Toronto Raptors: 3 players set for breakout seasons

2. Fred VanVleet

It isn’t that often that we see an otherwise role player impact an NBA postseason as much as Fred VanVleet did in 2019.

VanVleet is one of the most memorable faces of the 2019 postseason as his name seemed to continuously pop up on the news feed. From hitting big shots to bringing new life into this world, the months of April, May and June had pretty much everything in stock for Freddie.

From Game 4 of the conference finals against the Milwaukee Bucks up until the NBA Finals, VanVleet made a complete U-turn in an –up until then– extremely dull postseason run. He went from averaging 4.0 points to 14.7 per game and shooting 19.5 percent to shooting 52.6 from 3-point range.

This incredible change of heart was more than enough to fuel Toronto into making a huge comeback in the series against the Bucks, ultimately topping off this Cinderella story with an NBA Championship.

Though VanVleet certainly lacks the height for the shooting guard spot, the most recent trend of small ball lineups might result in coach Nurse inserting him into the starting-5. If not, then Freddie is bound to receive starter-like minutes, coming off the bench.

Throughout the 2018-19 season, VanVleet averaged 11.0 points per game, mostly being used as an offensive threat off the bench. However, he did start at point guard 28 times, managing to score double digits in 22 out of the 28 different occasions.

Whether VanVleet breaks out in the upcoming season or not entirely depends on the role coach Nurse is willing to entrust him with. From the looks of it during the 2019 postseason, VanVleet is up for the task.