One of the last few remnants of the Toronto Raptors' championship roster has left the team. Fred VanVleet, the star point guard of Toronto, decided to sign a lucrative new contract with the Houston Rockets. After his departure, rumors of his and Pascal Siakam's displeasure with the younger players of Toronto started to surface. In a podcast appearance on The Pivot, VanVleet addressed these rumors.

Fred VanVleet said that the rumors surrounding him and Siakam were a bit overblown, as NBA rumors often tend to be. However, VanVleet also acknowledged that there was a lot of turmoil around the Raptors last season. VanVleet cited that drop in the team's play (from a fifth seed to nearly falling out of the Play-In) as a source of the troubles.

Indeed, the Raptors' 2023 season was nothing like the previous year. Many hoped that the Raptors would take a leap after surprising everyone by taking the fifth seed during the previous year. However, a massive regression from both VanVleet and Scottie Barnes (and their weaknesses getting more exposed) caused the team to fail miserably last year. They managed to squeeze into the Play-In Tournament, but they were bounced in embarrassing fashion by the Bulls in the first round of the tournament.

Now, the Raptors are moving on from VanVleet, as the star point guard signed a big deal with the Rockets. Meanwhile, Toronto signed former Lakers point guard Dennis Schroder to bolster their guard rotation. Can Toronto bounce back from their disastrous campaign and put together another winning season?