What’s that? I quit on the team? Whatever you say.

Don’t let the truth hinder the narrative. Sensationalism sells, and if a man’s reputation gets dragged through the mud, so be it.

On a slow news day when the usual fodder (LeBron James wasn’t losing, the Warriors weren’t winning) wasn’t there, the lead story last Friday centered around Kyle Lowry’s mysterious absence late in the second quarter.

Lowry left the game during his usual rest break and headed down the tunnels of Predatory Loans Arena. Cameras followed him and so too did conspiracy theorists. Helped along was a 12–2 run during Lowry’s absence — a season-long trend for when Lowry sits — which in this instance formed the basis of the Raptors “losing the game” because Lowry quit.

After the game, Lowry didn’t help the situation when he offered up a vagueity about needing to “decompress” and to get his mind right.

That left the door open for rampant and irresponsible speculation. Lowry quit on his team. Lowry is weak-minded. Lowry isn’t tough enough. Lowry isn’t a leader.

From Ken Berger of CBS Sports:

But they have been so dominant in this series, and so demoralized the Raptors in Game 2, that they literally chased a two-time All-Star off the floor and into the locker room. In the middle of the game. Never saw that before. “Just [wanted to] get back there, kind of relax my body and relax my mind,” Lowry said. Soon enough, he’ll have the whole summer for that.

From Tim Bontemps of the Washington Post (on ESPN’s TrueHoop Podcast):

“Kyle’s playoffs have been a disaster because he’s been completely inside his own head. He hasn’t been hurt, nothing is wrong with him — I’ve talked to multiple people who’s said that he’s totally fine. It’s just up here, he’s just not been fine. And this is just further proof of it. “He’s just been totally wrapped up in his own head, about we have to have success in the playoffs, even after Game 7 against the Heat I thought he finally gotten over it. Then he comes into this series and he’s right back to doing the same stuff again.”

From Jason McIntyre of The Big Lead:

But for some reason, this storyline has gotten zero pickup. Can you imagine if LeBron walked off the court? Kevin Durant? Stephen Curry? It would lead every sports website on the internet. It’d be the topic today on sports radio. Hell, I was totally unaware of this story until I received a DM asking where the post was on Lowry. How does the team’s best player pull a stunt like this and face no scrutiny?

From Nick Birdsong of The Sporting News:

Even if you’re limping, you’re still standing. Pulling yourself from the game for the whole world to see is tantamount to quitting. It hurt his team, and might’ve conceded a victory to the bad guys in another battle far bigger than the one going on the court.

From ESPN’s First Take:

From ESPN’s The Jump:

From ESPN’s Sportsnation:

What’d y’all say about my boy Kyle?

The truth came out a day later. Dwane Casey explained that Lowry (and backup point guard Cory Joseph) use the bathroom a lot. Then, after some intrepid reporting from the best in the business, Adrian Wojnarowski got the explicit explanation.

From The Vertical:

“I’ve done that numerous times — where I’ve gone back there to go the bathroom and come back out,” Lowry said. … “He got us here,” Ujiri told The Vertical. “It makes no sense for anyone to say that he abandoned his team. The guy went and took a freaking piss, and everyone makes a big deal out of it.”

In retrospect, those thinkpieces weren’t worth the paper they were printed on. Pissed away, as it were.

Rewrite those narratives: Lowry outdueled LeBron James at his best in Game 4. Lowry dropped 35 points on 20 shots — including a game-clinching layup in the final minute — to clear his name that should have never needed clearing in the first place.

Anybody who’s followed Lowry’s career closely (which isn’t a lot — he played at Villanova, Memphis, Houston, and now Toronto) knows what he’s about. They know that before he became a two-time All-Star, Lowry built a career on hustle plays. And even after he’s joined the upper class, the blue-collared Lowry continues to play with that same mentality. He’s been the one to dive into stands for loose balls, sky for rebounds among much taller players, sacrifice his body to take charges, and he sets the tone for the Raptors are both ends of the floor.

Everyone that knows Lowry knows him as a bulldog. His shot might not be dropping and he might not be playing well, but he would never quit. But on the national stage here at the conference finals, not many people know Lowry. He’s a stranger in these parts, and it shows.

To Lowry’s credit, he took it all in stride. He did as a leader should and faced the fire. He didn’t shrink from the attention and even gave ESPN an exclusive sit-down interview to discuss his bathroom break before his redemption in Game 3. He also took responsibility when he spoke with Wojnarowski.

“Perception is reality, and I put a perception out there,” Lowry told The Vertical. “What people didn’t know: That’s my normal substitution time. But the perception became that I just took myself out of the game. But you have to understand — and I now understand — that everything on this stage is 30 times magnified over what it is in the regular season.

Lowry apologized when he didn’t need to. Those national outlets, well, they’re onto the next controversy. They’ve forgotten about Lowry. It’s all about Draymond’s scissor kicks to the dick of Steven Adams. No mea culpas here.

Regardless, it reflects poorly on analysts to even entertain the idea of Lowry as a quitter and to pretend to read Lowry’s mind. It reveals a naivety of who Lowry is as a player. It stems back to how the Raptors are covered nationally — they’re virtually non-existent.

National outlets know exactly how to cover LeBron, Curry, Draymond, Westbrook, and Durant because they’ve been on them since Day 1. But who’s really paid close attention to the “Other” team, besides taking time to slap them in the face for having the gall to be a clumsy roadblock on the path to a fated battle?

Here’s what can’t be sensationalized and spun: Kyle Lowry never quit on his team, and because of that, the Raptors are two wins away from the NBA Finals. Maybe that’s not as juicy of a storyline, but it’s the truth. Imagine printing that.