'Nobody is harder on me than me': Raptors' Fred VanVleet on dealing with public criticism

Raptors guard Fred VanVleet discusses how he handles criticism and his desire to continue improving as a basketball player. Listen to the full episode on the 'Raptors Over Everything' podcast feed or watch on our YouTube channel.

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AMIT MANN: Yeah.

FRED VANVLEET: We can go down the list of all of the greatest players that have played in my seven years, who I have went and earned the respect and the admiration of by the way I play the game, the guys I'm going toe to toe with, who some fans may think are better than me. But I'm looking them in their eyes, you know what I'm saying, every night. So my vantage point is going to be way different.

CJ MILES: Yeah.

AMIT MANN: Yeah.

FRED VANVLEET: There's a whole other aspect of what goes on in the locker room with each other that I would never speak on, you know what I'm saying?

CJ MILES: Yeah, yeah, yeah, because it ain't-- it ain't none of your business. You don't need to know what's going on.

FRED VANVLEET: Yeah.

CJ MILES: But the biggest thing too, if nobody ever had to change their scouting report for you, you can't tell me nothing, you know what I'm saying? Like, why should you-- but it's weird with sports because they take out the crab part of sports. Like, they just throw their opinions on there. They take out the skill and the craft and the will that it take to do what we're doing because if I walked in a hospital right now while the surgeon was doing surgery and was like, hey, bro, cut right here, everybody would look at me like I was crazy.

FRED VANVLEET: Yeah, you'd be nuts.

CJ MILES: First of all, I wouldn't even be able to get close enough to even do it, you know what I'm saying? So like, the fact that somebody can think that you can come in here and talk to me crazy about a job that I've been essentially interviewing for since I was like, four or five years old-- I've been working at this my whole life. You have never worked at anything for a summer. Like, you can't even fathom putting all your eggs in one basket like this.

So why should you think you could be able to come in here and-- I mean, you saying stuff about the game that night. And we're speaking about the game. And I'm playing bad. I'm playing-- tell me. That's fine. But digging in it and saying all these other things and throwing all your other opinions on the actual, real fabric of the game, like the work that's put in-- and you think I need to do this or that. You didn't even recognize the play. Like, you didn't even know-- you didn't even know what happened! Like, you don't even know what happened!

FRED VANVLEET: Yeah, that happened to me so much with my career, where like, I end up taking the last shot of the game. And they're like, man, he's trying to win the game. He's so selfish. It was like, bro, that's not even really how it panned out. But all right, I mean--

CJ MILES: You know how many times--

AMIT MANN: But [INAUDIBLE] you ended up taking the last shot.

FRED VANVLEET: People just talk, man. People just talk.

CJ MILES: You know how many times I had to take a shot at the end of the shot clock? And people was like, why are you taking ill-advised shots? Like bro, if I just held the ball and the buzzer went off, you'd be so mad.

FRED VANVLEET: Look, man, I make mistakes. I make mistakes. I play bad, you know? I'm not a perfect player by any stretch. I'm nowhere near my full potential where I want to be. Like, I'm open to criticism. Nobody criticizes me harder than I am on myself. Nobody's harder on me than I am on myself.

And that's another reason why I'm able to weather that because the stuff that they're saying or people are saying or whatever, it's just like, whatever, you know what I mean? I'm going to break down all of my misses and looking at everything, seeing how I can be better, knowing the full scope of the situation. But yeah, it's funny. It's been a thing this year, just because of the team's performance, you know what I'm saying? Which is like--