BORN TO LEAD
H e didn’t want to go see him. He wasn’t even convinced he’d done anything worth apologizing for. Those closest to Fred VanVleet felt otherwise, and their evidence was overwhelming. There was no ignoring that the point guard’s teammate at Auburn High School, Jaylin Marshall, was lying in a hospital bed with rib injuries and a collapsed lung. It was also clear who had put him there, and if the outcome wasn’t intentional, the event wasn’t an accident either.
Things had gotten heated at one of head coach Bryan Ott’s varsity practices, which was not unusual. Ott built teams that punched above their weight because they played with a trademark intensity and toughness, and he had the banners hanging on the walls to prove the benefit of his approach. For example, one of the ways Ott determined who was willing to buy in was the ‘take-the-charge drill’, no fancy nickname required. “The nature of that drill is that you’re on the baseline and I’m standing at the elbow,” says Ott, who is now in his 23rd year at Auburn, one of four public high schools in Rockford, Illinois, a hard-edged city of roughly 150,000 about 90 minutes west of Chicago. “You got the ball in your hand, I got to stand there and your job is to run me over. … It’s not to graze me, it’s not to go half speed. It’s to go full speed. Dribble the ball in your outside hand and hit me as hard as you can.”
It follows that Ott wasn’t a big believer in a tight whistle during practices or scrimmages. The logic: If you can play through contact in rehearsal, you have a better chance of doing it when the curtain goes up. On this occasion, Ott had loaded up one team against VanVleet, a rising local star as a sophomore. The press was on, big swipes at the ball were encouraged, and 15-year-old VanVleet was getting the worst of it. “Fred was getting frustrated. We’re locking him up, fouling – Coach Ott let us get away with some hacking,” says JD Danforth, VanVleet’s stepbrother and a senior and the leading scorer that year. “We’re sending Fred down the sideline to trap him, and I think we made him turn it over maybe like two or three times in a row, so he was just pissed off.”
That much VanVleet will cop to 12 year later. “It was getting bad one day,” he says. “We had to run for every drill we lost, and we were running and losing, running and losing.”
What happened next is a bit blurry, but everyone can agree the trap came, the ball got jarred loose and Jaylin Marshall happened to be in the way, so VanVleet lowered his shoulder and went right through him. It was the charge drill, but the only one participating was VanVleet, and he wasn’t the one standing at the elbow, waiting to take the hit. Marshall went flying and landed in obvious pain. Even by the standards of Auburn basketball, this was a little extra. Ott says it was so flagrant that he immediately grabbed VanVleet by the jersey to forcefully make his point. VanVleet’s stepfather, Joe Danforth, a Rockford police officer and an assistant coach to Ott, laid into him too.
But VanVleet wasn’t immediately moved. The Raptors point guard didn’t think he’d done anything wrong. Even after Marshall’s injuries were deemed serious enough that he needed to go to the hospital, VanVleet was slow to take responsibility. “I didn’t want to apologize,” he says. “I didn’t feel bad.” Those who only know VanVleet as a professional may have a hard time imagining him losing control and subsequently being so cold about it. But just as he needed to improve his finishing at the rim and his ability to shoot from well beyond the three-point line, it took time and work for him to grow as a leader and teammate. “The same emotions are still there,” VanVleet says of his youthful hotheadedness. “I just channel it and take a deep breath and let things play out. [Calmer] heads prevail sometimes. I learned that as time went on. I’m still the same kid from back then, believe it or not, just some of those things aren’t acceptable anymore.”
V anVleet’s passion comes across more calculated and driven than on-the-boil these days, but his stubborn self-belief remains his trademark. It has never let him down and is as much a reason for his evolution from undrafted college senior to one of the best point guards in basketball as his skill or hoops IQ. It’s why at some point soon, VanVleet will become an NBA All-Star. That’s something that could and certainly should happen on Feb. 3, when the Eastern Conference reserves are announced. The Raptors guard has been on the cusp for a couple of years now and could have gotten the nod last season, but given Toronto was lottery bound he was easier for coaches to pass over in the tight contest for the maximum of six backcourt spots available in each conference. The other challenge was that as long as Kyle Lowry was a Raptor, it was going to be hard for VanVleet to get his full shine. But when Lowry left for Miami last summer, centre stage opened, and VanVleet stepped into the light, on and off the court, leaving the doubts to everyone else.
“I think going into [the season] it was just big shoes to fill,” VanVleet says. “And there’s two things you can do with that pressure and that weight: shy away from it or lean into it. And that was something that we definitely talked about is the added expectations and extra weight that will be on me as the point guard — and not only the point guard but replacing the Greatest Raptor of All Time…. I try to get better every year, but this year was a little extra motivation, given the fact that Kyle was leaving for sure.”
Through the first half of the Raptors’ first post-Lowry season, things couldn’t have gone better for his protégé. After 41 games, VanVleet averaged 21.9 points and 6.7 assists a game while making 3.9 threes per — a line that puts him in the company of only the Golden State Warriors’ Steph Curry. If he keeps it rolling, VanVleet could join Curry and Brooklyn Nets guard James Harden as the only players in league history to make at least 300 triples in a season, and could surpass Lowry’s signature 2015–16 when No. 7 earned All-NBA honours for averaging 21.1 points, 6.7 assists and 4.5 rebounds. Add in VanVleet’s deserved reputation as one of the league’s best defenders, his status as the NBA leader in minutes per game and the way he has helped keep the Raptors firmly in the playoff hunt despite an endless procession of injuries to an already paper-thin rotation and the point guard’s leap from undrafted to the league’s elite is complete.
“Fred is a dog, man,” says Chris Paul, the Hall of Fame-bound Phoenix Suns point guard who VanVleet has modelled parts of game after. “What I like about Fred is he doesn’t back down. I play with a chip on my shoulder, he plays with a chip on his shoulder. I’ve always respected that about Fred. Not only is he nice [offensively], but he plays both ways. I’m one of the biggest Fred VanVleet fans there is.”
Or as New Orleans Pelicans centre and former Raptor Jonas Valanciunas puts it, “He took Kyle Lowry’s spot now.”
Of course — like Lowry — statistics only begin to capture VanVleet’s overall value to a team.
His leadership is a key part of what he brings to the table, and filled a void following Lowry’s departure. VanVleet had long ago auditioned for the role — he was discussing game plans with the Raptors coaching staff when he was a rookie playing most of his minutes in the G-League, and emerged as the face of what was then the Raptors’ young core soon after. Even with Lowry around, VanVleet carved out space for himself. The final word rested with the sometimes prickly vet, but a lot of the space in between was occupied by VanVleet, his thoughtful understudy. “Kyle would pick-and-choose his spots and he’d get upset about certain things,” says VanVleet. “I probably talked a little bit more than Kyle; he was more lead by example and speak when he had to.”
The added responsibilities came easily for VanVleet. His best sport growing up was football, though he hung up his pads after eighth grade. He played all over the field, fulfilling whatever role was required, showing all the attributes back then that Raptors fans would recognize now. “You never had to coach courage into Fred VanVleet and you never had to coach smarts into him either — or toughness,” says Bill Flodin, who ran the Nelson Storm football program in Rockford for 20 years. “He wasn’t the most talented kid we had, but he always made plays, just like he is now. He’s been that way his whole damn life.”
There was never ever any question who the point guard was when he started taking basketball more seriously. And there was never any doubt who the team captain would be either. “Early as I can remember, I was always next to the coaches trying to pick their brains and just learn how to be the best at the craft,” VanVleet says. One sport he never played seriously a kid was baseball, in part, he says, because he was never the best player and so the leadership opportunities weren’t there. Without that, he wasn’t interested.
“I think the first thing that you have to say about Fred — even though he’s a smaller guy or whatever — is his presence when he walks in a room is very noticeable,” says Landry Shamet, who was a freshman at Wichita State when VanVleet was a senior and finishing up the best four-year run any player had ever had at the school. “He’s not arrogant, but from the get-go, you paid attention and he was the person you looked to ‘Where is our group going? What are we doing?’ Without him even having to say anything, that was the most noticeable thing, just his presence, even before he said a word.”
It’s always been thus. “He could get any group of guys to follow his lead, that’s his best quality,” says Danforth, his stepbrother.
It’s not a quality that VanVleet can put a finger on. It’s like someone trying to explain why they’re left-handed or have green eyes. “I’ve been one my whole life,” he says. “With my family I’m a leader; in sports. I’m not perfect but it’s just something that’s been natural to me since I was a little boy.”
But that doesn’t mean he hasn’t evolved or grown, that his leadership style didn’t needed to keep up with the needs of the moment, the same way his basketball skills have. VanVleet may have been a born leader, but it doesn’t mean he was born a fully formed one. The real problem with him putting his teammate in the hospital? It wasn’t an isolated storm rising up from a typically placid sea. By his own admission, a youthful VanVleet was a bit of jerk, and sometimes more than that. Why did VanVleet give up football, his first love? “Our high school team sucked at the time,” his mother, Susan, says. “So he was like, ‘I was such an ass to people that I’m not giving them the opportunity to crack me on the football field. I’m going to stick with basketball.’”
V anVleet’s story as an emerging NBA All-Star is all about overcoming the odds as an undrafted, undersized point guard. His is the underdog who made good, and it’s inspirational and heartwarming and true. It’s given him credibility around the Raptors and around the NBA. A lot of teams try to preach to incoming players the importance of accepting a role and how the magic dust of player development can pay dividends over the long haul. The Raptors can simply point to Pascal Siakam, OG Anunoby and VanVleet — a pair of late first-round picks and stocky point guard who wasn’t drafted — all under contract for a combined $300 million and say, “See?”
But that wasn’t VanVleet’s story in Rockford. He was the best player his age for miles around. He played significant minutes as a freshman on a varsity team positioned to make a run at a state championship. He was installed as the starting point guard in Grade 10 and was widely held to be the next big thing in local basketball. His cup was filled to the brim with swagger, and then some. “I remember Fred was in middle school,” recalls JD Danforth, “and one of our friends was just asking who [Fred] thought he was better than, just around Rockford. And every time he brought up someone Fred would say: ‘I’m better than him. I’m easily better than him. I could beat him.’ So, then my friend started bringing up NBA players. He was like, ‘Now, are you better than such-and-such?’ And Fred was like, ‘Yeah. I’m better than him right now.’ ‘How about Iverson? Can you beat Allen Iverson?’ And he was like, ‘Yeah, I could beat Allen Iverson. … I guarantee you I could beat Allen Iverson.’
“[Fred] was just a kid, but the way he was saying it — if you looked at his body language and you heard it, he really believed it. Like he for real believed it, and he was only 12, 13. But that’s just how Fred’s mind works though,” says Danforth. “There ain’t no doubt with him. If he says ‘I could do that,’ that’s just what it is. That’s how he’s always been.”
The challenge was integrating that confidence and that ability and the head space that came from tagging along with his older brothers and then relating to peers that weren’t as good or mature or — in his mind — as committed to the cause. “My emotions weren’t always directed in the best way,” VanVleet says. “I was a young teenager that was working out multiple hours a day, which was unheard of back then. … It’s hard to find young kids at that age who were taking it as serious as I was.”
Translation: “He had to learn how to just not bully his teammates, basically,” says Danforth, who went on to play Division I basketball and is VanVleet’s partner in a skills training business today. “He was really hard on guys who weren’t on his level. So if, you know, guys are missing shots or layups, he would really get on them to the point where they might not play their best basketball.”
Injuring his teammate was the most extreme example, but it wasn’t the only time VanVleet crossed lines. For Susan, her youngest was a source of joy as she worked to keep things on track as a single mother of two boys after their father, Fred Manning, was killed in a shooting when VanVleet was five. He was a good student and an excellent athlete and rarely got in trouble. Parent-teacher interviews were good days.
But when it came to sports — and basketball especially — once in a while the temperature would get turned up and VanVleet’s passion would boil over and his mom would start looking for a place to hide. “I think of some those ‘proud parent’ moments in the bleachers. When your kid is out there yelling [expletives], and you’re like, ‘Oh God,’” she says. “There were a lot of ‘How could you have done that differently?’ conversations.”
It was a process.
“He was a real serious child, an observer, and very thoughtful,” she says. “And so he flourished in that leadership role really early, but he didn’t always do it well. We had to sit and really talk. There’s such a fine line between being a leader and being assertive, and being a jerk. And so just manoeuvring him in his life through those moments could be challenging.”
It took a village. His stepfather, Joe, was a taskmaster, the driving force behind early morning workouts at the YMCA, summer AAU basketball and a long list of household chores. Those that know VanVleet say that sophomore year of high school was transitional. “Fred did a great job of running the offence and distributing the basketball,” says Ott. “I think the leadership struggles came where we were maybe not playing very well, and the manner in which he would get in guys’ faces or get on them wasn’t very healthy most of the time.”
Marshall was a target at times, even beyond when VanVleet injured him, but so was a good friend, LaMark Foote. Foote played AAU with VanVleet, came off the bench as a sophomore for Auburn, started as a junior and co-starred on a senior team that was one of the most accomplished in Rockford history, finishing third in Illinois in 2012. In the seasons before that strong result, though, VanVleet’s criticism was harsh enough and constant enough that Ott wondered if it would cause things to unravel. “LaMark would come back to the bench and say to me, ‘Coach, he’s not going to talk to me like that, man.’ I mean, really, really frustrated with Fred, and they were buddies and played AAU together, but Fred would be on him in a way that LaMark couldn’t tolerate.”
It took some patience from all involved, and long talks with his stepfather and Susan. The message was simple: You can’t lead anyone if they don’t want to play with you. “After that sophomore season — and he played great that year; he killed it — but his junior and senior years, you started to see that change, he started interacting more,” says JD Danforth. “You started to see him smile more. He started showing more emotion, interacting with his teammates, lifting them up a little bit more.”
That senior team provided a glimpse into what has become familiar to Raptors fans. “Having Fred be the voice of the team brought everyone together. He stands behind everything he talks about [and] that brings loyalty,” says Elijah Smith, one of VanVleet’s high school teammates. “He took the pressure off everybody and made it easy for all of us to play. Dude is a raw leader. He gave you all the confidence in the world, for real. Playing with Fred was the best experience ever. It was so fun.”
T here was nothing casual about the pickup games at Charles Koch Arena. The entire Wichita State Shockers lineup was there, as was Malcolm Armstead, a red-shirted senior transfer from the University of Oregon. Stepping on the floor for the first time was the school’s prized recruit, a point guard from Rockford who was on his official visit and already making his presence felt. Fred VanVleet was more than holding his own; he was kicking ass. Armstead had spent a year in junior college, another two at Oregon and a sit-out year at Wichita before he teamed up with VanVleet. Armstead was five years older but was quickly impressed. “A regular freshmen is just more excited to be there; they’re trying to see where they fit in,” says Armstead, who is playing professionally in Greece this season. “But Fred, [even in that first pick-up game] was like ‘I’m gonna be the man. Even if we lose, we’re not gonna lose because of me.’
“I was like, ‘You got to come here.’” continues Armstead, one of VanVleet’s hosts on the visit. “Even the juniors and seniors there, I was coming from a high major so they wouldn’t challenge me — they would just try to guard me, if that makes sense. But Fred felt like he was my equal and I respected him and I connected with him more than almost anyone else on that team.”
The next season — VanVleet’s freshman year in 2012–13 — ended up being the most successful ever for the Shockers, finishing up with a run to the Final Four for the first time in school history. Just as VanVleet would with Lowry and other more senior players early in his Raptors career, the freshman guard quickly gained the respect of veterans and coaches alike at Wichita State. “He was a freshman on paper, but on the court, I would literally trust him [with the ball] like I had the ball,” says Armstead.
And VanVleet, the former the Auburn High School star once prone to wearing his teammates out, became a calming presence who could keep even a fifth-year senior like Armstead on task. “I’d do something crazy, and he’d be like, ‘Come on, wait, slow down.’ He would come talk to me during the game … so for me to even have that was special,” says Armstead. “I’d be talking trash and trying get myself going and [Fred] would be like, ‘Nah, man, just hoop, leave it alone.’ He would keep me engaged with what we were doing. … It was just a different level.”
In 2013–14, VanVleet’s first season as a starter, the Shockers had what was then the longest undefeated streak to start to a season in Division I history, before losing in the second round of the NCAA tournament to finish 35–1. VanVleet was establishing himself as a star, even earning an invite to Chris Paul’s Nike camp. But he had a new leadership challenge.
Playing for then-Shockers head coach Gregg Marshall was a tumultuous experience, and not for everyone. The most successful coach in school history resigned prior to the 2020–21 season after an internal investigation into multiple allegations of physical and verbal abuse. Holding his teammates accountable was always something VanVleet was going to do, but in a circumstance where the head coach was credibly accused of punching a player during practice, among other allegations, his role became to support teammates who felt Marshall’s wrath. “I had to be the calming voice,” he says. “Coach Marshall, he set the tone. He was the bad guy and he let the team bond over that, so we were all kind of close because Coach was such a hard-ass on all of us.”
VanVleet was well-equipped to handle Marshall’s approach in part because it wasn’t entirely new to him. “It’s how we grew up,” says JD. “My dad was very strict and very tough on us. He yelled and cussed us out a lot. Even Coach Ott was similar to my dad. So, Fred was used to hard-nosed coaches jumping your ass all the time about playing hard and calling you out and maybe even calling out your name and all of that stuff. Fred experience that all through his childhood all the way up through high school.
“Fred, was that blanket to keep guys level-headed and to let guys know like, ‘No matter what the coach said, we still need you to help us win games. So you can’t be mentally distraught and feeling sorry for yourself because we need you,’” says JD.
Adds Shamet: “He knew how to handle that dynamic, not only with coach but with teammates, and handling coach and teammates together. Like, as a third party, someone in the middle. He was always really good at that.”
VanVleet also began to realize that a kind word could go a long way, that he didn’t have to jump on his teammates to get his desired result. Not that he had entirely abandoned his previous self — “He could be direct and blunt; passionate,” says Shamet, who’s in his fourth NBA season, now with the Phoenix Suns. VanVleet was finding another gear too. “He was always making sure to go out of his way to have the team functions over at his spot, making sure everyone was hanging out, having a good time,” says Shamet. “And I remember — it’s burned into my brain — one time when I was leaving, he walked out with me and said, ‘You’re going to help us win a lot of games this year.’ As a freshman and you’re hearing that from the guy, that does a lot for your confidence, your comfort level. Knowing he believes in you, that goes a long way. … So I think as a leader he’s always been very gifted in that sense, you know. It’s always been known that he has been on his way and destined for greater things.”
I n his sixth professional season, VanVleet’s transition from fiery teenager to sage NBA vet is complete. The finishing touches have been forced upon him. Almost overnight he went from being the eager apprentice earning his way into the inner sanctum to the guy making the rules and calling the shots. He looked around the Raptors locker room and rather than a collection of pros with a decade or more in the league trying to win titles, he saw kids barely out of college, trying to figure things out.
“Yeah, it’s tough man. You gotta try to learn these guys, you know, and in a short amount of time,” VanVleet tells me one wintery morning. He’s come into the Raptors’ OVO Centre practice facility early to get an optional workout in not even 12 hours after playing 44 minutes in a loss to Phoenix where he more than held his own against Paul. “And sometimes you got to try to decide what comes first: Is it the corrections or the relationship? And, you know, I think I’m good for people who want to be great and who can be held accountable and who see the bigger picture. Guys that just care about winning, like, we’re gonna never have an issue. The guys who have to learn how to do that, that’s when it can be a little bumpy. [But] for all of these new guys, I just tell them the truth. First of all, ‘This is what it takes. You might not like it right now, but you’ll see it eventually. This is how you’re going to get better. This is how you’re going to get paid. This is how we’re going to win. And I’m not lying to you.’ I’m going to share what I’ve seen in my experience and what my vets taught me and hope that they can grasp it.”
It’s a message that resonates, both in its content and delivery. “As a young guy who’s undrafted and trying to make a way for himself in this league, and trying to provide for his family, those guys are the stepping stones,” says Raptors rookie Justin Champagnie, who has pushed his way into head coach Nick Nurse’s rotation of late. “Especially Fred being undrafted like myself. Just trying to follow behind the footsteps, just consistently work and wait your turn and, when it comes, be ready to shine.”
VanVleet has spread his wings and influence beyond basketball as well, both in Toronto and Rockford. He was also willing and prepared to speak out on social justice issues in the summer of 2020. When the NBA briefly came to a halt in the wake of the shooting of Jacob Blake by police in Kenosha, Wisc., VanVleet was one of the first to suggest that a work stoppage might be coming, and that the moment needed to be a catalyst of sorts. “It’s not the most logical thing in the world, you know, for people to get killed because of their skin color. It just doesn’t make sense,” he told reporters through a Black Lives Matter mask. “So the situation itself … it’s tough a little bit you know? You get a little survivor’s remorse. You feel guilty. That’s just natural, as somebody who lives a very privileged and blessed life … you just feel guilty sometimes and that’s normal. And you try to use your platform or your resources to contribute to other people’s lives and making their lives better.”
In Rockford, VanVleet has invested in the community, including opening a brick-and-mortar retail outlet for his FVV brand apparel and merchandise, which also served as the location for the annual Thanksgiving turkey giveaway he sponsors. He’s made financial donations to his old high school and makes sure that the basketball program is properly kitted out by his shoe sponsor, Li-Ning.
He’s maintained his personal connections too. When VanVleet was trying to decide which anti-racist slogan he wanted to wear on his jersey in the NBA’s 2020 bubble, it was Ott — who also taught VanVleet a course in Black history — that he turned to for advice, an experience the basketball coach describes as one of the most gratifying of his career. “The fact that he chooses to do those things for us is very touching,” says Ott. “It just keeps that relationship going, and so people here are going to continue to know who he is and where he comes from. I mean, people can then see that here’s a guy who is from here, who achieved these kind of dreams; who had these aspirations and made them happen for himself. That whole ‘Bet On Yourself’ slogan really resonates around here, as you can imagine.”
The pledge VanVleet made in the bubble has continued to ring true, with thoughts translating to action. In November, he helped launched Bet On Yourself, a 12-episode podcast series highlighting the successes and challenges of BIPOC entrepreneurs in Canada, and in December, he helped establish the Fred VanVleet Scholarship, a need-based award at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Business aimed at Black and Indigenous students and valued at $60,000 annually, not counting VanVleet’s availability as a mentor for the successful applicants. “It’s something I am very passionate about, which is education and a four-year degree and just that experience of going to school and learning about yourself and learning about the world. I know how much I learned when I was in college and I’m not even the biggest school guy,” he says. “But I think it’s just important and it’s even more important to shine a light on people that may not get the [opportunity]. … I think the inspiration was borne around the bubble time when we were thinking of ways we could set the tone and lead the way in making change and impact.”
For his mother, those are the kinds of actions that more than make up for some of the tougher times when her then-teenage son’s edge would occasionally make her cringe. The man he is today makes all the long conversations about doing what’s right, even when it’s not convenient, worthwhile.
“Do you have kids? Don’t sometimes they just totally shock you?” she asks. “Like, who’s the person that I gave birth to? That’s some of the moments that I have. And I think we spend all of our life trying to mold them into good people or what we perceive to be a good person and then all of a sudden they grow up and they’ve done that and more? And that’s kind of, that’s how I feel about him.”
VanVleet did eventually make his way to the hospital to apologize to the teammate that he’d lashed out at in anger. It took him some time and some prodding from home — Susan calls it one of those ‘Jesus Christ, are you serious?’ moments. But eventually VanVleet made the connection and accepted that his ambitions couldn’t be his alone, or achieved in a vacuum, and that bringing people together was the key to the group reaching its full potential. Sometimes you have to own it. “He’s laying up in the hospital bed. I gave him a handshake and said, ‘Sorry, man. I meant to hit you but didn’t want you to be hurt this bad.’ We were fine after that,” VanVleet says.
VanVleet should be an all-star this season and has ambitions to be one several times over. He’s looking forward. “I got big dreams and big visions and [I’m] just thinking ahead of what I want to do,” he says. “I think that’s the part where greatness comes is being able to continue to do it over and over and over again. And eventually then we won’t be sitting here debating on, or having to wonder if I’m an all-star — it’ll be cemented.”
But even with his eyes on the future, some of those early lessons still resonate, a low moment helping VanVleet eventually reach his greatest peaks.
“I let my anger get the best of me sometimes back then,” he says. “But I learned it’s easier to lead with love and build that rapport than tear guys down.”