The truth about FVV

[AreBe]

The truth is his range is close to the logo now

The good news is that he is an amazing shooting guard!
The bad news is that he is our point guard!

It's not so bad, however, as this is a learning curve, transition year for the Raptors and that's OK, and FVV will be an important part of the team 2 years from now when we may be all in again.



We need to send that Flynn kid down to the G-Leauge so he can learn- he is going to be the point guard once Nurse can trust him, and FVV will still be here, at the 2.

[Johnny Bball]

Love Lowry but he is over rated by our fans. Guy rode the Kawhi wave to a championship and just cause he didn't "leave" gets casted as the GROAT. Lowry was just as big of a playoff career choker as Derozan. Lowry missed the game winning shot vs Brooklyn in 2014, acted like an ass after hinting he'd sign to another team (the Spurs). Signed with us cause we're the only team that would give him that money. Proceeded to get bullied and swept by Wall and the Wizards in 2015. Had a decent performance in 2016 but got spanked by the Cav's twice in 17 and 18 as both he and Derozan drooled over how amazing Lebron was. Threw a fit when Derozan was traded but to his credit corrected himself when he realized he could win a chip with Kawhi. Also missed the game winner in Game 5 vs Golden State.

Pretty tired of reading this kind of casual take. Raptors had three starting spots that were pretty big holes in the starting line-up with Patterson, Carroll and JV. None of those guys made the team offense better for anyone else. JV was fine until you faced the better teams like the Cavs and then he put a real short ceiling on the team. There was nothing but congested lanes and bad shooting with those 3, yet they still went pretty far. It's amazing they even got as far as they did. Except there's a bunch of people still whining they didn't do better, like the fan thinks he deserved something else. Look at who they had. Imagine this team now with those three players in the front court and where do you think it ends up, among the worst.

Heat fans are loving Lowry, because of all he does, and he's shooting terrible. And the Heat are the best in the east right now.

[GordanFreeman]

Love Lowry but he is over rated by our fans. Guy rode the Kawhi wave to a championship and just cause he didn't "leave" gets casted as the GROAT. Lowry was just as big of a playoff career choker as Derozan. Lowry missed the game winning shot vs Brooklyn in 2014, acted like an ass after hinting he'd sign to another team (the Spurs). Signed with us cause we're the only team that would give him that money. Proceeded to get bullied and swept by Wall and the Wizards in 2015. Had a decent performance in 2016 but got spanked by the Cav's twice in 17 and 18 as both he and Derozan drooled over how amazing Lebron was. Threw a fit when Derozan was traded but to his credit corrected himself when he realized he could win a chip with Kawhi. Also missed the game winner in Game 5 vs Golden State.

Lowry is the GROAT bruh. Deal with it.

[pingpongrac]

Love Lowry but he is over rated by our fans. Guy rode the Kawhi wave to a championship and just cause he didn't "leave" gets casted as the GROAT. Lowry was just as big of a playoff career choker as Derozan. Lowry missed the game winning shot vs Brooklyn in 2014, acted like an ass after hinting he'd sign to another team (the Spurs). Signed with us cause we're the only team that would give him that money. Proceeded to get bullied and swept by Wall and the Wizards in 2015. Had a decent performance in 2016 but got spanked by the Cav's twice in 17 and 18 as both he and Derozan drooled over how amazing Lebron was. Threw a fit when Derozan was traded but to his credit corrected himself when he realized he could win a chip with Kawhi. Also missed the game winner in Game 5 vs Golden State.

You are seriously misremembering things.

- Lowry was blocked on the last shot against the Nets. He averaged 21/5/5 on 57 TS% in the series. Hardly a bad showing.

- Lowry was terrible coming back from injury in 14/15. He averaged 12/6/5 on 40 TS%. By far his worst playoff series as well as our worst series as a team.

- Lowry struggled with his shot through most of the Indiana and Miami series in 15/16, but he still put up 19/5/7 while being BY FAR our most impactful player (+7.6 NetRTG in that span; Biz was #2 at +2.7 while DeRozan was -0.5). He then put up 20/5/4 against the Cavs, but our team defence was the problem.

- Lowry was excellent in both 16/17 and 17/18 against the Cavs. He only played 2 games in 16/17 before being injured, but he put up 20/2/8 on 69 TS% in Cleveland. Then in 17/18 he put up 18/4/9 on 74 TS%.

Lowry wasn't the problem in 90% of our playoff series. It was the role players being invisible and/or DeRozan being ice cold from the field while contributing very little elsewhere.

Sent from my Pixel 4 using RealGM Forums mobile app

[mdenny]

On the driving to the rim:

I've said this before and repeat it here. The large majority of fans have a disproportionate reaction to blocked shots. For many ppl....they feel like a huge fail. But analytically....they are preferable to a deflected pass....a play that fans barely have an emotional reaction to.

As golden dragon and others here have pointed out.....there are downstream gains from blocked shots. There are no downstream gains from deflected perimeter passes.

Yet both of those plays may not even result in a loss of possession. So you can either continue whinging about it like a casual fan or you can reconsider what emotional reaction is appropriate (ie differentiating between winning plays/losing plays properly).

The analytics guys have sat down and Fred and told him "these blocked shots may feel demoralizing....but the alternative is actually much worse." There's alot of players who would say "screw this....I don't care if it's winning basketball....I'm sick of getting criticised on Twitter for it". But Fred cares about winning basketball. We are lucky to have him. The league is full of players who are more concerned with how they are perceived individually.

Fred is sacrificing his own ego for the good of the team.

[VanWest82]

Based on 538's RAPTOR metric Fred is currently 35M player with a five year projected market value of 135M. We have him at 3/63M. What a ridiculous bargain!

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2022-nba-player-projections/fred-vanvleet/

[kirkwood]

He has his faults as a player, guys a warrior though. You can’t have enough of these types of guys on your team.

[rapsincr]

its not how you start, its how you finish.

game 6 vs golden state.

26 - points
10 - assists
7 - rebounds

+ 16(highest on the team)

lowry goat.

[Psubs]

People hate on this guy because he's not Lowry.


He's a mediocre scorer.

He's always going to be a block party when he tries a layup in traffic.



What people don't realize, and I never realized till now is that he's an underrated distributer.


This year he's averaging a career high in assists and turnovers, averaging 8.2 assists to 4.2 turnovers, a 2/1 A/TO ratio. Good but not great.


This is also by far his worst career A/TO since his rookie year.

The years before?

2017-18.....3.2 assist/1 turn overs................3/1 ratio
2018-19.....4.8 assists/1.3 turn overs............3.7/1 ratio
2019-20-----6.6 assists/2.2 turn overs............3/1 ratio
2020-21-----6.3 assists/1.8 turn overs............3.5/1 ratio

This year----8.2 assists/4.2 turnovers.............2/1 ratio.


Let's see if he can get back to the 3/1 A/TO or better ratio he had in the past with the increased responsibility.

This is not me saying he's an all star/superstar distributer, but the numbers indicate he's underrated.

2 is good for a SG or secondary distributor like Pascal or Barnes. 2.5 is passable for an NBA PG, while 3 is good.

[bstein14]

According to Defensive rating, FVV has been the best defender on the Raptors thus far this season. When looking at how much each points each player on the team allows per 100 possessions. Obviously part of that may be that he gets easier defensive assignments than some of the other guys.

[NotMyKawhi]

I was wrong abt FVV. I admit when I'm wrong.

He's been great. Lowry kinda imo as he's become a pass first PG. Defence has been amazing. Love his game.

[dgr81]

Fred admitted he was holding the ball too long at the beginning of the season.

He has been outstanding since.

[yellowknifer]

Fred needs to do two things.

1. Recognize bigger defenders in the paint and stop trying to attack them.

2. Initiate the offense sooner. Dribbling the ball out for 10-15 seconds can be crippling to the offense.

He needs a little fine tuning for sure. But he's already great IMO. He could stand to watch a little Nash tape and figure out how to force those bigs to recognize the drive and then drive back out to re initiate the offense or find that mid range jumper that sometimes is there.

[GordanFreeman]

FVV is improving every game. His lobs are becoming more and more accurate. His defense remains top tier. We have 2 guys (OG and FVV) who deserve to be on a defensive team and a 3rd knocking on the door.

[YogurtProducer]

Love Lowry but he is over rated by our fans. Guy rode the Kawhi wave to a championship and just cause he didn't "leave" gets casted as the GROAT. Lowry was just as big of a playoff career choker as Derozan. Lowry missed the game winning shot vs Brooklyn in 2014, acted like an ass after hinting he'd sign to another team (the Spurs). Signed with us cause we're the only team that would give him that money. Proceeded to get bullied and swept by Wall and the Wizards in 2015. Had a decent performance in 2016 but got spanked by the Cav's twice in 17 and 18 as both he and Derozan drooled over how amazing Lebron was. Threw a fit when Derozan was traded but to his credit corrected himself when he realized he could win a chip with Kawhi. Also missed the game winner in Game 5 vs Golden State.

Pretty tired of reading this kind of casual take. Raptors had three starting spots that were pretty big holes in the starting line-up with Patterson, Carroll and JV. None of those guys made the team offense better for anyone else. JV was fine until you faced the better teams like the Cavs and then he put a real short ceiling on the team. There was nothing but congested lanes and bad shooting with those 3, yet they still went pretty far. It's amazing they even got as far as they did. Except there's a bunch of people still whining they didn't do better, like the fan thinks he deserved something else. Look at who they had. Imagine this team now with those three players in the front court and where do you think it ends up, among the worst.

Heat fans are loving Lowry, because of all he does, and he's shooting terrible. And the Heat are the best in the east right now.

Agreed regarding the holes in the lineup... but it was not JV, it was always Demar. He was the one that disappeared against teams like the Cavs. JV always showed up

[johanliebert]

Love Lowry but he is over rated by our fans. Guy rode the Kawhi wave to a championship and just cause he didn't "leave" gets casted as the GROAT. Lowry was just as big of a playoff career choker as Derozan. Lowry missed the game winning shot vs Brooklyn in 2014, acted like an ass after hinting he'd sign to another team (the Spurs). Signed with us cause we're the only team that would give him that money. Proceeded to get bullied and swept by Wall and the Wizards in 2015. Had a decent performance in 2016 but got spanked by the Cav's twice in 17 and 18 as both he and Derozan drooled over how amazing Lebron was. Threw a fit when Derozan was traded but to his credit corrected himself when he realized he could win a chip with Kawhi. Also missed the game winner in Game 5 vs Golden State.

Pretty tired of reading this kind of casual take. Raptors had three starting spots that were pretty big holes in the starting line-up with Patterson, Carroll and JV. None of those guys made the team offense better for anyone else. JV was fine until you faced the better teams like the Cavs and then he put a real short ceiling on the team. There was nothing but congested lanes and bad shooting with those 3, yet they still went pretty far. It's amazing they even got as far as they did. Except there's a bunch of people still whining they didn't do better, like the fan thinks he deserved something else. Look at who they had. Imagine this team now with those three players in the front court and where do you think it ends up, among the worst.

Heat fans are loving Lowry, because of all he does, and he's shooting terrible. And the Heat are the best in the east right now.

Agreed regarding the holes in the lineup... but it was not JV, it was always Demar. He was the one that disappeared against teams like the Cavs. JV always showed up

He didn’t disappear the open shooters/role players couldn’t convert. I distinctively remember Patterson, carrol, Tucker, scola being left open and missing open shot after open shot.

[AbC?]

One of the most underrated and underappreciated players in the league. Keeps getting better. Glad the Raptors organization know what they have in him.

[DatHomieYouHaTe]

he changed his game up. No longer finishing at the rim doing more passing and pull up jumpers. working out way better

[YogurtProducer]

Pretty tired of reading this kind of casual take. Raptors had three starting spots that were pretty big holes in the starting line-up with Patterson, Carroll and JV. None of those guys made the team offense better for anyone else. JV was fine until you faced the better teams like the Cavs and then he put a real short ceiling on the team. There was nothing but congested lanes and bad shooting with those 3, yet they still went pretty far. It's amazing they even got as far as they did. Except there's a bunch of people still whining they didn't do better, like the fan thinks he deserved something else. Look at who they had. Imagine this team now with those three players in the front court and where do you think it ends up, among the worst.

Heat fans are loving Lowry, because of all he does, and he's shooting terrible. And the Heat are the best in the east right now.

Agreed regarding the holes in the lineup... but it was not JV, it was always Demar. He was the one that disappeared against teams like the Cavs. JV always showed up

He didn’t disappear the open shooters/role players couldn’t convert. I distinctively remember Patterson, carrol, Tucker, scola being left open and missing open shot after open shot.

and that made Demar have a sub 50% TS for years? Demar choked man just accept it

[Johnny Bball]

Love Lowry but he is over rated by our fans. Guy rode the Kawhi wave to a championship and just cause he didn't "leave" gets casted as the GROAT. Lowry was just as big of a playoff career choker as Derozan. Lowry missed the game winning shot vs Brooklyn in 2014, acted like an ass after hinting he'd sign to another team (the Spurs). Signed with us cause we're the only team that would give him that money. Proceeded to get bullied and swept by Wall and the Wizards in 2015. Had a decent performance in 2016 but got spanked by the Cav's twice in 17 and 18 as both he and Derozan drooled over how amazing Lebron was. Threw a fit when Derozan was traded but to his credit corrected himself when he realized he could win a chip with Kawhi. Also missed the game winner in Game 5 vs Golden State.

Pretty tired of reading this kind of casual take. Raptors had three starting spots that were pretty big holes in the starting line-up with Patterson, Carroll and JV. None of those guys made the team offense better for anyone else. JV was fine until you faced the better teams like the Cavs and then he put a real short ceiling on the team. There was nothing but congested lanes and bad shooting with those 3, yet they still went pretty far. It's amazing they even got as far as they did. Except there's a bunch of people still whining they didn't do better, like the fan thinks he deserved something else. Look at who they had. Imagine this team now with those three players in the front court and where do you think it ends up, among the worst.

Heat fans are loving Lowry, because of all he does, and he's shooting terrible. And the Heat are the best in the east right now.

Agreed regarding the holes in the lineup... but it was not JV, it was always Demar. He was the one that disappeared against teams like the Cavs. JV always showed up

Yeah JV always showed up against weaker teams ….at the expense of every other raptor on offence by ruining the spacing. Lowry and Demar had zero help. I mean, this was a new concept years ago but now it’s just common so it should be hardly arguable. It’s no coincidence that when Aldridge went to the perimeter DD had his first TS% of .600 that year finally.