HOUSTON — Upon being traded, Pascal Siakam recently said he never envisioned playing for another NBA franchise except for the Toronto Raptors. As a player who received a maximum-value contract extension from the team, going down as one of the most spectacular development stories in league history as he climbed up to All-NBA status, it was a reasonable thought.
When a reporter suggested to Fred VanVleet that he is perhaps less sentimental than his long-time, and now former, teammate, VanVleet conceded, “That’s fair.”
VanVleet is a point guard. When you are a point guard away from basketball, you are essentially a businessman, trying to read the marketplace and judge trends to see where the economy is going. (Although, now that VanVleet is making about $40 million per year for at least two seasons, he is closer to living out the famous Jay-Z rejoinder — “I’m a business, man!”) VanVleet broke into the league as an undrafted free agent and, in his own words, had to box out some space to gain his spot within the Raptors roster hierarchy, to the point where he was one of the leaders of the team.
Which is to say: VanVleet had plenty of time to consider NBA life as something other than a Raptor.
“I thought about it a lot last year,” VanVleet said on Wednesday night after his Houston Rockets lost to the New Orleans Pelicans.
That would be the thoroughly glum 41-41 Raptors season, punctuated with an embarrassing loss in the 9-10 Play-In Tournament game at home.
“I was focussed on how to make that situation better,” VanVleet said. “But I got to closely monitor Kyle (Lowry leaving the organization in 2021), closely monitor DeMar (DeRozan in 2018). Obviously, those are two of my closest friends. Seeing those guys kind of go through the change, you say, ‘OK, it’s possible.’ Like, if we can trade DeMar, who the hell am I? If Kyle got to the point where it was time for him to go — he’s the best Raptor of all time — who the hell am I? You have to be realistic with yourself. It always is a dream of a player to kind of stay with one team the whole career. But it’s getting less and less realistic these days.”
VanVleet is enjoying his new professional role as one of Houston’s offseason additions to help the Rockets’ young core, led by Alperen Şengün and Jalen Green, find their place within the team and league after years of disorganized losing. VanVleet and the Rockets will play the Raptors on Friday.
VanVleet knows he wasn’t paid only for his on-court contributions, which is ironically pushing him to play in a way that might have quieted his loudest detractors during last year’s wayward season: He is averaging 11 assists per 100 possessions, 1.5 more than his previous career-high of 9.5, set last year. His usage percentage — the percentage of possessions he has finished with a field-goal attempt, free throws or a turnover — is down from 23.2 in his final Raptors season to 19.3 this year. (The 23.2 figure was slightly down from the two years before it, notable given his shot selection was more of a public criticism last season than it had been before then.) The league average is 20 percent.
“He’s been (everything we expected and) more,” Houston coach Ime Udoka said. “A guy that wants to play a ton of minutes, doesn’t like to come out but also checks all the boxes as far as toughness, leadership, edge, IQ, just in general.
“Always honest,” one of Houston’s young lottery picks, Jabari Smith Jr., said in describing VanVleet. “(He) don’t let anything pass.”
Fred VanVleet has found a new home and role as a trusted veteran voice in Houston. (Carmen Mandato / Getty Images)
The question, then, as the Raptors no longer resemble even the team VanVleet left just seven months ago, is why wasn’t that leadership enough to keep a talented Raptors core together. Or: Why couldn’t his leadership have been one of the reasons to help the Raptors continue to thrive as previously constructed?
As team president Masai Ujiri outlined after trading Siakam, the Raptors had a former All-Star in VanVleet, an All-NBA talent in Siakam, an All-Defense candidate in OG Anunoby and a recent Rookie of the Year in Scottie Barnes. That was not the most cohesive or complementary group in the league, but it was a formidable one.
For his part, VanVleet said in Houston he is now trying to learn from his mistakes made “over the last two years.”
“I don’t think I bonded as well as I would have liked to with just the group in general,” VanVleet said. “On the court chemistry was fine, there was no beef or disconnect there.
“I’m now coming in (Houston) as a new guy: How do I create those relationships with these guys? Because it was kind of like everybody was on the same playing field (in Toronto) and we all were striving for our own different things. Sometimes the timelines don’t match and sometimes interests don’t match.”
That has been a common refrain from those trying to figure out how things fell apart so quickly for the Raptors, as they went from 48 wins in 2021-22 to four of the six men most prominently involved — VanVleet, Siakam, Anunoby and coach Nick Nurse — leaving the organization within 21 months of losing to Philadelphia that season. (For those counting, Barnes and Ujiri are the other two.)
There was too wide a gap between where VanVleet and Siakam were in their careers and where Barnes was. The pending free agency throughout two summers for the veterans and the emerging stardom of Barnes conflicted with one another. Barnes’ place in the organization was being elevated quicker than it was with any of the then-current Raptors. Neither the coaching staff nor the front office could figure out how to bridge the gulf between the contrasting forces, redirecting them toward a common goal.
That is where being part of a championship organization perhaps hurt instead of helped. Maybe VanVleet assumed he would become the new Lowry, Siakam assumed he would become the new DeRozan and Barnes could become a super-charged version of Siakam, nudging his way into a bigger role when the situation demanded it. Maybe Ujiri assumed Nurse would be able to juggle the organizational priorities, and his scouting and coaching staff would be able to produce the supporting pieces despite a lack of lottery picks — as had been done before. They had seen a version of this work prior, so why wouldn’t it work again?
The Raptors are just one of 30 teams, though, no more or less special than the rest. That thing the Raptors pulled off to set the stage for the Kawhi Leonard and Marc Gasol trades, remaining competitive while organically restocking organizational depth? It’s really hard.
“You can feel the change. You could feel the shift,” VanVleet said, thinking back. “There’s a lot of teams. It’s not just specific. I know the Raptors, we feel like we’re the only team in the NBA, but it’s not specific to that team. There’s a lot of teams going through it where you’re trying to win, you’re trying to build, you’ve got young guys, you’ve got a couple of vets and you’re just trying to figure it out. I think you could just kind of feel the dynamic shifting a little bit. When things kind of went a little different than what we’re used to in terms of our culture and just the day-to-day, that’s when I was like, ‘OK, I know Masai is not going to deal with this forever.’ That’s when you knew things were going to change eventually.
“You’ve got to have some type of foresight and vision (to see where the situation is headed). … You’ve got to be able to look ahead and think ahead. It’s not like I absolutely knew (it was ending last year), but you could sense it — up to the point where it was like, ‘OK, do I just sign the deal (with the Raptors) knowing that I’m not going to make it through this deal (as a Raptor before being traded away) to come back, or do I have another situation?’ And luckily I had this situation. I think everybody would agree that it was a good deal for me at the time.”
No kidding. VanVleet had a soft landing waiting for him thanks to the situation in Houston, while Anunoby and Siakam are poised to get paid this offseason in New York and Indiana, respectively. Nurse found his way to a championship contender in Philadelphia. Barnes will surely cash in on a maximum-value rookie extension in Toronto this offseason, with the burden and privilege of being the face of the franchise in front of him. Ujiri has a few intriguing young players plus additional draft picks to try to build the next winning Raptors team around Barnes.
That is why VanVleet’s repeated line about the breakup has been and continues to be that it was just the right time for it to happen. Still, there is a sadness about VanVleet and company leaving, the bond between the past and the future is broken. VanVleet compared living in Toronto to living “in the future, such a utopian place where it’s just focus on the greater good of everything.” (Has he seen our municipal politics?) The sadness lies in all the parties not being able to figure out the greater good bit while they were Raptors. Maybe it just wasn’t possible.
On Friday in Houston, VanVleet will play his first game against his old team; a week later, he returns as a visitor to Toronto for the first time.
“I was just talking to Kyle about it: He told me I was gonna (cry),” VanVleet said of returning to Scotiabank Arena. “I’m not a big crier. It’s kind of anti-climatic. I’m gonna see the team (in Houston), what’s left of the people I know. And it’s not just the team (that has changed), it’s staff, a huge overhaul. There’s a couple of people that I’ve been dying to see, but whatever the fans do will dictate it.
“The (tribute) video, how good of a job they’ll do, we’ll see if they get some tears out of me.”
In the end, the Raptors got plenty out of VanVleet. The reverse is true too.
(Top photo: Carmen Mandato / Getty Images)