Ujiri wants team’s depth players to emulate VanVleet’s rise with Raptors
Toronto Raptors president Masai Ujiri might have trouble counting his words, but he didn’t have any trouble figuring out who he sees as the biggest role model on his roster.
The Raptors have a number of players trying to crack the roster, most notably new signing (and Hollywood star) Juancho Hernangomez, who was introduced to the Toronto media for the first time yesterday.
And when asked about what he’d say to the players fighting for a roster spot, Ujiri pointed to a fan favourite and one of the team’s longest-tenured players.
“There’s only one word. Fred VanVleet,” Ujiri said at yesterday’s media day in a question asked by Daily Hive about the advice he’d give to his players lower in the rotation. “It’s simple, we have him here [for our players to look up to.]”
Masai Ujiri had a simple answer when asked about what end-of-roster players can do to carve out a role in the league.
"Fred VanVleet" pic.twitter.com/zJMP0hcXJ0
— TSN (@TSN_Sports) September 26, 2022
VanVleet’s rise has been well documented. Undrafted out of Wichita State in 2016, VanVleet signed a two-way contract with the Raptors before eventually playing 76 games in his sophomore season in the NBA.
By his third year in the league, he was a key contributor to the team’s 2018-19 championship season, and cracked the starting lineup in all 54 games he played in the 2019-20 year. This past season, VanVleet made his first NBA All-Star game, while he averaged 20.3 points, 6.7 assists, and 4.4 rebounds in 65 games.
“You can do it,” Ujiri added of his message to his players looking to crack the roster. “[You can emulate his rise] from championship, to all-star, to leader, to community leader off the court. He teaches us every single thing and how you want to learn to take it to another level.”
But Ujiri also made it clear that it’s not just VanVleet that he’s looking up to as a role model. Other key Raptors (Pascal Siakam, 27th, 2016), O.G. Anunoby (23rd, 2017), Gary Trent Jr. (37th, Portland, 2018), and Precious Achiuwa (20th, Miami, 2020) were taken outside of the top-15 selections in the NBA draft and have found varying levels of success in the league.
“Look at all our guys too, they’re all drafted in the 20s and have risen to where they are,” Ujiri added. “And we’re proud of them. For that, they compete and they want to win. That’s why we tell all those young players, that’s why we pushed to have a feeder team in our G league team here so that we can give them that development.”
And it’s clear that VanVleet hasn’t forgotten about those experiences either,
“That’s when you’ve got to be the craziest, when you know you’re not playing and when you’re gonna try to go prove it,” VanVleet said at his end-of-season media availability last year.
In training camp starting today, the Raptors kick off their preseason on October 2, facing the Utah Jazz at Edmonton’s Rogers Place.
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