{"id":807816,"date":"2026-07-18T08:00:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T08:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/807816\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T08:00:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T08:00:12","slug":"fred-vanvleet-talks-acl-recovery-optimism-for-2026-27","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/807816\/","title":{"rendered":"Fred VanVleet Talks ACL Recovery, Optimism For 2026\/27"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Speaking to <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/andscape.com\/features\/houston-rockets-guard-fred-vanvleet-feels-like-a-rookie-again-in-return-from-knee-injury\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Erik Horne of Andscape<\/a> last week in Las Vegas, Rockets guard <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/v\/vanvlfr01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.hoopsrumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-07-17_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Fred VanVleet<\/a> said his recovery from a torn right ACL and meniscus has \u201ctested\u201d his mental toughness and patience over the last \u201cnine or 10 months.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>VanVleet, who exercised his $25MM player option for next season in June, was disappointed he missed all of 2025\/26, including Houston\u2019s first-round postseason loss to the Lakers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe playoffs was pretty hard,\u201d VanVleet said. \u201cI was about six months into that [rehab] time. I remember they told me I could come back in six months. I was feeling good some days. And then Game 1 or Game 2 [of the playoffs] and I was like, \u2018Damn, I\u2019m going to miss the whole [season]. I\u2019m not coming back.\u2019 That was a tough time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>According to Horne, VanVleet has been working out every day and said he \u201cfeels like a rookie again\u201d as he prepares for next season. The former All-Star is optimistic he\u2019ll be ready to play in the Rockets\u2019 preseason slate in October.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ll be very disappointed if I\u2019m not playing in the preseason,\u201d VanVleet told Andscape. \u201cWhat I missed the most was the outlet, the exertion, the escape of whatever our lives are in our worlds. I took for granted a lot of things of what I do because I just have been doing it every day for my whole life.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut the mental escape and the physical exertion of getting that energy out and wanting to bump people and cuss at referees, to have the highs and the lows and the failure and the success, I really just love every aspect of the game. So, to have that taken away from me was very humbling and eye-opening.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>One of the top undrafted players in NBA history, VanVleet won a championship with the Raptors in 2019 and was named to his lone All-Star team in 2021\/22. The 32-year-old is bullish about the Rockets\u2019 title chances ahead of \u201926\/27, though he admitted the team has a \u201clot of work to do.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe can win a championship next year,\u201d VanVleet told Horne. \u201cBut that\u2019s internal.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Speaking to Erik Horne of Andscape last week in Las Vegas, Rockets guard Fred VanVleet said his recovery&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":807817,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,19703,85],"class_list":["post-807816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-fred-vanvleet","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=807816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807816\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/807817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=807816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=807816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=807816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}