Having just achieved his regular-season zenith as a player, interest in Kyle Lowry is currently peaking. Lowry's enthusiasm for engaging that interest is trolling historic lows.
After shootaround on Friday, Lowry was asked to address the media. He was not best pleased at the idea.
"I'm going to do the worst interview of all time," Lowry said. "Watch this."
And then he did: a resentful series of "Hm-mms" and blank stares.
Asked where his game-turning play late on Wednesday – a brazen steal from Celtics rookie Marcus Smart, a sprint up-court, a backward pass to DeMar DeRozan – stood on his personal list of favourites, Lowry said, "I've been playing basketball a long time."
Sigh.
Top five? Top 10?
"It was just a basketball play to win the game."
I've had conversations with non-English speakers that were more edifying.
Still, you have to admire him. Lowry's commitment to being the best extends even to things he's trying to do really poorly.
We're six games deep in the season, and a little over two years into Lowry's Toronto career. It's early days, but it's become very tempting to try to figure Lowry's place in the Raptors pantheon (such as it is).
The current rankings go: Vince Carter, Vince Carter, Vince Carter and then maybe Chris Bosh.
Bosh was extremely good at basketball, and that's about it. His charisma was fragile. He captured few imaginations. You knew he thought Toronto was the NBA-equivalent of summer stock.
Eventually, he was going to end up on Broadway. Twenty years on, that's the Raptors' most important legacy – a franchise that survived despite the fact no one wanted to play for them.
Every Raptor you might name-check as a cornerstone moved on as soon as they could – Carter, Bosh, Damon Stoudamire, Tracy McGrady.
Every single one of them, until Lowry showed up and flipped the script.
It's all worked out. It really shouldn't have.
After being traded by Houston, Lowry showed up angry. He'd just been pushed off a team that was going places. He'd never made any real money or established himself as a starter. At the outset, it didn't look like he was going to get either chance in Toronto.
He was as out of shape as you can be and still play point guard in the NBA (which is to say: not very). At 26, he was no longer young. And he was uncoachable.
Lowry argued about everything. He wanted things his way, all the time. His teammates loved him, but the coaching staff began to resent him and – most dangerous of all – tune him out.
A year in, then-general manager Bryan Colangelo sold the store in order to get his Rosebud, Rudy Gay. Gay and Lowry were close friends. The Raptors got worse. You could see where this was going to end. You'd have bet money on it.
GM Masai Ujiri arrived. He was tasked with destroying the squad – trade the best players, fire the coach, get Andrew Wiggins, start over. Take three years to rebuild everything. His deadline to deliver a respectable roster was the 2016 NBA All-Star Game, which will take place in Toronto.
They traded Gay. They tried very hard to trade Lowry. They had essentially done a deal with the New York Knicks. It was down to fine details. And then Knicks owner James Dolan stepped in and overruled his own basketball people. James Dolan – you beautiful fool.
Lowry stayed. The team gelled. It's gelled the way very few clubs in any sport ever do.
One team exec, and a veteran of many other clubs, said recently, "I have never known a group of guys who like each other so much. They all honestly love each other."
That's down to Lowry. When Gay was here, he was the emotional barometer. The air pressure inside the locker room was always thick. Gay wasn't a bad guy, just a self-involved one. It put everyone on edge.
Once he left, Lowry inherited the job for the first time. He discovered that he's suited to leadership. A good room can hold one big ego – Lowry's. It's a lucky accident that his herding instinct has been matched with exactly the right herd.
What he's done is more than athletic. For the first time in the history of this franchise, he's allowed teammates to feel like it's okay to play here. Because he chose to.
He's the only guy in there who really did. DeRozan is famously loyal, but he's never had the chance to prove it. Everyone else is either under team control or came here because they needed the job.
Lowry was the only one with serious options elsewhere. And he chose Toronto for a market-value contract (which now looks undermarket).
He doesn't like talking about it, or anything else. He hates being compared to other players in the league (though you get the feeling those comparisons fuel him). He can occasionally be surly (and then, just as often, bright and engaging). Like all interesting people, he's complicated.
His numbers over the past two seasons place him amongst the elite No. 1s in the game. But what Lowry has given this team is about a great deal more than stats. He's legitimized it. He's made the Raptors big league. It's a straight line from Lowry to every star who chooses this club in the future.
Considering those circumstances, he's only one playoff-round win from vaulting up the subjective standings. Seven months from now, Lowry could be in the midst of becoming the greatest player in Toronto franchise history.
Cathal Kelly