Kira Lewis Jr. is heading to the Raptors 905.
The 22-year-old recently acquired point guard is going to begin his Toronto Raptors career in the G League, the team announced Friday.
Lewis joined Toronto from New Orleans as a cost-saving throw-in to the Pascal Siakam deal with the Indiana Pacers. The once highly-touted 13th pick in the 2020 NBA Draft had fallen out of the rotation for the Pelicans and doesn’t appear to be poised for rotation minutes in Toronto anytime soon.
“We keep we keep taking those chances,” Raptors president Masai Ujiri said of Lewis and Jordan Nwora who joined Toronto as the other young piece in the deal “Like these kinds of players, were excited, I think they just arrived here. I’m really excited to see Kira. I'm excited to see Nwora who I've known since he was five years old.”
Lewis has been a good shooter in the past. He connected on 44.1% of his three-pointers last season and was a solid shooter coming out of Alabama, but the 6-foot-1 guard has never been able to put it all together.
Barring a significant change in Lewis’ performance, it’s not like Toronto keeps him around moving forward. He’s essentially an expiring contract for the Raptors and a low-risk upside play if there’s any untapped potential still to be realized.
That said, if Toronto continues to make trades over the next three weeks, there may be an opportunity for Lewis to get more playing time with the Raptors. It’s just going to take a trimming down of Toronto’s roster before he’ll have a chance.
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