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Vince Carter returns to Toronto in face of a video tribute, and complicated legacy
The Vince Carter story, starting around the midpoint of his third season in the NBA, will always remain a complicated one. Vince will retire in the next year or so as a top-25 all time scorer, he’ll have made eight All-Star games, and if his 10-1 Grizzlies keep up their winnin’ ways, possibly a championship ring.
He’ll also be known for squandering the above the rim promise his first two years showcased, choosing to live life as a perimeter type. On top of that, there is the question of his final year and a half in Toronto, one that saw him just about outright sabotaging a disappointing Raptors squad that thought they had a franchise cornerstone in the man once nicknamed “Air Canada.”
On Wednesday, those Grizzlies and Raptors will meet in Toronto, a pointed pairing pitching the two Canadian-based expansion teams that debuted in 1995, currently working as some of the best that their respective conferences have to offer. Mindful of the water under that bridge, and Vince’s impermanence as an active NBA player, the Raptors have decided to show a video tribute of Carter’s best times as a Raptor during the contest.
Not surprisingly, some Raptor fans don’t know what to think. The very good Raptors blog Raptors HQ opened the floor to the diehards to ask them if it was appropriate, in their eyes, to pay tribute to Carter’s 403 games in Toronto. The response was expectedly mixed:
For the unaware, to the eye (shooting stats are hard to come by prior to the season in question) Vince Carter appeared to slash less and stay on the perimeter more often starting in 2000-01. He then angered some, not all, by attending his college graduation in North Carolina on the same day as Game 7 of the 2001 Eastern Conference semifinals, symbolically missing the final shot at the buzzer after playing the entire game and contributing 20 points on 6-18 shooting with nine assists, seven rebounds and zero turnovers.
Carter later rightfully drew ire by admitting on record, after missing nearly half of 2002-03, that the Raptors should have traded for a veteran (a package including a lottery pick and the then-hot Donyell Marshall was offered to the Raptors from Chicago) instead of selecting Chris Bosh in the 2003 draft.
He was routinely mocked for milking every trip to the floor he took after injuries that didn’t quite take …
… and then 2004-05 hit.
Vince Carter averaged under 16 points per game for the Raptors in 20 games with the team, and made under 70 percent of his free throws. He reportedly revealed a last-second play to members of the Seattle SuperSonics before the Raptors missed a final shot. Following Toronto’s decision to trade Carter to New Jersey, it was hard to pick the final insult – Carter averaging 27 points per game with the Nets and shooting twice as many free throws per minute, or the fact that the Raptors took back a ridiculously poor array of players while still paying Alonzo Mourning $9 million to then rejoin the Nets.
The Raptors eventually rebounded and made the playoffs twice with Chris Bosh on the roster, but it wasn’t enough. Bridges have been burned more thoroughly, but VC’s drawn-out falling out with the Raptors was still pretty intense.
His legacy as a player remains as clouded. Even for those of us that are bored by discussing such things, the “is Vince Carter a Hall of Famer?” question is bound to create some perky and pointed conversations, even from those that don’t have a hard opinion about such things. A few months ago comedian Geoff Tate asked me if Vince Carter was the NBA’s version of Jay Leno on his podcast; with Leno acting as a performer who was once revered for his early brilliance before being universally reviled by just about every comedian who didn’t have a sellable product to promote on his show.
Should Raptor fans clap? Should they boo? Should they roll their eyes, decline to act interested, and wonder what Dwane Casey is going to come up with next out of the time out? That’s up to them, as they watch two fantastic teams represent two fantastic cities.
Merely waiting that tribute out isn’t the same as apathy, though. It’s just mindfulness in reaction to a complicated legacy. Vince Carter was great for Toronto, and the Raptors, and then he wasn’t. Time marches on, keep enjoying dunks.
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is an editor for Ball Don't Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at KDonhoops@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @KDonhoops
