‘My son makes me watch Raptors games’: VanVleet on emotional return to Toronto

‘My son makes me watch Raptors games’: VanVleet on emotional return to Toronto

Listen it’s just a reunion of you know a lot of sorts um you know obviously not the same crew or group that I was here with but um yeah this is this place we done we done some amazing things in here and I was a part of some amazing times

And uh made great relationships with people and um ultimately made history here so it’s always nice to see that kind of celebrated my boy TR put together a nice video for me so it kind of gave me like a little warmup to it so hopefully I don’t get too emotional

Uh I’m not a big crying type of person but uh I’m worried that it might creep up on me so hope hopefully not whether I want to or not my son makes me watch raptor games so he’s always asking when the Raptors are playing and we watch

Games on a daily basis and he’s still he still got all of the memories of you know being here and um he loves the mascot and just he he knows the players and things like that so we we watch a lot of raptor games obviously not being

Out there is it sucks and it’s heartbreaking but um um yeah hopefully you know we come in here able to get a win you mentioned a few times that you can kind of see the transition starting to happen here towards development and then getting younger but in terms of the

Turnover that’s happened in a very short amount of time like could you have seen this coming this degree yeah that’s really the only way it was ever going to go you know it was just kind of like a matter of win um I think kind of once

You set off on that timeline and on that trajectory like this is what it looks like and it’s hard for you know people that are fans of the team or follow the team and people on the team that you know were heavily invested in that group

But um yeah I think it was time to turn over a new leaf and you know I think they’re making All the Right Moves to head in the direction that they want to go in and um yeah I mean I I again that’s really the only way it was going

To go you knew you were going to have those reunions but how weird wasn’t seeing Pascal in the Indie Jersey and OG in the New York Jersey yeah it’s weird but again I think the NBA is so different now you know is guys changing teams all the time um there’s a

Different Reunion game it feels like once a week now so it’s not as crazy but more than anything uh I got to CP he looked happy you know he played well like I the see OG look happy play he’s playing well he’s perfect in the situations both of those guys are

Perfect in the situations they’re in so um just happy for that you know more than anything

Fred VanVleet, who is in his first season with Rockets after spending seven with the Raptors, will miss Friday’s game in Toronto with a strained left adductor. VanVleet spoke about the emotions that come with his return, how his son still forces him to keep up with his old team and how he saw the beginning of the Raps’ current transition during his final season in Toronto.