Every player has a moment when the league stops feeling like an ambition and starts feeling real. For Fred VanVleet, that moment apparently arrived in layers. First came the sight of Kevin Durant in his first year with Golden State. Then came the shock of checking into a preseason game and picking up Stephen Curry full court. And then, just when that should have been enough for one rookie, came an even rougher lesson in Los Angeles, where he suddenly found himself in the starting lineup against Chris Paul and the Clippers’ Lob City machine.
VanVleet entered the NBA in 2016 after signing with Toronto as an undrafted free agent, and the Raptors’ preseason that fall did in fact include an October opener against Durant’s new-look Warriors and an early exhibition game against Paul’s Clippers.
What makes the story work is not just the names, but the speed of the escalation. VanVleet describes an NBA rookie life that still feels half-chaotic and half-comic: arriving hours early because roster hopefuls are fighting for jobs, sitting so long that tipoff and personal rhythm no longer seem connected, and then suddenly being asked to deal with the most demanding point guard responsibilities the sport can offer. His full reflection captures that jump in one breath:
“It’s my rookie year, it’s preseason. Mind you, we might had 10 preseason games. So, I’m like still trying to figure it out. My very first preseason game was KD first year with Golden State. So, when we seen them, I’m like, ‘ooh wee’ this is crazy. Mind you, I got to get to the arena 4 hours early because we got 20 guys trying to make the team. So, I’m at the arena at three o’clock. The game don’t start till 7. I don’t get in till the third quarter. It’s nine o’clock. I got to pick Steph up full court soon as I check in, I’m like ‘Damn.’ We go to LA and this the bullsht with the NBA. We go to LA and we playing the Clippers, CP3, Blake, Lob City. We play the Clippers. So, I’m chilling. I be having like Jolly Rachers and sht in my socks I was on some dumb sht I’m chilling. I’m looking around. They start to draw the play up to start the game. Like, hold on. I’m starting? Y’all weren’t gonna tell me. Boom, I’m starting and I’m like, ‘Oh sht I’m trying to get ready. Chris Paul had me goddamn running. I’m looking for the screen this way, he going that way.’ He must have had 14 assists at halftime. He wasn’t even shooting. He was just playing.”
Fred VanVleet on his welcome to league moment his rookie year:
“It’s my rookie year, it’s preseason. Mind you, we might had 10 preseason games. So, I’m like still trying to figure it out. My very first preseason game was KD first year with Golden State. So, when we seen them,… pic.twitter.com/22f7xeFHi2
— NBA Courtside (@NBA__Courtside) April 18, 2026
The details around that memory make it even better. Toronto’s first preseason game of 2016-17 was indeed a 97-93 win over Golden State on October 1, 2016, the symbolic beginning of Durant’s Warriors chapter. A few days later, the Raptors visited the Clippers in Los Angeles on October 6 and lost 104-98.
There is something revealing in the way VanVleet tells it. He does not frame the NBA as majestic or glamorous. He frames it as disorienting. That feels honest, and maybe more useful than the polished version many veterans eventually learn to tell. The league did not welcome him with a ceremonial handshake. It threw him into the deep end with Curry’s gravity, Durant’s new superteam aura and Paul’s command of every angle on the floor. In one anecdote, VanVleet turns the rookie transition into what it usually is: not inspiration first, but overload first.
