It wasn’t long ago that Fred VanVleet emerged as one of the NBA’s ultimate role players.
As a member of 2019’s championship Raptors team, he was a long way from a star — not with Kawhi Leonard and Kyle Lowry and Pascal Siakam lining up as Toronto’s top three scoring threats. Still, in big moments VanVleet made his name by fearlessly stepping into the available space for the occasional star turn, providing what seemed like a bottomless supply of preposterously clutch jump shots en route to the title.
On that team, you could make a case that any number of players were underused, underappreciated and underrated, VanVleet among them.