Despite the tremendous efforts put forth by point guard Fred VanVleet, the Toronto Raptors' up-and-down season came to its bitter end Wednesday evening, as they were bested in a win-or-die Play-In Tournament matchup by the Chicago Bulls. The contest was decided by a mere four points, with a final score reading 109-105.

Following the club's season-ending loss, VanVleet got brutally honest about Toronto's failure of a season, with The Athletic's Eric Koreen sharing a quote from the All-Star where he called out his club's inability to get with the times.

“We've got to find another identity. The chaos and the freedom, it worked when it worked. … I think for us, the devil is going to be in the details. … We can't try to carry it over by osmosis from a championship we won four years ago,” Fred VanVleet said.

This certainly isn't the first time VanVleet has voiced his frustrations with the state of his team. Just recently, Heavy Sports' NBA insider Steve Bulpett revealed a conversation held with the seventh-year veteran where he noted that while the Raptors are certainly talented, it seems as though they have little clue how to best utilize it.

“Talent by itself is just not good enough. You know, you’ve still got to do everything right every single day. You’ve got to be able to play as a team. You have to be able to execute and close out games,” VanVleet said. “Like, there’s so many other things that go into it. We could have no talent, so let’s start there. We could be in a situation where we don’t have talent. But like I said, we’ve just got to continue to find ways to be better as a group and do something with the talent that we have.”

Playing in 69 games this season, Fred VanVleet posted impressive per-game averages of 19.3 points, 7.2 assists, 4.1 rebounds, and 1.8 steals. Despite his efforts, and the presence of fellow star talent Pascal Siakam, the Raptors finished their 2022-23 campaign with a record of just 41-41.

With their loss to the Bulls, Toronto has now failed to qualify for the playoffs in two of their last three seasons.