Then only 5 years old, the young Fred VanVleet is already experiencing a first trauma. His father dies of gunshot wounds and inevitably follows a disrupted childhood, which will forge him a mental steel. Going through difficult times in college, he then made his way to the NBA and despite a complicated start he achieved his greatest individual achievement so far, that of winning his first All-Star selection. Back on the career of a player like no other.
Young Fred VanVleet was born in 1994 in Rockford, Illinois. He grew up in a basketball-loving family, thanks in particular to his father, who was absolutely addicted to the orange ball, a passion he passed on to his son, but beware, nothing predestined Fredo to become the man he is today. Indeed, in 1999, the VanVleet family saw a tragic event. During a drug deal that goes wrong, Fred Manning (Fred VanVleet’s father) is shot and the bullets will get the better of him since he dies instantly. This event will mark a turning point in the spirit of the Raptor. His father could have played basketball at a high level, but drugs took over sports and ruined his life, literally and figuratively. And Fred doesn’t want to follow the same voice.
“My father was the living example of this kind of story. He was a 2 meter guy, he could have been more than he was. But in a snap of his fingers he was gone. I got sick of hearing all these stories of ‘this guy should have made it but he had ten kids’. Or ‘this guy could have gone to the NBA but he started selling drugs’. I didn’t want there to be a ‘but…’ attached to my story. I didn’t want to be one more person in this case. – Fred VanVleet
From that moment, the man with the name of Dutch cyclist will dedicate his life to basketball, and a man will help him very much to continue in this direction: his stepfather Joe Danforth, police officer and former US Army, in other words, it didn’t matter to the VanVleets. With pretty daddy? It was up at 5 a.m. to perfect his game and Joe took him under his wing to become the best player and the best person possible, with the aim of giving him a better fate than his father, especially that the Danforth / VanVleet neighborhood was then plagued by gangs like the Vice-Lords or the Wacos,
“You’re not going to sit down and be a good for nothing. You’re not going to be average. Anyone can be average. You will become someone. – Joe Danforth to Fred VanVleet
“He could be so mean. He was cracking the whip on me and my brothers, and I still didn’t understand. I just wanted to be a kid. I probably didn’t smile much back then. – Fred VanVleet
The treatment suffered by the Drake look-alike was obviously not easy to live with. At first glance, the stepfather’s behavior may seem relatively dictatorial, but the work ethic he imposed on the VanVleet kids finally paid off. In 2012, our hero of the day joined Wichita State University, a 4-year course that allowed him to evolve as a person, to grow as a man in a difficult environment where crime is rampant at every corner. of street. Despite the sometimes violent behavior of his stepfather, he nevertheless reported in 2014 that he was happy with the way things went.
“It turned out to be a blessing. If it hadn’t happened, who knows what would have happened to me. – Fred VanVleet on his stepfather
“It has become a job for them. They had seen a lot of kids with such potential getting sucked into gangs, drugs or whatever. They didn’t know how to get out of it. – Susan VanVleet (mother of Fred) about Wichita State
Indeed, the college of Wichita State has seen many young people trying to get out of poverty, and the treatment given to players is therefore consistent. In four years spent there, Freddy will in any case have demonstrated all his qualities as a basketball player. Despite everything, small university obliges, he will not – yet – make a name for himself in the United States, his career making him only one good player among others, which will not prevent him, despite everything, from appear in the 2016 Draft. Never let go. Disappointment to come, none of the thirty NBA franchises select him, FVV no longer has a choice: he will have to enter through the small door, perfect from the top of his 185 centimeters. A round of applause now for… the Raptors and their huge CJ McCollum-like pif for having dared to sign a… future All-Star in 2016. Pif, because nothing suggested such a future at the time.
After a first season at the end of rotation where he will post a very discreet average of 2.9 points in 8 minutes of play, it nevertheless begins to take on a little more importance during the 2017-2018 season at the Dinos of DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry, where his role off the bench will evolve like a Charmander turning into Reptincel, while his life course could however have suggested that he remains at the stage of dirty tipsy. 20 minutes of play for 9 points per game, it’s starting to give something serious, come on. His 2018-2019 season will be about the same, well… almost. The regular season ok, we don’t see crazy progress, but his 2019 Playoffs will be placed under the sign of fire. History is on the move, for life. Before Game 4 of the Conference Finals against the Bucks, Fred was as big as the fire of a lighter that had been lying around for three days in the middle of winter, with averages that would give a blind man trouble with sight: 4 points per match, 26% shooting including 20% parking and 71% throwing. Then a happy event turns his life as a man upside down and, by extension, his basketball career. In effect, May 20, 2019, Fred VanVleet becomes a father for the first time. After this too cute news? Fred simply turns into a human fire with averages that increase to 15 points in 51/53/86. Reptincel has now become Dracofeu, and Dracofeu will become in the following weeks the first Pokemon in NBA champion history.
From the start of the 2019-2020 financial year, Fred VanVleet is transformed, he is no longer the same person and he is going to send heavy. And go ahead, it gives you 20 pawns every evening easy Émile, it goes ahead, it distributes his 6 assists to you quietly Bilou. Ah yes, it also shoots from the parking lot at ease Blaise and the backcourt he forms with Kyle Lowry is one of the most boring in the league since it takes you 48 passages in force per evening. Until then accustomed to the bench since the start of his career (28 times in his first 177 NBA games), he will now only know tenures, until… this Sunday. Because here we are, today is All-Star Game and MR Fred VanVleet will know his first selection there. Deserved x 1000 for a little guy who went through such tough times in his life before becoming a franchise player in the biggest league in the world. Bet on yourself (bet on yourself) tweeted Fred VanVleet in 2016 at the time of his (non) draft, and today this sentence is more relevant than ever. It was not won, far from it.
🎲🎲🎲 https://t.co/Py2RbwXPbJ
– Fred VanVleet (@FredVanVleet) February 4, 2022
Nobody saw it coming, except maybe himself, but today Fred VanVleet is All-Star. The tragic death of his father will have upset his life since to get out of misery, basketball was a more than plausible option. The entry into his life of Joe Danforth will have changed everything, inscribing rigor in this kid so that he does not end up in the hands of a gang had been the step-dad’s mission, and the least we can can say is that the mission is more than accomplished. Enjoy your evening man, you so deserved it.
Source texte : Forbes, Bleacher Report, The Athletic
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