Yet when VanVleet addressed the room in Las Vegas, his …
Soon after he was elected president of the National Basketball Players Association, Fred VanVleet , the stocky point guard of the Houston Rockets , walked to the front of a Las Vegas ballroom. It was July 2025, a few weeks removed from the Oklahoma City Thunder 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—coaches, executives, team owners—accustomed 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. Yet when VanVleet addressed the room in Las Vegas, his first words were a warning. “Don’t f--- up the game,” he said .
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