Fred is Flying Under the Radar
NBA headlines this season have featured great stories about guards all over the league: Steph Curry and Klay Thompson splashing together again, Chris Paul and Devin Booker holding down the 1 seed in the West, the breakout of Ja Morant, James Harden and Trae Young dealing with the new NBA officiating, and the resurgence of Chicago Bulls basketball with Zach Lavine and DeMar Derozan. There is one NBA guard who is completely flying under the radar, however, and is quietly having an All-NBA caliber season. That would be Toronto PG, Fred VanVleet.
In the latest NBA All-Star voting update, Fred VanVleet has received just the 8th most votes for guards in the Eastern Conference. The Raptors are hovering right around .500% and fans rarely see highlights of VanVleet if you are not from the North, causing his remarkable performance this season to go mostly unnoticed.
The Standard Stats
Steady Freddy has never been known much for his efficiency, but with Kyle Lowry leaving for Miami this offseason, VanVleet has picked up the slack in a big way. He is shooting a career high 43.5% from the field and is also shooting 40.9% from beyond the arc and 87.1% from the free throw line. His shooting percentages have risen 4.6% higher from the field and 3.3% higher from deep this season and he is actually doing this while playing more minutes per game and shooting more attempts per game.
FVV is averaging 22.1 points per game, 6.7 assists per game, and 4.1 rebounds per game in 2021-2022, all of which are career highs. On top of this, he is averaging 3.9 deflections per game. This puts him at 2nd best in the entire NBA, behind only Dejounte Murray who averages 4.1 deflections per game.
Advanced Stats Show Why he Needs to be an All-Star
The standard stats show that VanVleet is great, however the advanced stats go a step further and show that Fred is having an elite season, up there with the best players in the NBA. He is currently 4th in the NBA in total RAPTOR. This is just ahead of Steph Curry and behind only Nikola Jokic, Rudy Gobert, and Giannis Antetokounmpo. All of these four other players are locks to make All-NBA this season.
The stat that showcases his value to the Toronto Raptors even more is his WAR (Wins Above Replacement), where he is at a 7.0 currently. There are only six players in the entire league who have above a 5.0 WAR and VanVleet’s 7.0 WAR is actually good for 2nd in the NBA. He is behind just the reigning MVP, Nikola Jokic.
Get This Man in the All-Star Game
Fred VanVleet is not game-breaking like Steph Curry, as crafty as Chris Paul, or uber-explosive like Ja Morant, but Steady Freddy is a definite All-Star. He has been one of the best guards in the league so far this season and dare I say, one of the best 15 players in the entire NBA. Whether he keeps this up through the 2nd half of the season remains to be seen, but the fact that he is currently 17th in voting for NBA guards is a disservice to him as well as the league as a whole. Please get this man into the All-Star game.