TORONTO — In his basketball dotage, Kyle Lowry is getting soft.

In his playing prime, Lowry never would have graced the media with an appearance before a game while his Philadelphia Eagles were playing — much less push 10 minutes in responding to queries after the Eagles had just surrendered a touchdown in a playoff game. He also wouldn’t let anything get in between him and the utterance of a four-letter word.

“Sometimes, I try to talk to those guys as a coach,” Lowry said of working with his Philadelphia 76ers teammates, Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe, young guards who are the pillars of the team. “As a player, I wish I could say certain things or say, ‘Do this or do that.’ It’s that balance of I know I’m not on the court, so I can’t yell at them or curse at them. But I can say, ‘Hey, here are the things I see. Let’s try to do that.'”

Oh, how the old Lowry would struggle to recognize this one. Then again, it would have been tough to envision Lowry, the hyper-competitive point guard who was at the centre of the Toronto Raptors’ longest run of success, settling for a role that is halfway between coach and player.

Coming to Toronto for possibly the last time of his career — although a playoff series between the two teams is very much on the table — this version of the franchise’s most beloved player is difficult to identify. A little more than two months shy of his 40th birthday, Lowry has played just 43 minutes over five games this season. Sixers coach Nick Nurse, who first coached Lowry in 2013 as an assistant with the Raptors, called the veteran a “middle man” between him and the players, with insights on when the team can handle a practice and when the players could use a day off, among other things.

It’s not that Lowry never had the intelligence that would allow him to fill this role; it’s the patience that was the question mark.

“No, not the patience. But I know his character, deep down,” said Raptors veteran Garrett Temple, a friend of Lowry’s who has played a similar role for Toronto for the last three years. “I don’t want to say it was once he got out of the mode of being a competitor, but when he got out of the mode of ‘I’m that guy,’ then character-wise, he wants to give back. That’s the type of person he is. I’m not surprised he was able to flip the switch.”

“Throughout my career I had the opportunity to be around a guy like Fred VanVleet,” added Lowry, making reference to his former apprentice in Toronto. “That kind of (told me), ‘Why not try to continue to do that and help a guy like Tyrese Maxey.’ And then, you get fortunate enough and they draft a guy like VJ. You got two young guys. And Jared McCain. Sometimes, the game gives you something you have to do.”

Again, the old Lowry might have scoffed at signs from the universe. There is something in it for him, beyond the veteran’s minimum. In a year in which LeBron James is breaking a record by playing in his 23rd season, Lowry is up to 20. As he pointed out, he is just the second player at 6-feet or under to make it to the milestone, although it feels like John Stockton, who was listed at 6-1, should be in the club with Lowry and Chris Paul.

Clearly, it’s a special thing to be able to hang out in the league for so long, but it’s strange. Nurse said he will remember Lowry as one of the most competitive players he has ever coached, able to make three or four winning plays in the span of 60 seconds. He cannot do that anymore. Inevitable, certainly, but no less frustrating, one would imagine.

It was funny to hear Lowry call this season “stress-free.” What made Lowry so great was how he worried about everything, looking for a way to exploit every moment. He is the all-time leader in trying to encourage the referee to hand him the ball as an inbounder while the other team argues a call.

Regardless, he has found a way to contribute. You get the sense it matters to him, too.

“I think the older you get, like, I get really emotional — like, I’m getting emotional,” Lowry said of the Sixers’ guards enthusiasm for his brand of teaching.

“It means a lot, because I really give to them the purity of how I feel about them — sacrifice. I don’t care about myself as a basketball player. I know at the end of my career what I’ve done. What I’ve done is I’ve given everything to the game, everything I could possibly get to this game, physically and mentally, so far.”

At halftime ended on Sunday evening, Lowry’s Eagles had just surrendered the lead back in Philadelphia, a game they would ultimately lose. There were about four minutes left in the football game. It seemed a safe bet that Lowry might hang back and watch the end of the game. Instead, he was out with his team. That is literally his job, so don’t confuse that with heroism, but it was notable.

Paying attention to his career, it seemed impossible that Kyle Lowry would not rage against the dying of the light. Instead, Lowry seems happy. He seems at peace.