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Raptors' Fred VanVleet: 'Nobody can tell me I'm selfish'

amit mann

Raptors guard Fred VanVleet joined 'Strictly Hoops with C.J. Miles to discuss the narrative he's a selfish NBA player and plenty more. The full episode will be published on Tuesday.

Video Transcript

AMIT MANN: It's already been talked about, even Jakob Poeltl was asked about it yesterday, and he kind of went to bat for you in a way when he was asked about your influence on the game. A fan says that, you know what, I think Fred VanVleet is a selfish player. What is your response to that?

FRED VANVLEET: Oh, let me think about how I want to say this.

[LAUGHTER]

CJ MILES: I got two words.

AMIT MANN: This is an edited podcast. By the way, I can take it.

CJ MILES: You can say whatever-- and you also can say whatever you want on here. Like, it's--

FRED VANVLEET: No, in all seriousness bro, again, I touched on it a little bit. I'm going to just say this. Just for everybody that is going to see this that's listening. There is nothing, zero, nothing a fan could tell me about basketball. Zero, nothing. So let's just-- let's start there, all right.

AMIT MANN: Yeah.

FRED VANVLEET: Second--

[LAUGHTER]

CJ MILES: My bad. Because I agree with you, I'm just--

FRED VANVLEET: Right. Second, I'm going to be generous and humble, and say, I might be one of the top 50 players in the NBA, right? I got that list way shorter, but I'll say 50, just for argument's sake.

CJ MILES: Because it ain't hoopers that's making that list.

FRED VANVLEET: You understand what I'm saying?

AMIT MANN: Yeah.

FRED VANVLEET: OK. So with those two things in mind, that means the NBA's the best league in the world, right? Now there may be a couple of guys overseas or whatever that could play, and you know, but essentially, out of the top 500 players in the world, the world, the world I'm in this percentile of people that play this game. So there's nothing nobody outside of that could tell me.

Like I said, coaches, and I'm talking former coaches, my high school coach, my grade school coach, my college coach, my AAU coach, my mom, my family that has sports background, management because they have experience in the field, my teammates, I value those opinions. I value Kyle Lowry's opinion. I value DeMar DeRozan's opinion. I value CJ Myles' opinion. I value Marc Gasol's opinion. I value Kawhi Leonard's opinion.

These are the opinions that matter to me, right? So the rest of it is just chatter, bro. Like, it's just online, you know what I mean? And it used to be you go to the game, you take your family to the game, you watch the game or you watch it on TV, and you just say to your whatever, oh man, this guy sucks, oh man, this guy's trash, oh man, this guy don't never pass. And you just say it, right?

But now it's like, it's available for the world to see. So people get so caught up in what people are saying, but it's like, I don't really care what nobody say about me. Like, I really truly don't care because I know what's in my heart. Nobody can tell me I'm selfish.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

- Siakam, the slam.

- CJ, the 3. Good.