Kyle Lowry, who helped lead the Toronto Raptors to their lone championship in 2019, is retiring from the NBA. Generally agreed to be the greatest player in Raptors franchise history, the six-time All-Star guard announced his retirement with a video on Instagram on Tuesday, announcing his intentions to sign a one-day contract with the Raptors.The Raptors are expected to announce plans to retire his No. 7, which he wore for eight of his nine seasons in Toronto, during the 2026-27 season at a news conference later Tuesday morning.After he joined the Miami Heat in 2021, Lowry said he intended to finish his career by signing a ceremonial contract with the Raptors. It’s a fitting end to a storied career, highlighted by his turn as a key figure in Toronto’s seven-year playoff streak from 2014-20, by far the best run since the Raptors entered the league in 1995.This past season was his 20th in the NBA, making him the 12th player to hit that milestone. He and Chris Paul are the only 6-foot-and-under guards in that club.“That’s a massive accomplishment to do in the game of basketball, with the physicality and the strength, the mental (energy you need) in sports and basketball,” Lowry said in January. “It was pretty important to me.”When considering both career length and peak, Lowry is the easy choice as the greatest Raptor in franchise history. While his long-time teammate and close friend DeMar DeRozan has him beat in categories such as games played and points, Lowry holds many records of his own. He is also one of only three players to score more than 10,000 points with the Raptors, along with DeRozan and Chris Bosh.He made the All-Star Game every year from 2015 to 2020. In his last All-Star appearance, playing for his head coach, Nick Nurse, Lowry drew multiple offensive fouls in the final minutes, a big part of one of the more memorable All-Star Games of this century. Drawing charges was one of Lowry’s signatures, with the point guard among the league leaders multiple years.Lowry regularly led the NBA in charges drawn during his 20-year NBA career ( Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)“He plays harder than anybody I’ve ever seen,” Nurse said in 2021. “I can’t give him a higher compliment than that.”Lowry’s crowning individual moment came in the clinching game of the 2019 NBA Finals. In Game 5, Draymond Green blocked Lowry’s would-be game-winning attempt at the buzzer, sending the series back to Oakland. Lowry responded by going on a personal 11-2 run in the first 2:12 of Game 6. With so many poor shooting games on his playoff resume — he shot 62 of 180 in his 15 career Game 1s with the Raptors, an individual and team bugaboo during his tenure — the scoring spurt served as an emphatic rebuttal to that history.“There’s a lot of guys that (had a similar) journey and they haven’t been able to get to this point. I’m just so happy to be able to be a part of it and to say I’m an NBA champion,” Lowry said after the Raptors won the title. “I don’t take it for granted at all. I know how hard it’s been, how hard it is to get here. I know how (much) it takes and it takes some luck also. And it takes some purified professionals just to go out there and keep going and working and trying to get it done.