His meteoric rise to ‘top 5 point guard’ status can all be traced back to December 9th, 2013.

It’s been written time and time again. The Toronto Raptors were never supposed to be this good. They were supposed to tank. They were already a sub-.500 club prior to trading Rudy Gay. Their only draft pick that had panned out up to that point was DeMar DeRozan — but a shooting guard that can’t shoot couldn’t possibly be a franchise player. Surely, trading a high volume scorer in Rudy for Sacramento’s scraps would signal the Raptors were entering their name in the Wiggins sweepstakes.

Then Kyle Lowry happened. Everyone can talk about how Masai Ujiri finding suitors for Andrea Bargnani and Rudy Gay was the turning point for the franchise. However, the real magic in the Six began to appear when Lowry was forced to mature and run the one on a full-time basis. After a mediocre 2012–2013 season spent battling for minutes with José Calderon, Kyle had a light flick on in his head. He figured out his role on the roster as a savvy veteran on a young team that no one could care less about and looked to score more to account for the loss of Rudy. That is when the Raptors ascension to Eastern Conference relevancy would start to manifest.

This season, Kyle Lowry is playing out of his damn mind. It’s really weird to watch a point guard have the best season of his career at the age of 29, especially at a time when the Association is dominated by young sharpshooters such as Stephen Curry and Damian Lillard. And yet, here we are. Lowry is shooting almost 40% from behind the arc while ranking 2nd amongst PGs in True Shooting Percentage (behind only Curry, of course) and is top 10 in the league in Player Efficiency Rating.

Kyle and Co. are battling to make franchise history in Toronto. With 7 straight home games coming up, the Raptors are in as good a position as ever to take the crown in the East.

Many people will point to Drake when talking about Toronto’s increased popularity in recent years but the timing of the Raptors rise has been just as instrumental in putting the city on the map.