If it feels like 2022-23 has carried the burden of two seasons, maybe three, for Fred VanVleet, that’s because it has. A new role to start the year, few shots, and then a return to the old ways after a few-weeks trial run. The Toronto Raptors had player meetings before the New Year’s ball dropped, had VanVleet’s jumper crooked — missing left or right — during a losing streak, and had VanVleet’s own leadership under the microscope. The team has struggled, the point guard has been injured, and virtually everything has been going wrong.
That was before the season even hit the halfway mark.
Well, he’s been on a heater recently. It looked like he was about to turn a corner at the end of December, and then he did. And while it may not redeem VanVleet’s season as a whole, it’s certainly worth more than a footnote. Since the start of the new year, VanVleet’s jumper has returned. He’s returned to his ordinary accuracy, connecting on 37.8 percent of his triples (on a meaty 98 attempts). He’s averaged 7.4 assists per game, and the Raptors have been dramatically better with him on the court on the offensive end, with an on-court offensive rating of 117.2 and off-court offensive rating of 110.8. As very broad points of comparison, 117.2 would be the fourth-best team-wide offensive rating in the league this season, and 110.8 would be the 27th. As VanVleet has gone, so too has gone Toronto’s offense in the year 2023.
There’ve been some high highs. He recorded two 28-point games in the beginning of the month. And he just recorded four consecutive games (in which he played) of 33, 39, 25, and 28. It’s been enormous production.
VanVleet is back to being one of Toronto’s most efficient play finishers. He is drilling triples at the end of possessions as a catch-and-shoot shooter, but so too is he hitting bananas, off-the-dribble bombs. He’s shooting almost 40 percent on catch-and-shoot triples — many via his patented relocation routes to get open — and well above league average on pull-ups. 36.9! That would be a top-10 mark in the league at his frequency if it held for a full season. It’s been a whole whack of great offense. Against the Knicks, he hit three pull-up triples out of the pick and roll and one forming up around a Siakam drive. He looked like his old self.
In typical VanVleet fashion (this season), it couldn’t all be sunshine and rainbows. In fact, he almost lost the plot for a short stretch. In the third quarter, he drove, missed a eurostepping lefty layup in transition, and thought he was fouled. He drove, missed a runner, and thought he was fouled. (For my money, he was that time.) He drove after snaking a pick and roll, missed a lefty hook layup, and thought he was fouled. At this point, he was hurling his body to the floor with as much velocity as the ball at the rim.
Then he stopped along the baseline and forced up an awkward running push jumper through the defender, seeming to think he was sure to draw free throws this time. On the silence of the whistle, VanVleet didn’t bother turning around to play defense, simply turning to referee Mark Lindsay to express his frustration and earned a theatrically delivered technical foul for his troubles. Toronto’s lead dwindled from eight to negative-one during the stretch.
As a result of VanVleet’s small lost war with the referees, he shot 3-of-4 at the rim in the game but 1-of-6 from everywhere else inside the arc, including 0-of-2 within the paint but not the restricted area. He’s certainly far from a low-usage ideal, but the Raptors might not currently have the offensive firepower to survive VanVleet in a smaller role. Especially with O.G. Anunoby out at the moment and outside of Gary Trent jr. very little shooting across the remainder of the roster. Toronto depends on VanVleet to an inordinate amount, for better or for worse. Even if he could be much more efficient inside the arc, and do a better job of picking his spots, VanVleet has made sure it’s more been the former than the latter this calendar year.
That, of course, is the offensive end. VanVleet’s defense is a somewhat murkier conversation. His off-ball defense is excellent. He’s extraordinary at getting into the gaps, stunting at drives, digging in the post, doubling, tripling, tagging, and using his meathook hands to muck up opposing offenses. Then after all that he’s amazing at cracking back to bang with much bigger players and steal defensive rebounds. That hasn’t changed, and VanVleet is intentional about excelling there.
“I think just knowing team’s tendencies and also reading the game plan and knowing what they want to do,” is how he explained his off-ball defensive ability. “There are not many times when I don’t know what the other team is going to do… When I’m roaming and just being able to be there as the help guy, and attack the ball, just try to be disruptive and cause deflections and change the rhythm of the game. Tonight I was able to do that.”
I asked him if playing free safety was his favourite part of defense.
“For sure,” he said, smiling. “A little bit easier that way, getting to roam around and attack the ball, make steals and deflections and just help my teammates.”
Excelling off the ball is not the only component to good defense, of course. Too often this season, VanVleet has lacked horizontal mobility when he’s guarded the ball and give up straight-line drives to the rim. No matter how impressive you are with the nuance, mistakes that blatant will mean you’re not a defensive plus.
At least against the Knicks, VanVleet was solid on the ball.
“He was into the ball and guarding it good,” said Nick Nurse after the game. “Keeping it in front, pursuing it down the lane whenever he could. And really decent hands.”
Many of the small missteps can be smoothed over by the broad strokes on offense. He’s missing from the short midrange and spending too much time arguing with the refs? Hitting three pull-up triples makes that look like small potatoes. His creation has been exceptional this year, and he’s connecting close to his career high at the rim and drawing a career high of shooting fouls. Offensively, it’s has only been his catch-and-shoot jumper that’s been a major problem and shot selection that’s been a minor one. (Fixing the former, as he has in 2023, makes the latter entirely insignificant.) Even despite his cold 3-point shooting for most of the season, most advanced metrics like EPM or RAPTOR grade VanVleet exceptionally for his offensive performance to this point of the year. They’re mixed on his defense, with some saying he’s been a plus and others a slight negative.
VanVleet and the Raptors need more and more similar defensive performances like he had against the Knicks. Jalen Brunson may not be the speediest guard in the league, but he’s fast enough and slippery, and VanVleet did a heck of a job staying in front of him. That simply has to become the norm. Even VanVleet’s regularly incredible off-ball defense can’t make up for his poor showings on the ball in other games.
So where are we, then, on the VanVleet saga this season? Perhaps somewhere back where we began: VanVleet’s on a hot streak, playing like a legitimate All Star, which is what he was last season. At the same time, there is and rightfully should be skepticism about some components of his game and whether he’ll bring them every night. Because he’s a streaky shooter, VanVleet surely will have more stretches of cold shooting. All shooters do. And he’ll have more injuries, because he always does. He’ll even have defensive letdowns — that’s been too much the norm this season to expect it to simply vanish.
Can the Raptors survive such variability from their lead guard? That’s another conversation, and one that points criticism perhaps as squarely on the front office for its team construction choices as on VanVleet for his up-and-down play. But it would be fair to expect VanVleet to remain up and down. We’re only halfway through the year, and VanVleet has finally recovered his game from the depths of a long slump. Fittingly, he led the Raptors to a win it what could be the final-ever home game for this iteration of the roster. A whole lot for VanVleet on and off the court can happen before this season is through.
