For those of you that have held on strong through the dark days of the NBA offseason, I commend you. August can be tough.
We’re about a month and change away from training camps opening around the league. In Houston, with all the new, incoming faces along with a new coaching staff, how everything comes together is unknown at this point.
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The Rockets have had a busy offseason, but there was no move greater than the three-year, $130 million contract they gave veteran point guard Fred VanVleet. He brings championship experience, knowledge and leadership to a position of great need for Houston at a time when their rebuild appears to have stalled.
But how will his time in a Rockets uniform shake out? What exactly is this organization getting in the 29-year-old? To dive deeper into the VanVleet addition, Raptors beat writer Eric Koreen joins us to discuss several topics.
Kelly Iko: Eric, thanks for hopping on with me.
When training camp opens up in Lake Charles, it’s safe to assume VanVleet will inherit the reins as the Rockets’ starting point guard. From a talent and skill level perspective, how close is this version of VanVleet to the one who won a championship with the Raptors a few years ago? Is Houston getting good bang for their buck here or has there been some regression in his game recently?
Eric Koreen: Let’s start with the money part of things, which is a red herring in all of this. In this era where we debate who is a superstar and who isn’t, who is a max player and who isn’t, VanVleet is not going to change an entire team’s life or make the Rockets a competitor on his own. He will help, but the Rockets spent what they did on VanVleet because this was their window to do so, and they had professionalism issues and wanted an example of how to do things the right way. VanVleet is a player who, unlike the core of young Rockets, has had to take every step to get to where he is: win a battle for a 15th roster spot, go from DNP-CDs and G League assignments to a rotation spot, go from a rotation spot to a high-end bench role, go from there to a starter and, finally, from there to an All-Star and one of the more respected players around the league.
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VanVleet is a fundamentally different player than he was in the 2019 NBA Finals. First, let’s remember, he was all but played off the floor by the bigger 76ers two series before the NBA Finals. However, when he became a sixth starter (starting the second half of finals games in the place of Danny Green to end the series), he was there to play off the ball, hit catch-and-shoot 3s and chase Steph Curry around.
Since then, he has become a much more varied offensive player, extending his shooting range to well beyond the arc and getting more touches as the lead initiator in an offence. He hasn’t always excelled in those ways. Since the 2021-22 All-Star break, he has shot just 33.2 percent from 3-point range. He is still one of the more disruptive guards when it comes to loose balls and knowing where to be, but his point-of-attack defence has suffered.
He is still a safe pair of hands, with 3.54 assists per turnover. Only Chris Paul and Tyrese Haliburton had a better ratio while averaging more assists per game than VanVleet last season. With Houston looking to distribute some offensive reps to younger players, he should get more catch-and-shoot opportunities, too. He is an awesome pro.
However, if Rockets fans are expecting VanVleet to carry the offense late in games, he is not and has never truly been that guy.
Iko: The last thing you mentioned is what makes the contract alone an interesting discussion. For an NBA champion making north of $40 million annually, he will undoubtedly be looked on to lead this team late in games, especially if he’s being trusted with conducting the offense for the majority of them. But even if he’s not the one taking the shots in clutch time — which I’m sure he won’t shy away from — setting the table is one of his skill sets and creating late-game looks for shooters like Jalen Green or Jabari Smith Jr. should be seen as a win-win.
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Houston was a mess in the half court last season, finishing with the fourth-worst offensive efficiency (111.0 points/possession) and was dead last in points per play (90.7) per Cleaning the Glass. For a team that made offensive rebounding such a point of emphasis and didn’t care about running in the open floor, having a putrid half-court scheme was probably their biggest undoing. You mentioned VanVleet’s safe pair of hands, to what degree do you see him raising their half-court efficiency, especially when paired with Ime Udoka? What was the VanVleet/Nick Nurse marriage like offensively?
In terms of his off-the-ball opportunities, how much did VanVleet cede to Scottie Barnes and others last season? Green is a different type of player than Barnes but he’s shown signs of growth as a ballhandler in his own right, in addition to his scoring savvy. Do you see VanVleet working well paired with Green, Smith, Alperen Şengün and your compatriot Dillon Brooks? Or does that projected starting lineup look a bit clunky?
Koreen: If you’re looking for a huge improvement in the half-court offense, looking at the post-bubble Raptors for help is ill-advised. Ultimately, this is the nut the Raptors could not crack in either of the last two seasons. I wouldn’t blame VanVleet for that, other than it would have helped if he hit more of his 3s. In fact, if you look at the Raptors’ on-off numbers, they scored 116.1 points per 100 possessions when he was on the floor last year, and 109.4 when he was sitting. (In 2021-22, those numbers were 112.2 and 109.5, respectively.) And that wasn’t because the Raptors were running in transition way more when VanVleet was on the floor. Looking at on-off numbers is dangerous because the Raptors’ hole at point guard behind VanVleet in the last two years has been massive. Still, VanVleet can obviously be part of an effective half-court offense, and he will help the Rockets get the ball to the right places more often than in the past.
VanVleet and Nurse had a great relationship, to the point (again, remember the options) that Nurse ran his point guard into the ground at times. There was an implicit trust there. And while some of the, um, louder segments of the Raptors fan base threw ball hog accusations at VanVleet, it’s hard to square that away with a player with 22.5 percent usage, along with his assist numbers. Also, he started to shine even more after the Raptors got Jakob Poeltl, the first polished pick-and-roll partner he had in two years. I’m curious to see how his chemistry with Şengün develops, but I don’t think he can hurt.
The hierarchy in Toronto was a bit messy, and it could be in Houston, too. I don’t think it was about VanVleet (or anybody else) holding Barnes back, but more about a team that didn’t quite fit. And still, as I mentioned, VanVleet was the first among equals of four guys — himself, Gary Trent Jr., Barnes and O.G. Anunoby — of play finishers behind Pascal Siakam with the Raptors. VanVleet took 94 more field goals, 37 more free throws and had 14 fewer turnovers than Barnes, a prospect who prefers to get others involved anyway. Those numbers are a bit more pronounced on a per-minute basis, but it isn’t as if there wasn’t a groundswell for Barnes to assert himself more offensively.
All of which is to say that if Green is working hard behind the scenes and developing on the court, I don’t think anybody should worry that VanVleet will stand in his way in any sense. I have defensive concerns about the lineup you pointed out, even with Brooks (who has looked sharp in pre-World Cup action for Canada, by the way) in Houston, but they are not massive.
Iko: That’s a great segue into the next phase of this VanVleet acquisition — his defensive ability.
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As you’re well aware, the Rockets have been one of the league’s worst units on that side of the floor for the past three seasons. Houston’s defensive inefficiencies stem from several factors — schemes that didn’t necessarily align with their players’ best attributes, constant mental lapses, poor body language/bad morale and perhaps most importantly, experience and exposure.
A team that adds Brooks and Udoka should shore up some defensive holes. But to what extent does VanVleet impact Houston’s versatility, ability and overall impact? Is his presence going to make players like Green and Kevin Porter Jr. better defenders?
I know last season wasn’t a great measure of VanVleet’s effectiveness and while the Raptors have typically been a better defensive team with him on the floor, the efficiency has slowed in recent years. But will he be able to function as a point-of-attack defender? Or is VanVleet better served in conjunction with the schemes Udoka runs as a collective unit? The Nurse teams of the past had length, size and versatility. There are shades of that in Houston but albeit to a different degree.
Koreen: This was a point of contention, but to my eyes, VanVleet hasn’t been the same level of on-ball defender since the knee injury that plagued him after the All-Star break in 2022. He has had a few different lower-body issues — knee and hip — as well as a back injury that has bothered him since then. Through that, he has surely come to know his body better, and will not stubbornly play through things as often as he did early in his career. He has been third, second and sixth in minutes per game in the last three years and has led the league in distance traveled per game in each of the last three years. He has been run ragged, and I’m sure that has a lingering effect on his horizontal agility. (He is sure to disagree with all of the non-factual things there and will make a point of being in excellent shape coming into camp.)
As I mentioned, though, VanVleet is extremely intelligent defensively. He is not peak Kyle Lowry, as he can’t hold up in the post as well as Lowry (which guard can?), but he’s not far off. He is one of the savviest players in the league when it comes to double-teaming in the post. He generally knows who he can help off of and who he has to stay near. A center is more important than a guard for this, but he understands where his teammates are supposed to be, too.
In short, there will be nights where jitterbug guards get the best of him, and he might be best used guarding wings who mostly stick to the corner. He can still be a very effective defender in the right situations, a player who can help the Rockets turn the ball the other way, if they are so obliged.
Iko: Before I let you go, I wanted to touch on the intangible aspect of the VanVleet puzzle. Point guards are often referred to as an extension of the head coach on the floor because of their ability to organize, instruct and lead. Since this Rockets rebuild began, they haven’t had any of that, the absence of which has been the biggest loss during this pivotal period.
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Having spent a considerable amount of time around VanVleet and those that have played alongside him, is he the right person to make this team better culturally? From the outside looking in, VanVleet appears to have the right tools necessary to lead a young group of players, if not by voice then by on-court actions and how he carries himself.
More than anything, the Rockets need an example to follow. Does he tick all the leadership boxes for you?
Koreen: VanVleet is one of the most admirable people and players I’ve covered in my 15 years on the beat, and I’d be shocked if that didn’t carry over to Houston.
However, things will be a bit different. Whatever you want to say about these last few Raptors years, they didn’t end well, with something of a fissure between the players left from the championship era and those who were brought in after. VanVleet is one of the more natural leaders in the league, but that wasn’t enough to turn the Raptors into a cohesive unit last season.
Ime Udoka is unlike Nick Nurse in one clear way: He will unabashedly play the heavy in Houston and do so with gusto. Nurse called players out in the media on occasion, but he wasn’t the most confrontational behind the scenes in Toronto. Udoka has been empowered to be that guy with the Rockets, which means VanVleet won’t have to do quite as much talking and coaxing.
Instead, he will be an example to follow, a conduit between Udoka and his players and, at times, a translator. That’s another thing VanVleet is: savvy. He knows why the Rockets were so willing to give him his maximum over two years, and he knows what is expected of him. He’s getting paid like a superstar for two years to play like an above-average starter and lead like a 15-year veteran. Health-willing, he can fill that role.
The Rockets’ young core is going to have to be open to listening.
(Top photo: Andrew Lahodynskyj/Getty Images)