This is an IHeart podcast.

Guaranteed Human.

Now joining us today is someone who is a proud example of vetting on himself.

After going undrafted in the 2016 draft, he turned a Summer League invite into a G-League

championship.

And only two years later, winning an NBA championship since has become an all-NBA defender and All-Star.

I'm a big fan of this guy, not only for his play on the core, but just his perseverance

and his journey and being an under-sized guy and getting it done at the highest level.

Currently is recovering from ACL surgery right now with detour September 25th.

Welcome to the show, Fred Van Fleet. What's up,

Fred? Man, appreciate you, bro. There's a hell of an intro. Appreciate you. Come on, man. Yeah,

that's what you've earned. So talk to us. Obviously, going down, shoot really right before

training camp, forth with your first real knee injury walk us through what happened

and what has really been the mental process unfortunately but fortunately now acels are very common

and it's not like it used to be acal something you can come back even stronger from so we know that'll

happen for you but what has been the mental process of this

journey? Because this is your first real knee injury. Yeah, it was tough. You know, it was a heartbreaking

moment. Getting ready for the season and tip top shape, probably the best shape I've been in, you know,

since college, how I felt just moving and grooving and knowing the move that we made this summer

to have a chance to build towards

the championship. So that was my mindset, just playing fives, getting ready for, I think, camp or

Media Day was the next week after. So it was like right before Media Day, you know, that vibe

...