The only guy in the NBA playing more minutes per game than Fred VanVleet is Damian Lillard. There have been 452 players to log minutes so far this season, and VanVleet is outminuting them all save one. I choose to believe that him (and Pascal Siakam, who is also way up there) playing this much is a direct challenge by coach Nick Nurse to Kawhi Leonard and his load management. He’s saying “We don’t need you, because we’ve got players who we can rely on even if we play them into the ground and then exhume them so that we can give minutes to their lifeless corpse”.
Either that, or Nurse just has no concept of resting players anymore now that he’s not required to by Leonard’s presence. Even with Kyle Lowry available, VanVleet was playing 40-plus minutes in some games. I’m actually surprised that with Lowry out he’s not playing all 48 every game. I’m a fan of guys getting more minutes (because that means more stats, generally), but in this case, maybe they could tone it down a bit? Find a backup PG (I hear Lorenzo Brown is looking for a job, Raptors fans would love to have that fan-favorite back in the fold) from somewhere and give him some run.
I’m asking mainly because I’m getting a LITTLE tired of having to make constant VanVleet videos. He’s playing big minutes and putting up big stats, around 18 and 7 per game. That’s almost All-Star numbers, honestly, and I’m not happy about it. Something about winning that championship got into his head, making him think that he’s some sort of PG god when he’s just a midget from Rockford, Illinois (the armpit of the entire Upper Midwest, I’ll have you know).