”
That is the part that undid me.
Not the ceremony. Not the one-day contract. Not even the mention of jersey retirement, though God knows I will sob when number 7 goes up.
I Have Always Loved a Point Guard
I have always had an affinity for point guards. Damon Stoudamire was my first favourite player, brief but serious, as first basketball loves tend to be. I was absolutely convinced Alvin Williams was destined to marry me, and my God, that man has only gotten better looking with age, a confirmation that my first instincts were always right. I was proud to have Fred VanVleet as my floor general, and I am not exaggerating when I say I personally voted about 5,000 times to send that man to the All-Star Game. Every time Jamal Shead hits the court, I beam with pride. I say with conviction that I was among the first Shead Heads.
But nothing compares to Kyle Lowry.
There are players you admire. There are players you respect. There are players you defend in arguments with the full force of your chest; and let’s face it, these tits have force. There are players you defend with a complete disregard for emotional regulation. Then there are players who become part of the architecture of your fandom.
Kyle Lowry became part of mine.
Let the Record Show
Let the record show what the heart already knows. Kyle Lowry is the greatest Raptor of all time. Bobby said it today, and anyone actually paying attention knows it to be true.
He is a champion. A six-time All-Star as a Raptor. The engine of the greatest era in franchise history. The point guard who helped turn a franchise that was often ignored, mocked, or treated like a novelty into a perennial winner, a serious organization, and eventually, and I say with soul, an NBA champion.
He left Toronto as the franchise leader in assists, steals, three-pointers, and triple-doubles. He played 601 regular-season games here. He was second in franchise history in games played and points. He took charges like other men take breaths. He turned floor burns into scripture.
The numbers matter because they prove the devotion was never imaginary. The numbers are not why this feels… dare I say holy.
The Connection Was Grit
Doug Smith, my favourite Raptors beat reporter, whom I have been reading for most of my life, asked the first question at the press conference. It was the right question.
What was it about the connection Kyle had with this organization, this city, this country that worked?
Lowry talked about hard work. About playing through anything. About Toronto and Canada responding to players who give everything. He called it a hockey town, a hockey place. He talked about people getting up every day in the cold and going to work anyway.
That answer landed somewhere deep in my chest. Because he understood us.
Not in the shallow, press-conference way. Not in the “great fans, great city” way players say when they want to be polite before catching a flight somewhere warmer.
He understood the texture of this place. The cold. The work. The grit. The emotional restraint. The way this city can look indifferent from the outside, then love you forever once you prove you are willing to stay.
He got us.
And we got him.
Even his relationship with the Toronto media carried that same strange, specific intimacy. Kyle Lowry was never a smooth press-conference darling. He did not hand out softness on command, and he certainly did not perform affection just because a microphone was in front of him.
But there was love there too, especially with Doug. The kind built over years of showing up in the same room, asking the questions, taking the attitude, earning the grin, and surviving the glare.
Kyle did not give Toronto polished love.
He gave us real love.
The kind with history in it.
The kind with an elbow.
The Ugly Stepsister of the NBA
Let’s be honest.
For the better part of three decades, the Toronto Raptors were treated like the ugly stepsister of the NBA.
We were cold. We were inconvenient. We were across the border. You had to go through customs. You had to deal with different money, different banks, different phone plans, different television channels, different taxes, different measurements, and the apparent national trauma of milk in bags.
We have heard it all.
Antonio Davis worried about his children learning the metric system and singing the Canadian anthem. Lou Williams said Toronto could feel like playing overseas. Chris Bosh once joked about not having “the good cable,” and maybe if he had spent less time worrying about the channel package and more time learning how to fight through contact, I would have taken that shit more gracefully.
Some of it was funny to a casual fan.
Believe me, your girl wasn’t fucking laughing one goddamn bit.
I took that shit personally.
Because when you live in a place that is constantly treated like a compromise, you develop a very particular sensitivity. You learn to brace. You learn to expect the caveat. You learn to recognize the quiet little flinch that comes from wondering whether anyone truly wants to stay.
Then Kyle Lowry did.
The First Choosing
The first great choosing came in 2014.
After the heartbreak of Game 7 against Brooklyn, after a season that changed the feeling around the franchise, Kyle Lowry entered free agency with options. There was interest elsewhere. Of course, there was. He had leverage, momentum, and every reason to listen when other teams tried to imagine him in their colours.
But when the moment came, he chose Toronto.
He posted a photo of himself in a Raptors jersey and said Toronto would be his home city.
At the time, we did not know what that would become. We did not know that staying would turn into seven straight playoff appearances. We did not know it would turn into All-Star selections, franchise records, Eastern Conference battles, hello LeBronto, heartbreaks, injuries, leadership, reinvention, DeMar, Kawhi, Pascal, Fred, Nick Nurse, Game 6, a first-quarter explosion in Oakland, and a championship parade that felt like the entire country had spilled into the street.
We did not know that a stubborn six-foot point guard with enough booty to cushion every charge would become the emotional centre of Canadian basketball.
We just knew he stayed.
And for Toronto, staying has never been a small thing.
He Chose Us Back
That is what made Kyle Lowry different.
He did not just play here. He rooted here. He fought here. Ached here. Grew here. Failed here. Won here.
He did not always make it easy. That is part of the love, too. Kyle was stubborn, brilliant, maddening, hilarious, guarded, emotional, and impossible to replace. He was not polished into something more convenient for mass affection. He was Kyle Lowry, fully and relentlessly.
And somehow, that made the bond stronger.
Because Toronto has never really trusted perfection. We trust effort. We trust edge. We trust the person who gets knocked down and gets up complaining, limping, glaring, and still somehow taking the next charge.
Kyle did that.
Again and again and again.
Then he left.
But even leaving never felt like abandonment. It felt like the chapter had changed, not the bond. He went to Miami. He went home to Philadelphia. He kept playing. He kept aging. He kept mentoring. He kept being Kyle.
But the Raptors were still the place where he became who he became.
And when it was time to close the circle, he came back here to do it properly.
That is why it matters.
Because everyone knows the ache of wanting to be chosen by someone who could choose elsewhere.
The Power of Being Chosen
There is something profoundly human inside this.
We all want to be chosen.
Not because we are convenient. Not because we are easy. Not because there are no other options. Not because someone wandered in and never bothered to leave.
We want to be chosen by someone who has seen enough of the world to know what else is out there.
And chooses us anyway.
That is a different kind of love. The kind that settles into the nervous system. The kind that says: I know what this is. I know what it costs. I know what others may not understand. And I am still fucking here.
Kyle Lowry gave Toronto that feeling.
He made a country that was used to feeling overlooked by the NBA feel claimed.
We were not just tolerated. Not just a stop on the schedule. Not just the league’s northern inconvenience.
We were home.
His home.
The Charge
Like Lowry, your girl loves to take a charge. And yes, I do mean that both ways.
Kyle took charges with his body. I take them with a credit card. Different arenas. Same commitment to changing the possession.
But I do not take a charge from just anyone.
A charge is not passive. It is not collapse. It is not surrender without awareness. It is reading the floor before the other person knows what they are about to do. It is holding your ground. It is knowing exactly when contact means something.
That is part of why I love Kyle Lowry.
And that is also the kind of connection I value. Not performance for the room. Not empty escalation. Not noise.
The deeper thing.
The remembered detail. The returned rhythm. The trust built slowly. The man who learns how to be held without needing to force the moment into spectacle. The client who understands that my attention is not a menu item. It is a living current between us.
And when I choose back, it means something.
And yes, sometimes the charge that changes the game is quieter.
A tribute. A payment. A deliberate act of choosing. A man placing value behind desire instead of hovering at the edge of it, hoping wanting alone will be enough.
The Shot Caller
Maybe that is why I have always loved point guards.
The real ones are readers of the room. They feel the floor before anyone else does. They know when to push, when to pause, when to take the hit, when to call the play, which, apparently, is also my chosen profession…
Kyle Lowry was our shot caller. Our floor general. Our charge-taker. Our stubborn little engine of belief.
Kyle Lowry became the Greatest Raptor of All Time not only because he won here.
He became the Greatest Raptor of All Time because he chose us back.
That is the part that stays with me. In basketball. In devotion. In the private relationships I build with the men who return, who trust, and who allow themselves to be chosen in return.
The deepest bond is never just about wanting.
It is about recognition.
It is about consistency.
It is about the rare and powerful thing that happens when both sides know: I could choose elsewhere, but I am still here.
And on the seventh day of the seventh month, number 7 came home one final time.
Kyle Lowry over everything.
Forever.