[OC] Ten Games In January: A look at how Masai Ujiri’s failure to secure a playable backup point guard and Nick Nurse’s obsession with overplaying his starters may have directly influenced Fred VanVleet’s regression as a player this season.

As any Raptors fan will tell you, Fred VanVleet has not exactly been great this season. After a career year which saw him named an All-Star for the first time, the Wichita State product’s [numbers are down across the board](https://www.statmuse.com/nba/player/fred-vanvleet-9547/career-stats):

Season | PPG | RPG | APG | SPG | FG% | 3P%
—|—|—|—|—|—|—|—
**2021-22** | 20.3 | 4.4 | 6.7 | 1.7 | 40.3% | 37.7%
**2022-23** | 18.1 | 3.8 | 6.0 | 1.6 | 37.6% | 32.7%

With the exception of PPG, these numbers are actually the lowest they’ve ever been since VanVleet became a full-time starter for Toronto four years ago. His shooting splits in particular stand out; VanVleet is currently enduring the worst 3-point-shooting season of his career, and if not for his rookie year in which he barely saw the court (7.9 MPG, 37 GP), he would also be shooting a career-worst from the floor overall.

At a minimum, this is not the level of play Toronto would have hoped for in Year 3 of a four-year, $85-million contract extension. Such stark regression would normally be expected of a player *exiting* their prime, not one theoretically in the midst of it, with this being VanVleet’s age 28 season. Is there cause for concern?

Maybe.

Replacing a guard of franchise legend and G.R.O.A.T. Kyle Lowry’s caliber was never going to be an easy undertaking, but to this point, Toronto have seemingly failed miserably at doing so. Little more needs to be said about the Goran Dragic experiment other than that it was an absolute disaster, hometown hero Dalano Banton barely makes the rotation, and Malachi Flynn has yet to put up a season which sees him crack 40% FG%. The franchise *is* attempting to mold reigning Rookie of the Year Scottie Barnes into something more of a point-foward for their…let’s say ‘forward-thinking’ vision of the future, but it has still left the team with just one truly playable point guard on the roster, and it shows.

Nick Nurse has long been entranced with the concept of running his starters into the ground, but none moreso than Fred VanVleet. Since becoming a starter in 2019-20, VanVleet has played the [second-most minutes per game in the league](https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask?q=nba+player+most+minutes+per+game+2019-20+to+2022-23) (of all players to play at least half of their team’s games in that time):

Player | MPG, 19/20 – 22/23 | MP, 19/20 – 22/23
—|—|—
James Harden | 36.9 | 7,311
Fred VanVleet | 36.8 | 7,352
Pascal Siakam | 36.5 | 7,694
Damian Lillard | 36.4 | 6,771

This unlucky foursome are the only players to play 36+ MPG in that time, and two of them are Raptors. If we look at [just *last* year, VanVleet and Siakam top this list together](https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask?q=nba+player+most+minutes+per+game+2021-22):

Player | MPG, 21/22 | MP, 21/22
—|—|—
Fred VanVleet | 37.9 | 2,578
Pascal Siakam | 37.9 | 2,462
James Harden | 37.2 | 2,420
DeMar DeRozan | 36.1 | 2,743

Again, the only players to play 36+ MPG last season. Keen observers will note that Siakam and VanVleet are joined on both of these lists by James Harden, who himself endured a particularly torrid struggle with injury last year. Huh. Funny how that works. Anyways, it’s not just simply the amount of time VanVleet was on the court that we should focus on, it’s how *much* he did while he was on it. For two straight years, VanVleet led the league in distance traveled per game, traveling an average of 2.76 miles per game and 2.82 miles per game in [2020-21](https://go.nba.com/fnafv) and [2021-22](https://go.nba.com/bjqpl), respectively.

Let’s talk about last year specifically some more. We already know that VanVleet topped the charts for MPG, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. A more game-by-game inspection will. In the first 26 games Fred VanVleet played last season, [he was on the court for an average of 37.7 MPG](https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/v/vanvlfr01/gamelog/2022#284-309-sum:pgl_basic). Still a lot, but not *truly* absurd. It’s actually *lower* than his MPG for the season overall, so…what happened?

This is where we get truly absurd.

In the next 19 games that followed, [VanVleet would play an average of *40* MPG](https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/v/vanvlfr01/gamelog/2022#310-328-sum:pgl_basic). Yes, you read that right, fourty minutes per game. Now, this would be insane in and of itself; according to Stathead, it is among the most minutes played in any 19-game stretch in the past 5 years ([the top 25 is almost *entirely* Siakam and VanVleet, if you’re curious](https://stathead.com/tiny/myCzR)).

And there’s a specific stretch of games in the second half of last January that I’d *really* like us to focus in on, the eight games VanVleet played in – and the two he didn’t – from January 11th to January 29th:

—

– On January 11th, VanVleet played 44 minutes against the Suns in a close loss.

– On January 14th, VanVleet, for some reason, played 42 minutes in a 16-point loss to the Pistons that was never close after halftime.

– On January 15th, *a back-to-back*, VanVleet again played 42 minutes, this time against the Bucks.

– Over the next four games, VanVleet would play 41 minutes, 42 minutes, 39 minutes, and 42 minutes.

– VanVleet misses the next two games due to injury, specifically [right knee soreness](https://twitter.com/jlew1050/status/1486050700555698188).

– Finally, on January 29th, in his *first game back from that injury*, VanVleet played **53 minutes** in an overtime win against the Heat.

—

What effect did this specific stretch of games have on him the rest of the season? Well, simply put, VanVleet missed only three of the thirty-seven games the Raptors played prior to January 11th. After January 29th, VanVleet would go on to miss twelve of the Raptors’ remaining thirty-five games, or *over one-third* of them.

If we compare his performance on the court [before this stretch](https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/v/vanvlfr01/gamelog/2022#284-318-sum:pgl_basic) to [after it](https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/v/vanvlfr01/gamelog/2022#326-348-sum:pgl_basic):

Timeframe | PPG | RPG | APG | FG% | 3P% | FT%
—|—|—|—|—|—|—
Pre-Jan. 11 | 22.0 | 5.0 | 6.7 | 44.2% | 40.9% | 89.2%
Post-Jan. 29 | 17.8 | 4.0 | 6.1 | 37.2% | 34.8% | 88.2%

Just as with this season, a noticeable drop-off, understandably caused by playing through an injury aggravated by obscenely high minutes totals.

Finally, let’s fast forward to the Raptors’ brief foray into last year’s playoffs. Hopefully, it’s now well-established that by this point, VanVleet is *far* from 100 percent healthy.

And yet, across the first three games of the Raptors’ first-round series against the 76ers, VanVleet would play [36 minutes, 44 minutes, and 45 minutes](https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/v/vanvlfr01/gamelog/2022#49-51-sum:pgl_basic_playoffs). Fourty-one-point-eight minutes per game. After playing fourteen minutes of Game 4, VanVleet would suffer a [hip injury](https://www.nba.com/news/toronto-raptors-fred-vanvleet-exits-game-4-with-left-hip-strain). He would not return to the game, or the series.

—

Sources: [StatMuse](https://www.statmuse.com), [Basketball-Reference](https://www.basketball-reference.com), [NBA.com](https://www.nba.com/stats), and [Stathead](https://www.stathead.com). Linked throughout.

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[Originally posted on r/NBA](https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/102267o/oc_ten_games_in_january_a_look_at_how_masai/).

by tirednewyorker