For one of their tasks as a rookie, Kyle Lowry had forced Toronto Raptors rookies Malachi Flynn and Freddie Gillespie to sing Miley Cyrus’ “Party In The USA” in front of the entire squad.
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Being an NBA player is an honour and privilege for many. However, being a rookie in one of the world’s biggest sporting leagues is a tough task. Of Course, rookies have to earn their respect and their place in the league. The league has a long history of peculiar traditions and several funny anecdotes of various rookie duties and rituals. Even prodigies like LeBron James and Magic Johnson weren’t excused from these infamous tasks.
One of the rookie duties, which the vets really seem to enjoy, is making the youngsters sing and dance in front of packed arenas, trying to embarrass them. However, during the 2020-2021 season, due to the deadly coronavirus, fans weren’t allowed to enter stadiums. A rookie would naturally assume that they would have to do one less embarrass duty, right?
Wrong. During the start of the season, Kyle Lowry didn’t excuse the Toronto Raptors rookies from their task. The then-9-year Toronto vet decided to embarrass Malachi Flynn and Freddie Gillespie in front of their entire squad.
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Kyle Lowry forces Malachi Flynn and Freddie Gillespie to sing “Party In The USA” as one of their rookie duties
At the end of one of the Raptors’ practices, Lowry decided to haze his rookies by making Flynn and Gillespie sing the “greatest song in the history of songs”- Party In The USA by American singer Miley Cyrus. Well, pop isn’t exactly any NBA player’s favourite, and as you could rightly guess, both Malachi and Freddie struggled with the lyrics in the beginning.
While the two rookies were awkwardly performing for the team, players like Pascal Siakam Fred VanVleet, Gary Trent Jr, Chris Boucher amongst others were all actually enjoying their time.
This isn’t the first time Lowry ordered a few rookies to perform an embarrassing task. Back in 2016, Kyle instructed then-rookies, Siakam, VanVleet, Norman Powell and others, to dance at the centre court of the Air Canada Centre, to dance in front of a packed crowd.
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Whether you are a great player or not, no NBA player is excused from their rookie duties. This is one of the many unique traditions of the league which has been going on for ages and will surely continue to go on.
