The Raptors returned home on Thursday night and decided to take a little nap through the first few minutes.
Down 14-6 to the Charlotte Hornets, they called a timeout.
Kyle Lowry marched over to the bench, ignoring offers for low fives from his teammates, and sat down disconsolately.
Immediately, Air Canada Centre Game Ops went into overdrive with a lengthy Kyle Lowry appreciation segment. Player of the month! He needs your All-Star love! T-shirts for everyone if we get to 10,000 votes!
Lowry didn't bother looking up. He may be the only person in town who really gets it.
While everyone else is distracted by shiny objects off in the distance, his team is slowly drifting off the road. The Raptors lost 103-95 to Charlotte Hornets with an underwhelming effort on Thursday night, their fourth setback in a row.
Toronto hadn't lost four straight since the transformative trade of Rudy Gay more than a year ago.
A representative problem: Lowry scored 24 points; the other four starters scored 22 combined.
"Tonight, we sucked as a team," Lowry said afterward. "We've got to figure it out. Soon."
"I don't know if it's a lull in the season, coming back from west coast trip. I don't know what it is," said coach Dwane Casey. "We've got to find seven or eight guys who are interested in competing at a high level."
"The lack of intensity, the lack of focus, the lack of will out there was just as baffling to me as it is to anybody else on this team," said Patrick Patterson.
Most turning points in a season only become clear in hindsight. We're in the middle of an obvious one right now. The Raptors have gotten used to beating on inferior Eastern Conference talent. This was the first time this season they found themselves seriously wanting in that regard.
As such, it may be time to begin a serious reappraisal of priorities.
As in, why has getting Lowry into the All-Star Game as a starter suddenly become a national statement of purpose?
Toronto Mayor John Tory's all over it on Twitter. Ditto the premier. Even the prime minister has shoe-horned "Lowry: Why haven't I heard of this guy before?" into his briefing notes between "Oil: We're screwed on that front" and "Terrorism: Still happening."
Lowry certainly deserves to go to the NBA's pointless mid-season showcase as a starting guard. So does Chicago's Jimmy Butler. Neither is likely to make it via the fan ballot because a plurality of people who vote for this thing don't have any idea who should to be there and don't much care.
A crumbling giant like Dwyane Wade could retire tomorrow, and he's still going to grab a shocking number of votes. That's why we agreed a long time ago that popularity contests are the pits.
If the fans want Lowry in, he'll be there. The idea that this matters on the grand scale is a holdover from this team's bad old days when party favours mattered more than presents.
In point of fact, it'd probably mean more to him if he gets there as a reserve, voted in by the same coaches who snubbed him last year.
If the Raptors want to be truly cynical about it, they should be begging the country not to vote. Let Lowry get passed over again. He plays better angry.
Regardless of the ferocity of the local promo mission, Lowry is going to the All-Star Game. I have less faith in the rising of this morning's sun than I do in that happening.
What matters is that the Raptors play basketball games in a way that rises to Lowry's compete level. Lowry keeps including himself amongst the group that needs to improve. His teammates should understand that that's just being said to make them feel better.
Because the overall lack of steadiness is getting more than a little worrisome.
You could forgive the deterioration on the recent west coast road swing. They went from a remarkable win against Denver, to a manful loss at Portland, to a swamping against Golden State, to a total surrender versus Phoenix. Now this – the worst of all.
Out west, they'd had to rein in their workouts. They'd had two solid days back home to put in some work. What'd they concentrate on?
"We worked on things we needed to work on," said Casey. "One is our defence, strength on the ball, challenging shots, offensively – spacing, pick and rolls. You name it, we worked on it. I don't know if we corrected it all, but we went back to basics."
Half-way through a professional season isn't the moment when you want to be going "back to basics." That's better suited to fourth-grade summer camp.
Every team has their dips. Toronto's been riding a hell of a wave for two months. All that heightened feeling was bound to produce some sort of emotional letdown. That's what the road trip was for. It was reasonable to expect a bit of jump on Thursday night.
"We've got to come out with a sense of urgency in the first half, and not let it get late before we decide to play," Casey said beforehand.
And, of course, Toronto came out and played one of the ugliest quarters of the season. The hoped-for defence didn't materialize. The offence followed it into the abyss. This was miserable stuff from both teams. The Raptors just looked more ambitiously miserable.
The Hornets started the first quarter on an 18-8 run. They began the third 14-1.
However changeable it looks now, the mix will improve once DeMar DeRozan returns from a groin tear, some time next week. Patterson called that the "silver lining" to this dip. Sensibly, the team has exercised extreme caution with their other big star, and continues to be coy.
"I'm not going to be the one to say we've got to have him back, because his career is more important," Casey said.
But after six weeks, DeRozan's absence is beginning to shift from a talent evaluation opportunity to a serious problem.
This club is still in wonderful position, but it requires a mid-season boost.
That's not going to come via Lowy playing in a meaningless showcase game for all the rubes that still don't know his name.
It comes via renewed purpose at home, and a chance to earn real glory in the only place it actually means anything: in the post-season.