How Precious Achiuwa became Kyle Lowry's final gift to the Raptors

Precious Achiuwa came to Toronto as an unknown to most Raptors fans.

Averaging just 12 minutes a game with the Miami Heat last season, Achiuwa’s arrival wasn’t exactly the main story about the transaction that brought him to Toronto.

Coming along with Goran Dragic in a sign-and-trade for franchise icon Kyle Lowry, not much was known about how Achiuwa would fit in with his new team.

Lowry made it clear that there was no disrespect between him and the Toronto front office in the deal that sent him to the Heat, with the sign-and-trade ultimately being agreed to by three parties: himself, Toronto, and Miami.

The reasons Dragic’s time didn’t work out have been written about ad nauseum — the team was looking to go younger, some preseason comments about “higher ambitions” rubbed much of the Raptors’ fanbase the wrong way, and eventually some personal issues led to his ultimate leave from the team that extended from November to February.

Toronto moved on and flipped Dragic for Thaddeus Young at the deadline, before he was subsequently bought out and signed in Brooklyn.

But once the dust of Lowry leaving settled, it became clear Achiuwa was a piece that was always quietly meant to be molded into the Toronto organization’s vision of what a quintessential Raptor should look like.

Raptors president Masai Ujiri first spotted Achiuwa  at one of his Giants of Africa camps in Nigeria when he was just in middle school. In a way, Achiuwa became Lowry’s final gift to the Toronto Raptors.

Lowry is a big fan of this year’s Raptors, opening up on his April 3 return to Toronto that he was impressed by how hard the team plays.

Asked last week what he likes about Achiuwa, Lowry pointed out how the second-year forward’s offensive arsenal has steadily increased with the Raptors.

Achiuwa attempted just one shot (a miss) last season from beyond the three-point arc, while he’s shot 55-for-151 (.364 percentage) from long distance this season.

“I think [Achiuwa] expanding his game to the three-point line, him being able to put the ball down a little bit more, has been good for him,” Lowry said in response to a question asked by Daily Hive. “I think Nick [Nurse] and the coaching staff has given him the confidence to do that, to step outside of his comfort zone and be different.”

Lowry knows better than many NBA stars what it’s like to take a while to find your footing.

He spent two-and-a-half years in Memphis before being shipped to Houston, where he’d spent three-and-a-half years. It was in Toronto, of course, where he built up his Hall of Fame-worthy resume: six all-Star games, six division titles, and one NBA championship in 2019.

For Lowry, he sees the opportunities provided by the Toronto organization as a positive move for Achiuwa.

“A young kid, just getting in a new situation being able to blossom a little more, it’s great for him,” Lowry added. “[It’s a positive for him] to be in that position to come here, and change, and be a different type of player and be more successful.”

Achiuwa went through some growing pains in his first year with the Raptors, averaging 7.5 points per game on just .423 field goal shooting through February 15.

“I wasn’t playing up to my expectation more than anything else,” Achiuwa told reporters Friday. “I have a certain standard for myself which is really, really high and I work hard to achieve that standard.”

Despite playing below what he felt was his peak, Achiuwa said he maintained a levelheadedness throughout his on-court struggles.

“Sometimes they were shocked how confident I was that… I’m good,” Achiuwa said about his family and friends asking about his mental approach to the game throughout the year.

But whether it’s a spurious correlation or something finally clicked, Achiuwa began to heat up after attending the Rising Stars Challenge at NBA All-Star weekend. In the 24 games since, Achiuwa has shot .471 from the field (including .402 from three-point range), while adding 12.7 points and 5.7 rebounds per game.

“I knew at some point [my game] was gonna start showing… it just wasn’t showing at the time, it wasn’t clicking for whatever reason,” Achiuwa said. “But in that state I trusted that whole process stressing my work ethic and just stuck with it, and the front office did as well, teammates did as well.  They encouraged me all through that, and now it’s just starting to show.”

In Thursday night’s win over the 76ers, Achiuwa scored 20 points for the fourth time this year.

One play stuck out more than all his other shots: for just the second time this season, Achiuwa took three or more dribbles in a shot from three-point range, nailing a late pull-up three to give the Raptors a double-digit lead over Philadelphia.

Precious pulls up in transition and gives the Raptors a 102-92 lead over the Sixers! pic.twitter.com/08lyQhR0CS

— NBA Canada (@NBACanada) April 8, 2022

Scotiabank Arena lit up in reaction to the shot that really wasn’t something they’d ever seen Achiuwa pull off this year.

But it didn’t shock the man who actually shot it.

“I’m not just out there just working on something that wouldn’t translate to the games,” Achiuwa said. “Everything that I do out there, I’ve put in countless, countless reps of the same, whatever [drill] it is, thousands of it. [It’s] showing though, that’s just a testament to show that the work that I’m putting in is actually working.”