Nylon Calculus: Kyle Lowry is a different player with Kawhi Leonard

Kyle Lowry has been an awesome player for years in Toronto — putting in his work as an elite two-way point guard while being content to let much of the praise go to his best friend, DeMar DeRozan. It goes without saying, the roster is a little different this year. Kawhi Leonard, and even Danny Green, give the Raptors a new dimension to play with offensively and defensively.

Now next to a hyper-efficient first option, Lowry is not asked to do as much offensively with his scoring. Kevin Durant said it best about how his role is changing with the introduction of Kawhi Leonard:

"“I think he’s finally settled into his role as a facilitator, more so than trying to be the 2nd scorer. He’s getting everybody involved with the assist and he’s coming through late in games when they need him. I think he’s playing the perfect point guard role.”"

Leading the league in assists per game, it’s clear Lowry excels in this role just as much as he did his previous role as a 1b scorer to DeRozan’s 1a.

But there have been distinctly two personalities of Kyle Lowry so far this season. One as the sidekick to Kawhi Leonard, and one as his own superhero leading the team every play down the floor. Using two recent games as an example, Dec. 5 against the 76ers with Kawhi and Dec. 11 against the Clippers without Kawhi, and with the aid of tracking data from Sportradar, it’s clear the way Kyle attacks changes.

The white lines represent time spent off-ball and the orange line represents time spent on-ball. Ignore makes or misses, that doesn’t matter. What matters is the clear increase in driving frequency and the wider overall array of shots Lowry puts up when playing without Kawhi.

Playing with Kawhi against the 76ers, six of his eight shots came from virtually one spot on the court with only one drive to the rim and a corner 3-point attempt.

Without Kawhi against the Clippers, Lowry was far more aggressive looking for his shot outside of the one spot above the key — three drives to the rim, two drives to mid-range shots, a curl 3, a transition 3, and a few spot-up attempts, all in all, a far more diverse offensive package.

Playing next to Kawhi, Lowry spent 56 percent of the time leading up to his shots on-ball covering an average distance of 14.8 feet. Given free reign of the offense against the Clippers, Lowry spent 67 percent of the time prior to a shot on-ball despite covering virtually the same average distance of 15.3 feet. The increase in time without distance indicates a more methodical approach to Lowry’s attack instead of as a complementary secondary player.

And it’s not just his aggressiveness that increases without Kawhi, across the board all of his statistics improve in the eight games played without Leonard. His assists per 36 minutes jump from 9.5 with Kawhi to 13.3 without. His rebounding per 36 jumps from 3.8 to 7.0. His steals per 36 jump from 1.3 to 1.9. The only stat that doesn’t noticeably improve playing without Kawhi is turnovers, which remains the exact same despite the bump in usage when Leonard is absent.

What’s clear from the data is that Lowry and Leonard have not yet found a rhythm that totally optimizes both players at the same time. And despite that, the Raptors sit atop the Eastern Conference. Both are unselfish players who are exclusively focused on winning, it is only a matter of time until they find the right balance of aggressiveness. The Raptors are already a scary team, but if Kawhi and Lowry continue to find more scoring balance off of each other, they could be the stuff of nightmares.