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Kyle Lowry (Toronto Raptors)
Age: 30
2015-16 Season Per-Game Averages: 21.2 points, 6.4 assists, 4.7 rebounds, 2.1 steals.
Career Per-Game Averages: 13.5 points, 5.7 assists, 4.0 rebounds, 1.4 steals.
The man who pipped Kyrie to the All-Star game has done the same thing for a place in the top six. By now, though, we are into the realms of being incredibly difficult to rank.
For Lowry, the 2015-16 season was the next step he had been waiting to take. He might be as explosive or as flashy as some of the others on this list, but Lowry is the complete package and he has literally everything you might want for a point guard. The 30-year-old guard can score, putting up 21.2 points per game last year. He canpass, too, as his 6.8 assists per game since going north of the border show. And he can defend, stealing the ball 2.1 times per game in the season gone-by.
Since joining Toronto, Lowry has changed. Adrian Wojnarowski wrote about it back in 2014 for Yahoo! Sports. Through the efforts of Masai Ujiri, the Raptors President and General Manager, the coaching staff and even Chauncey Billups, they made a stubborn Lowry understand what he needed to do.
"“Once and for all, Masai Ujiri told Kyle Lowry the truth. Oh, how Ujiri loves Lowry’s game – his talent, his ferocity, his intellect – and how he wanted him to understand: Spare your career this maddening, self-fulfilling prophecy and honor a relentless summer of conditioning and commitment with the best season of your life. Ujiri didn’t hear excuses out of Lowry, only noticing his knowing nods and hurting eyes. Lowry was listening. Finally, he was listening,” Wojnarowski said."
Kyle Lowry did all of that and has become one of the best PGs in the NBA, one capable of leading the Toronto Raptors to a division title and the conference finals.
Next: No. 5