On Monday’s edition of Hello and Welcome, hosts Will Lou and Alex Wong had the opportunity to interview former Raptor All-Star, NBA Champion, and NBA Finals MVP vote recipient Fred VanVleet. I highly recommend anyone who hasn’t yet watched or listened to do so. VanVleet provides an incredibly candid interview on his departure from Toronto as well as the championship season.
When asked about his decision to leave the Toronto Raptors for the Houston Rockets, VanVleet had this to say:
“Yeah, I think that looking back, I had a great conversation with Bobby when I was there this season. So, looking back, I think I have a better perspective on it than I did when I was there, naturally. But what I will say is I just felt like I saw the writing on the wall before everybody else. And that’s not always a good thing. To be like the most perceptive person in the room is not always a good thing because it takes people time to catch up.
So there was a lot of shit that was going on leading up to all of this stuff and like you could see where the team was and the contracts and the timelines. I just felt that the roster was a little unbalanced and then we fucked around and went out there. We finished fifth and you know I got hurt in the playoffs and we lost to to the Philly and that was like a great year, right?
… So that was viewed as like a success and so naturally everybody’s still high off a championship. you want the natural progression to be like, okay, well, you were fifth now you got to go up, which is not always the case, especially in this business.
So, coming back that summer, working hard, obviously, I hired a strength and conditioning guy cause I was hurt and and trying to get my body together coming up into a contract year or an extension year, whatever the case may be, and pretty quickly could see that it was not going to go the way that I thought it was going to go.“
What exactly went on behind the scenes that VanVleet is alluding to? Well, one thing was the ongoing negotiations for Rogers to become the majority owner of the Toronto Raptors:
“And I will say one thing that nobody ever talks about, the team was being sold during this whole process. You know what? No one talks about that.
The checkbook isn’t open. There’s not a bunch of blank checks being written while you’re in the process of selling a team, right? So if I’m looking at my roster and my best asset is the youngest guy on the team who is, you know, projected to take off and to be a guy that I know I have to pay 270 to. Do I want to extend Pascal at the max? Do I want to give Freddy 130 or whatever the fuck he wants? Do I want to give OG 200? I don’t know. I I would imagine that at some point when you’re having budget meetings, these discussions are being had and that’s something that fans and even players are not really privy to.“
According to VanVleet, everything worked itself out in one way or another:
“So maybe I was too early. I probably I could have waited and like waited it out and signed an extension that I didn’t want to sign and get traded halfway through the year and maybe would have took a little less flak than I did, but at the same time, I end up leaving. Nick obviously was gone. Pascal gets traded. OG, like everybody kind of it flowed in order, in sequence, and things start over and you start fresh, you start new again and and the team is back being really good. So, the business works in mysterious ways sometimes…
… And ultimately OG got 200 million. I got paid, Pascal got paid, Nick went on and found a happy home … the shit worked out how it was supposed to work out and it sucked in the moment, but you know, long story short, everything worked out the way it’s supposed to.“
