Fred VanVleet thinks it’s time for the Toronto Raptors to move on from their 2019 NBA title. Not necessarily through a complete roster change, but to realize that the team is now different .
VanVleet spoke candidly about what went wrong with the Raptors’ season on Thursday, the day after they were eliminated from the championship following a 109-105 loss to the Chicago Bulls.
“You have to find another identity, whatever it is,” assured VanVleet, adding that the team has talent and good defensive patterns, but that these sequences of play must be executed better.
“I think for us the important point will be in the details, and I think we have to be able to build and represent that,” he added.
“We can’t try to do this by osmosis and try to conquer a new title like four years ago by adding this to the current group,” continued VanVleet.
He is one of several players who spoke Thursday following their meeting with coach Nick Nurse, Raptors management and team medical staff.
Most of the Raptors were still digesting the loss the day before, after they squandered an 18-point lead and were limited to just 50 percent of the league’s free throw success rate, when they went to the media center of the OVO Center.
However, VanVleet, one of the more experienced players in the locker room, already had a plan to get the Raptors back on track for the 2023-24 season.
“You have to start by fine-tuning every detail offensively and defensively so that when you get into this kind of situation where you have to win a game, those things come to fruition,” VanVleet said. As a group, as players, this is my priority. »
“We have to find our habits and our details and everything else will fall into place then,” he said.
Nurse and all the players who spoke to the media acknowledged that the lack of consistency was a problem, not only against the Bulls, but also throughout the season. The root cause was not immediately obvious, however.
“I think we started off slow, way too slow, and once we got back on top we were already four, five, six games under .500,” Nurse said. I think from January the team started to move a bit in the right direction and the addition (of Jakob Pöltl via trade on Feb 9) was a big game changer. »
“So it was a season with almost three different phases,” he summed up.
Pascal Siakam, the Raptors’ only player named to the All-Star Game this season, averaged 24.2 points, 7.8 rebounds and 5.8 assists per game. When asked what went wrong this season, Siakam said it was a good question, but he didn’t have an answer.
“I didn’t sleep last night, but I couldn’t tell you what I was thinking,” Siakam said. However, I didn’t think much either. I don’t know if that makes sense. It was heavy. »
“We weren’t consistent enough as a team. We had a lot of ups and downs. We won three games here, lost three games there. We weren’t consistent enough to be able to win in this league, a league that has improved a lot, I would say, especially in the East. »
Several questions therefore arise for the Raptors as summer approaches.
Nurse denied any friction with team president Masai Ujiri on Thursday, even though the media has been speculating for weeks that he may have wrapped up his final campaign in charge of the Raptors.
“My job is to make the best decisions for this organization. I always believed it from day one and still believe it 10 years later, said Nurse, whose contract expires at the end of next season. When you think about it, all decisions must be made in the interest of the organization. »
Pöltl will become an unrestricted free agent this summer, while VanVleet, Gary Trent Jr. and Otto Porter Jr. each have an option year at their discretion.
“I’m going to take a few days, a few weeks,” VanVleet said of his decision whether or not to leave the team. I don’t think it’s urgent to make a decision one way or the other. »
Trent also announced that he wanted to take time to reflect on the season before making a decision about his future with the Raptors.
“I haven’t made a decision on that yet,” he said. Obviously I will sit down, talk to my team and see how things go,” he concluded.