Fred VanVleet exploded at the refs for the most profane rant of the young NBA season

On By Littum

Fred VanVleet is no stranger to blowing up at NBA officialsbut his tiff with the referees in the final seconds of Houston Rockets‘ 104-98 loss to Portland Trail Blazers was extreme even by his standards.

It’s not immediately clear what VanVleet was so upset about, but eagle-eyed online lip readers seemed to catch him calling each judge “a b—-” — and nearly poking one in the eye! — while getting ejected with 4.1 seconds left in the game Saturday night:

Fortunately for VanVleet, his seemingly inevitable suspension won’t be quite as long as the initial video made it appear, as an alternate angle made it clear that he just narrowly avoided contact with line referee John Conley, which likely would having seen him on the sidelines for a while:

This is easily the most explosive outburst I can remember cameras catching between a player and umpires since Kelly Oubre insulted the bloodlines of an entire umpiring team last March, and given that VanVleet almost made contact with an umpire as well… he looks set to miss at least a few games for the 12-6 Rockets and faces a significant fine.

In fairness to VanVleet, though, the NBA may have led him to believe that this behavior can get him good results. In 2023, VanVleet was fined $30,000 for calling referee Ben Taylor “f—ing awful.” That might not sound good on its face… until you realize that the NBA unofficially demoted Taylor by no longer giving him crew chief duties after VanVleet’s detonation.

So while VanVleet will very clearly be fined (at the very least) again here, if it results in Conley facing similar consequences to his old nemesis Taylor… the Rockets guard may be happy with the trade-off.