Toronto Raptors guard Fred VanVleet has been fined $30,000 for speaking out after Wednesday’s 108-100 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers.
VanVleet opted to “save their money” rather than criticize officials after a controversial loss to the Denver Nuggets earlier this week.
That was not the case on Wednesday, when the 29-year-old delivered a profane tirade against NBA umpires specifically targeting Ben Taylor. Paraphrasing the rant wouldn’t do it justice, so here it is in full:
“I’ll take a fine, I don’t care. I thought Ben Taylor was awful tonight. For most nights out of the three [officials] There’s one or two that just screw up the game,” said VanVleet. “It’s been like that for a couple of games in a row. Denver was tough, of course. You come out tonight and compete pretty hard, in the third quarter I get a bulls-t-tech, [it] changes the whole dynamic of the game, changes the whole flow of the game.
Most referees try very hard, I like a lot of referees, they try very hard, they are quite fair, they communicate well and then there are the others who just want to be jerks. It kind of breaks the game. Nobody comes to see that, they come to see the players. I think we’re losing a little bit of the fabric of what the NBA is and was. It was disappointing this season.
You can look it up, most of my techs this year were officiating with Ben Taylor. At a certain point, as a player, you feel it personally. It’s never a good place. That’s not why we lost tonight, we were outplayed but that definitely makes it harder to overcome.
There were certain times this year when I felt like our team was being consumed by the way the whistle is going, especially after the night we just had in Denver the way it ended. There were a couple of calls early on that we all didn’t agree with and when I say to my team, ‘come on guys let’s keep playing through the bulls – t’ and that warrants a technique, I think that that’s a little crazy.
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What do we do? There’s a fine line, of course, I understand that, but I think the jurisdiction and power trip that we’ve had with some of our officials in this league this year is getting out of hand. I get punished for talking about it, but this is bloody ridiculous.”
Fred VanVleet (23) is obviously not a fan of the way Ben Taylor (46) officiates. (John E Sokolowski – USA TODAY Sports)
In the middle of the third quarter, VanVleet’s technical foul was scored. It was his eighth season, with three of them were distributed by Taylor. The Clippers were leading by seven points at that point.
Frustration ran high for Toronto all season as the team failed to live up to preseason expectations. The Raptors’ playoff hopes are quickly fading as they are six games behind the six-seeded Brooklyn Nets with 15 games to play. It’s looking increasingly likely that the Raptors are set for this spring’s play-in tournament.
VanVleet also had a frustrating campaign from an individual perspective. He averages 19.3 points and 6.9 assists per game but shoots the worst 34 percent of his career from 3-point range. He was the subject of numerous rumors surrounding the NBA’s trade deadline, but the Raptors opted to keep him.
The Rockford, Illinois native is expected to turn down his $22.8 million player option for 2023-24 and test the free hand this summer.