{"id":789122,"date":"2026-05-11T16:38:31","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T16:38:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/789122\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T16:38:31","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T16:38:31","slug":"yet-when-vanvleet-addressed-the-room-in-las-vegas-his","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/789122\/","title":{"rendered":"Yet when VanVleet addressed the room in Las Vegas, his \u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Soon after he was elected president of the National Basketball Players Association, <a class=\"link \" href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/nba\/players\/5727\/\" data-i13n=\"sec:content-canvas;subsec:anchor_text;elm:context_link\" data-ylk=\"slk:Fred VanVleet;sec:content-canvas;subsec:anchor_text;elm:context_link;itc:0\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Fred VanVleet&quot;,&quot;ySubModuleName&quot;:&quot;anchor_text&quot;,&quot;yHasCommerce&quot;:false}\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Fred VanVleet<\/a>, the stocky point guard of the <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/basketball\/nba\/teams\/houston-rockets\/10\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Houston Rockets;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Houston Rockets&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Houston Rockets<\/a>, walked to the front of a Las Vegas ballroom. It was July 2025, a few weeks removed from the <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/basketball\/nba\/teams\/oklahoma-city-thunder\/25\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Oklahoma City Thunder;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Oklahoma City Thunder&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a> winning the NBA Finals, yet the ensuing season was already under way. Rookies had been drafted. Developmental prospects had come to Vegas for exhibition games. And with them had arrived a basketball establishment\u2014coaches, executives, team owners\u2014accustomed to flying high. Revenues were up. A collective-bargaining agreement was in place. The new media deal was kicking in. Nothing, it seemed, could stop the juggernaut inspired by James Naismith and his peach baskets back in 1891. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/culture\/2026\/05\/adam-silver-nba-playoffs-tanking\/686918\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Yet when VanVleet addressed the room in Las Vegas, his first words were a warning. \u201cDon\u2019t f--- up the game,\u201d he said;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Yet when VanVleet addressed the room in Las Vegas, his first words were a warning. \u201cDon\u2019t f--- up the game,\u201d he said&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Yet when VanVleet addressed the room in Las Vegas, his first words were a warning. \u201cDon\u2019t f&#8212; up the game,\u201d he said<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/culture\/2026\/05\/adam-silver-nba-playoffs-tanking\/686918\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:The Atlantic;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;The Atlantic&quot;}\" class=\"link \">The Atlantic<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Soon after he was elected president of the National Basketball Players Association, Fred VanVleet, the stocky point guard&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":789123,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[40],"tags":[8608,3136,322430,2184,243566,1260,1268,62,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-789122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-fred-vanvleet","tag-houston-rockets","tag-james-naismith","tag-las-vegas","tag-national-basketball-players-association","tag-nba","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116556930036520452","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=789122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/789123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=789122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=789122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=789122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}