Portland Trail Blazers: Ranking the top 10 point guards in the NBA

Despite just leading the Toronto Raptors to their first ever NBA championship in franchise history, Kyle Lowry still finds himself as one of the most underrated players in the league. You’ll never hear his name brought up in discussions on who is the best guard in the NBA, but his jersey will be inevitably retired in the rafters of Scotiabank Arena for good reason.

Lowry is an All-Star five years in the running, proving he has exceptional talent. He has performed incredibly efficiently, posting a 19.6 PER and 59.7 true shooting percentage over the last three years.

He’s also adapted to the modern NBA very well by transitioning to a sharpshooting playmaker instead of playing hero ball. Last year, Lowry set a career high in assists per game while taking over 60 percent of his shoots from deep the last two seasons — and nailing 37.7 percent of them.

Perhaps most impressive of all, Lowry obtained the fourth highest RPM among all point guards in the league last year. His on court presence undeniably made his teammates better, and also likely helped attribute to Pascal Siakam’s enormous leap in production.

If this was a ranking of last year’s performances, Lowry would likely find himself bumped up a few spots on this list. However, if we’re attempting to accurately gauge next season’s pecking order of point guards, he’ll sink down here to about the tenth spot.

While Lowry’s abilities as a playmaker seem to have increased, he will be 34-years-old heading into next year’s playoffs. Since 2017, he is averaging eight less points per game while his three-point shooting success rate has dropped 6.5 percent. Without Kawhi Leonard around to pick up the slack, expect Lowry to experience a slight decline — especially in the face of Fred VanVleet’s emergence.