Houston point guard Fred VanVleet recently said he never envisioned playing for the Rockets again.

Fred VanVleet said, That’s fair, in response to a reporter’s suggestion that he might not be as sentimental as his longtime, but now-former, teammate.

VanVleet is a guard for points. Aside from basketball, a point guard is essentially a businessman who analyzes market trends and trendsetters to predict the direction of the economy. (However, VanVleet is getting closer to embodying the well-known Jay-Z reply, “I’m a business, man!” now that he is earning roughly $40 million annually for at least two seasons.) As an undrafted free agent, VanVleet entered the league and, in his own words, had to fight for his position on the Raptors squad before he could become a leader on the group.

In other words, VanVleet had plenty of opportunity to think about life in the NBA as something other than being a Raptor.

After his Houston Rockets team fell to the New Orleans Pelicans on Wednesday night, VanVleet stated, “I thought about it a lot last year.”

VanVleet added, I was focused on how to improve that issue.” However, I was able to watch intently when DeMar DeRozan left the team in 2018 and Kyle Lowry left in 2021. Those are two of my best friends, obviously. When you watch those guys sort of go through the transition, you realize that it is conceivable. Like, who the heck am I if we can trade DeMar? Who the hell am I, Kyle, the greatest rapper of all time, if he reached his breaking point? You have to treat yourself with self-respect.