Nathan Ray Seebeck-USA TODAY Sports
Raptors Continue to Rest Kyle Lowry Despite 7th Spot Clinched
The Toronto Raptors will finish the season with the seventh-worst record in the NBA.
No matter how the final two games go, win or lose, the Raptors cannot move out of the seventh spot. The tank is over. There's nowhere to go now. And yet, the Raptors continue to rest Kyle Lowry along with the vast majority of their other stars who continue to rehab lingering injuries.
Aside from Lowry, OG Anunoby, Pascal Siakam, Fred VanVleet, Rodney Hood, and Watson will all miss Friday night's penultimate game of the season against the Dallas Mavericks. They will likely be joined by Jalen Harris and Yuta Watanabe who are listed as doubtful with a left foot and a right ankle injury, respectively.
Watanabe started Thursday night's game but was forced to leave early with that ankle injury.
"I think we’ve been in a little bit of a maintenance kind of rehab," Raptors coach Nick Nurse said. "He’s passing all the tests before the game, I think he had a little bit of a tweak there so [we] took him out to go re-tape it. When he came out, they immediately said let’s retest it and get him back in there and he just wasn’t able to pass that last test so we decided to pull him out for the game."
While the team would certainly like to continue giving some of its younger players more playing time, it would be nice to see Lowry play what could be his final two games as a member of the Raptors. If Lowry won't play Friday hopefully he will play the season finale on Sunday against the Indiana Pacers.
Further Reading
Jalen Harris is looking forward to spending the summer developing with the Raptors
Report: Adam Silver wants to add an in-season tournament like the WNBA
Stanley Johnson stars in a possible audition for another NBA contract
