Fred VanVleet has a new home.
The guard agreed to a three-year, $130 million deal — the first max contract of this free agent period — to join the Houston Rockets, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported Friday night.
The 29-year-old had declined his $22.8 million option with the Toronto Raptors for 2023-24 on June 12, creating intrigue throughout the league as one of the top players to enter the free agent pool.
Undrafted out of Wichita State in 2016, VavVleet has emerged as a solid NBA guard in the last few seasons –earning an All-Star nod in 2021-22 — and has now signed the largest contract for a player who was not selected in the draft, according to ESPN.
Since the 2019-20 season, VanVleet has averaged at least 17 points per game every season, including this year, where he scored 19.3 points per game on 39.3 percent shooting from the field.
He also chipped in a career-best 7.2 assists with 4.1 rebounds and 1.8 steals a game during his last season in Toronto.
During the 2018-19 season, he emerged as a key piece off the bench for Toronto’s backcourt and helped the Raptors win their first NBA title over the Golden State Warriors.
In the clinching Game 6, he contributed 22 points.
In November 2020, as he continued to solidify himself, he signed a four-year $85 million contract with the Raptors in 2020.
But earlier this year, as he was having another solid season, VanVleet said he was playing above his contract and indicated he wouldn’t sign an extension based on previous assessments of his play.
“I felt like I’ve outplayed that contract thus far. So just trying to get myself in a position to put the cards in their hands,” VanVleet said to ESPN in January.
“Without going too far into it … [I’m] just trying to put myself in a good position business-wise, and not take an extension on a deal that was made three or four years ago.”
TSN had reported earlier in June that VanVleet was eyeing a contract similar to that of the Miami Heat’s Tyler Herro, who is on a four-year $130 million dollar deal.
With VanVleet’s contract in Houston, he got the same dollar value but a higher average annual value.
VanVleet has averaged 14.6 and 5.3 assists per contest while shooting 40.2 percent from the field and 37.3 percent from beyond the 3-point arc over his seven-year career.
The Rockets, who finished 14th in the Western Conference this year, are also expected to go after forward Dillon Brooks, the Houston Chronicle reported.
Toronto did quickly find a replacement for the departing VanVleet, adding guard Dennis Schroder on a two-year, $26M deal, Wojnarowski reported.