https://youtu.be/-HY2wju631w
The Raptors may be basically done for the season, playing for nothing, but their fans have not checked out. At least, not ALL of them have checked out. The team itself may be dying to get the heck out of Tampa and get started with the offseason, but these Raptors diehards, they just want to stick around and see if something cool happens.
Meanwhile, I do not think there is a SINGLE Pacers fan still alive and responsive enough to watch a Pacers-related highlight video. Not even one.
Luckily for those remaining Raptors fans, cool stuff is definitely happening with their team, and the coolness remains even when you consider that it’s not helping them win any games right now. The Raptors have made such a habit out of making good players out of lumps of garbage they smushed together and then ran some electrical current through to make them ambulant, that at this point, there’s a lot of fun to be had watching whatever randoms they’re trotting out on the court, to see if they can follow in the footsteps of Fred VanVleet.
Malachi Flynn (I almost typed “Richardson”, again, this will be a problem that follows me my entire life) definitely has the best chance out of any current Raptor of following directly in the footsteps of VanVleet (VanVleet himself doesn’t count for the purposes of this thought exercise). Not only do the Raptors commentators make the comparisons, but I think the Dallas ones made some tonight as well. Everyone is taking notice: Flynn can be the next VanVleet for the Raptors, and then they can have two while the rest of the league has zero.
Flynn seems to have much tighter handles, though. Right? He’s more of a ball-handly kind of PG, whereas VanVleet is more of a bowling-bally kind of PG. And he’s showing stuff a lot quicker than VanVleet, who didn’t do anything his rookie season. Flynn’s trajectory is only accelerating, since getting regular minutes he just keeps impressing, capped by this 26-point domination of Suca Donbitch and the Dalass Mavebricks. How soon until he surpasses VanVleet? I’m not even asking this sarcastically or anything, it’s a serious possibility. Also, I am NOT EVEN MAD about VanVleet at all, not even a little bit, and I especially wouldn’t be mad about a hypothetical scenario where he dad-dicked the Bucks in the playoffs.