Kyle Lowry will have plenty of suitors in free agency

Miami Heat:

Miami Heat's Jimmy Butler fan of Toronto Raptors' Kyle Lowry - South Florida Sun-Sentinel

LA Clippers:

https://www.reddit.com/gallery/n5sirf

It would have to be a sign and trade

Philadelphia 76ers:

6. Kyle Lowry, Raptors (unrestricted)
Outlook: It’s fascinating how so many of the league’s best old-head point guards will be available this summer. We chronicled the outlook for Paul (who has a player option) and Conley (who is unrestricted) in the first edition, and Kyle Lowry (16.7 points, 7.3 assists, 5.5 rebounds per game) is right there with them when it comes to proving he’s still very productive at this later stage. In fact, Lowry’s pace is nothing short of historic for his age.

According to StatHead.com, Lowry — who missed significant time with a right foot infection and has played just 44 of Toronto’s 62 games thus far — is on pace to become one of just three players 34 or older to average at least 16 points, seven assists and five rebounds per game. LeBron James has done it three times, and Larry Bird did it once.

Lowry hasn’t been as efficient as those other two legends — he’s shooting just 42.8 percent overall — but it’s noteworthy nonetheless. Like Paul, whom I wrote about at length last week because of his ability to fight off Father Time, the 35-year-old Lowry looks fully capable of playing several more seasons at a very high level. Add in the fact that he’s a natural leader who has the 2018-19 championship ring to prove it, and his market should be quite robust. Age be damned.

“Really good,” one general manager said when asked about Lowry’s market. “There’s teams with money and not a lot of players, so I think he’s going to do really well.”

If you’re Lowry, you can make the sound argument that his relative lack of mileage, so to speak, means he still has more runway than other point guards around his age. To wit: Lowry has played nearly 8,000 fewer regular-season minutes than Paul (30,369 compared to 37,464) and approximately 600 fewer postseason minutes (3,397 compared to 4,061). The 33-year-old Conley, for what it’s worth, has logged 28,522 regular-season minutes and 2,258 in the playoffs, according to Basketball-Reference.com.

Post-trade deadline prism: Lowry not getting traded at the March 25 deadline was quite a surprise, but it wasn’t for lack of trying on the part of the Toronto front office. But as team president Masai Ujiri made clear back then, the Raptors still have an incredibly high opinion of Lowry and his game that — as they saw it — wasn’t properly reflected in the offers that came their way. Yet among the three teams known to be in hot pursuit of Lowry back then — the Lakers, Miami and Philadelphia — only the Heat are in a financial position to possibly sign Lowry outright this summer. Sources say the Sixers still plan on pursuing him by way of a possible sign-and-trade. While they added George Hill at the deadline in lieu of Lowry, only $1.2 million of his $10 million salary for next season is guaranteed, and the deal expires at that point. The Lowry interest remains very strong there. — SA

Where will Kyle Lowry land? Will the Pelicans pay Lonzo Ball? NBA free agency rankings – The Athletic