Fred VanVleet has done everything that’s been asked of him.
In his rookie season, the Toronto Raptors already had an All-Star backcourt — Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan — with a championship-winning guard, Cory Joseph, and a promising sophomore, Norm Powell, on the bench. Fred had to bide his time, put in work in the G League (D League, at the time), and wait for his turn with the big boys. He answered the call by helping lead the Raptors 905 to their first championship!
In the championship season, he filled in the remaining checkboxes required to lift the Larry OB: he nailed clutch shots when his higher profile teammates drew more attention, played elite defense on the opposing team’s star, and became the proverbial X-factor (the birth of his son, and Fred’s subsequent breakout performance is the stuff of legends).