Fred VanVleet can now be considered a player who is good enough to take other players’ minutes. Not really what I expected from him this early in his career (truth be told I didn’t expect anything except nothing), but okay. That’s cool.
Also if you take minutes from Bruno Caboclo that doesn’t count, but that fact also doesn’t matter because he doesn’t receive minutes in the first place.
In this case, though, the player who he took minutes from scored 33 points in a game only a few weeks ago: Cory Joseph. I don’t know what the deal is in Toronto, maybe this was just a one-game anomaly, maybe not, but it doesn’t bode well for Joseph that he was stapled to the bench in favor of 6-foot undrafted rookie who is from Rockford (the armpit of the Midwest).
VanVleet made the most of his seized minutes, scoring 15 points and apparently earning the confidence of Kyle Lowry. He was kind of ineffective in the fourth quarter after his 6 quick points, but you can’t ask for much with this dude. The fact that he even played and contributed positively is surprising to me. Now that the Raptors suck, he looks to be in line for more minutes, and maybe we can also get more minutes for a certain Brazilian Durant?