"HOUSTON — Fred VanVleet signed a three-year max contract to join the Houston Rockets in free agency Friday evening. Four days later, VanVleet wasted no time getting acquainted with his new teammate in Jalen Green." Jaygup has to be jelly.
Barring injury, I'm guessing FVV has several years left, even if it is more as a back-up PG in those later years. His BBIQ (offense and defense) and 3pt shooting (seems to be close to or above 40% from C&S 3 most years) should make him valuable on most rosters.
so in this scenario in which hes been brought in as the pg, who's going to be doing this for him consistently. that sure is a lot of money for someone you just want parked in the corner and waiting for 3s. If you're using max money for a pg, you better get more than this out of them. Otherwise, you're talking about a PJ Tucker offensive role who just signed for max. Yuck
FVV's primary job as the PG won't be shot creation, although he will certainly help a lot in that regard. It will be getting the ball to the the right players (Green/Sengun etc.) and allowing them to score or make something happen. Milwaukee, Golden St., Toronto, San Antonio, plenty of teams have won without traditional offensive facilitators. In fact LeBron and Jokic are the only recent champions who were clearly the primary ball in hands shot creator. Most teams have won using their PG as simply the starting point (or endpoint with Curry) of their offensive sets. Whether we win with this group or not will depend on how the young players develop. If they don't and FVV is orchestrating everything all the time, we're likely f**ked. It's not his best skill, and not what he's being paid for.
JG, Sengun, Amen (when he gets minutes), possibly KPJ, etc. Creator might have been the wrong word to use. Finisher is maybe more accurate in that context (i.e., the guy breaking down the defense and creating the scoring opportunity). I'm assuming FVV will initiate the offense, and he will execute whatever action we have to get one of those guys an advantageous scoring opportunity. Those guys will need to be able to score 1v1 vs their defender, and if the defense scrambles to stop them, they need to pass out to whoever is open. If it is FVV, then I'd expect him to be able to score efficiently in those situations. With the Raptors, they don't seem to have a lot guys that can beat their guy 1v1, and so they seem to just throw it back to FVV to do that work. He's not good at that, at least relative to what I'd expect from the others guys on the Rockets. So if he's doing most of that work...I don't expect good things. Of course, he'll occasionally create for himself just to keep the defenses honest, but I think the goal should be to get these other guys to carry most of the scoring load.
Well, that plus very good defense and 9 three point attempts a game at a career 37% made shot rate When it was 3 years guaranteed I thought it was a significant overpay, but now that it's 2 years + team option I'm totally okay with it. That's a team-friendly contract next offseason if he plays according to his averages the last four years. (19.3, 6.7, 4.1 and 2.2 TO on 40/37/88 shooting.)
Well if kpj could have done it consistenly the last two years, the gm wouldn't find the need to sign fvv
Oh absolutely not dude. You want to subscribe to the fringe opinion of the small but loud contingent of Raptors fans who hate FVV - be my guest. That is certainly not what happened. Fred was NOT happy with his role. He wanted to be more of a playmaker than scorer. Nurse pushed him into that role. Barnes and Siakam ran offense way more than their peers at their position, which moved FVV off ball a lot (ending plays rather than starting them). Siakam, OG and Barnes cannot create enough in iso. That team was flawed and FVV took the shots he was asked to take by the HC. Even when he took a lot of shots in the past, it was within his capabilities (catch and shoot or set play 3's). Also the young guys on the Raptors other than Barnes suck. They suck a lot. You would struggle to find an NBA team with worse young players. FVV called them out. Nurse could see it. Only Masai couldn't see it. Raptors fans are morons if they think their problem is they didn't feed guys who truly, sincerely sucked and weren't even highly rated to begin with. Masai thinks his roster was as good as Miami, that's absurd. These guys maxed out and they were all giving insane effort and fatigued by seasons end trying to make Masai and Nurse's **** show work. What happened there will not happen here. There's a new playbook and a coach who would have been the upgrade to Nurse if not for Canadian woke culture. We have better young players to pass to as well. FVV knows he's here to be the coach on the court, he knows he's not going ISO like last season because there are two better 1-on-1 options than him in the assigned hierarchy. Can't believe you're adopting the opinion that the problem in Toronto last season was that FVV was selfish and didn't pass the ball to Achiuwa? Wisekamp? Banton? Come on now. No one's buying that. We got a great deal and a great fit. The was a poorly constructed roster and Nurse left because Masai can't accept it. Those same fans you're talking about believe the team will be just as good or better with Schroeder. Let's see how that goes lol.
I think he's saying and doing all the right things so far. It's a good situation for both sides, he clearly doesn't have the physical gifts of most of our youth (if he did he wouldn't have gone undrafted, especially if you compare to the athleticism of Amen and Jalen) but he does have the work ethic, the championship pedigree and professionalism on the court to lead those guys through their breakouts to stardom. Seems like a good way to secure your legacy if the kids pull it off and you get a contender out of it.
Yeah I'll be one of those fringe Raptors fans that think that because I watched about 8 of their games last season and they were unwatchable. Same criticism KPj gets here is what FVv has been displaying in recent years. His FG% (which KPj gets hammered on) was: 41.0% (FG%).....9.4 (FGA)......28 out of 64 started 41.3% (FG%).....14.3 (FGA)....54 out of 54 games started 38.9% (FG%).....16.7 (FGA)...52 out of 52 games started 40.3% (FG%).....16.1 (FGA)...69 out of 69 games started At some point your excuses (and other grandeur seeking fans) will eventually come to the conclusion that it is not all others.... and perhaps mostly VanVleet that is the problem. Sticking your head in a hole like an ostrich doesn't make the problem go away. Inefficient chucker
