You could dismiss it as a nightmarish one-off, or cast it as an ugly harbinger of potential trouble.
However you see it, Fred VanVleet’s 0-for-11 stinker of a shooting night in Friday’s 112-90 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers was about as unsightly a performance as you’ll see from an NBA all-star.
Torched on the defensive end by Philadelphia counterpart Tyrese Maxey, who reeled off a career-high 44 points, the Toronto point guard was wholly ineffective as an offensive force, too. So even with Sixers centre Joel Embiid load-managing a sore knee in street clothes, the Raptors never really found their way back into the game.