VICTORIA, B.C. — Fred VanVleet has always been more of a “prove it” kind of guy.
He sees little value in talking about what could happen or what might be in store for the Raptors, preferring to talk about what is actually happening in the present and what he knows.
So going off a few weeks of workouts in the summer in which he was joined by most of his teammates and now two full days of training camp, VanVleet has come away sufficiently satisfied with what he has seen.
“Just probably looking for attitude, demeanour, energy,” he said following a second day of workouts at the University of Victoria Centre for Athletics, Recreation and Special Abilities, “I think we’ve aced the test so far; obviously we’re not passing with flying colours in terms of attention to detail, things like that. This first couple of days of practice is going to be ugly, but guys are playing hard, flying around, good feel, hungry team, still got stuff to prove.
“A lot of guys came back better,” VanVleet noted, “got some new additions that we can see that will help us. Feeling pretty good about our team and having a good camp so far.”
As for himself, VanVleet looks noticeably leaner than he did a year ago and, while he refuses to go into detail about what it took to get his body to that point, he will admit to taking a different approach this past summer than he did in the past all with an eye towards avoiding an injury like the one that saw him watch the final two games of the 2021-22 season from the bench in street clothes.
VanVleet readily admits he stopped listening to his body late last year when it was presumably telling him to stop. Hurt, but knowing his team was in dire straits to even qualify for the post-season, VanVleet put the blinders on and pushed ahead ignoring the warning signals.
The strategy initially paid off with the Raptors winning 14 of their final 18 and earning the No. 5 seed in the East.
VanVleet eventually paid for that aggressive approach though when a hip injury sidelined him for the final two games of the Raptors first-round playoff series with Philadelphia, which ended in six games in Philly’s favour.
“You’ve got to always find ways to get better,” VanVleet said of his new approach. “It’s a 12-month season now, year-round, and after I was able to nurse the injury and get back to where I felt good and changed everything that I was doing and hopefully I can stay on this regimen the rest of my career.
“There’s always going to be new changes and things you have to adjust to and adapt to as you try to grow. I’ve had a hell of a run so far so, to continue to try to keep growing, is going to be challenging every year, but I’m up for it.”
VanVleet will go as far as saying he checked in with former teammate Kyle Lowry, who had to make a similar change to his training regimen about this same time in his career. He also reached out to others he knows have done the same and came away with a program he feels best suits him.
“I was able to go out into the field and find guys who have done it already, talked to a lot of different professionals and experts, put together what make sense for me,” VanVleet said.
A lot has already been made of the 37.9 minutes per game VanVleet played a year ago, which along with teammate Pascal Siakam who came in at the same usage rate, was No. 1 in the league.
Head coach Nick Nurse is already sick of being asked about VanVleet’s usage and he has only been made available to the media on three occasions so far this year.
But Nurse has relented that yes, the goal will be to cut down on VanVleet’s usage. How much or for how long that attitude remains though is very much in question.
Nurse knows himself too well to suggest that with the game on the line and the clock running down, he’s going to have the wherewithal to first realize how many minutes VanVleet has played that night and then the courage to take him out of the mix at a crucial time.
Not only is VanVleet the team’s best spot-up shooter, he’s also the best pick-and-roll defender on the team to say nothing of his ability to harness all the best traits of the Raptors sharing the floor with him.
VanVleet smiles when he’s asked about curtailing the number of minutes he plays in a game. While allowing that fewer minutes in theory would probably be better for him and the team in the long run, he’s not about to predict how it will all shake out when a game is up for grabs.
“We got better,” VanVleet begins speaking of the team as a whole. “In theory, a better team requires less from their top guys and that would be the hope. We’ll see, I’ll believe it when I see it but all we care about is winning, whatever that takes.”
At the very least VanVleet is better prepared for the kind of large load that could await than he’s ever been.
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