In Defence Of: Vince Carter

There's Really No Debate That This Dunk Will Be
 At Or Close To The Top Of Every Best Dunks Of
All Time List For 50 Years (At Least)

(In Defence Of is a new regular feature on Full Court Pest who's goal is to defend players who have controversial and/or negatively viewed careers in the NBA. If you'd like to see someone defended, feel free to send the suggestion along, and if I agree, will do my best, enjoy!)

Being a Raptors fan (by default when you're Canadian) inherently involves having an informed opinion on Vince Carter. I've followed Carter's entire career. I can't disagree with anything in the well established plethora of his faults, but I've also got to say that rap sheet is overly harsh on Carter. It kills to me to have to defend him but I'm compelled when history is unjust.

One thing I know about the NBA: you can't win without good bigs. You just can't. At minimum you need someone who can rebound, defend and bring some toughness at the 5. Without it, the other team's tough role players to superstar big will exploit you a la Dwight Howard vs Big Z in last year's East finals. You need a Kendrick Perkins, a la Boston/Orlando in this years finals, or you are done. Agreed?

So who's the best big that Vince played with in his pre-Orlando career? That comes down to a choice between post-prime Antonio Davis who showed up being 31 years of age after he was still a role player topping out at 28 MPG in his prime in Indiana.

Everyone Wins Titles With The Diesal

Davis was an utter post season no show in 2000 with 9, 4 and 12 boards. Played well the next year (TO came within a shot of the east finals) and after that it was evident his time being an impact player was over, all before Carter entered his prime. Davis' season ending injuries sank the Raptors to the point that Toronto's best front court players were a 37 year old Kevin Willis and a 36 year old Charles Oakley.

The next best choice is Nenad Kristic. Do I need to say more? Except Kristic got hurt, so his best big was... a 39 year old Clifford Robinson! Seriously. Or maybe Josh Boone... and that's arguable.

So you have to do some comparisons with Carter's peers.

y = Carter + x (other player's big)

x (Manu/Parker) = Duncan y = titles
x (Kobe) = Shaq y = titles
x (Wade) = Shaq y = titles
x (Pierce) = KG y = titles
x (Kobe) = Pau/Odom y = titles

And that's an entire decade of champions minus the Pistons which is a team Carter would have no place being on. In the very, very least, the result of any of those pairings is legitimate contender.

Charles Oakley And His Girlfriend

The fact is, no one is going to win or make any noise starting an injured Nenad Kristic, post-prime injured Davis or on average 38 year old front courts. Or Josh Boone. Or Brian Scalanbrine who the Nets actually did start at center while Carter was there.

Carter deserves lots of blame, but no one else in that situation, Jason Kidd or not, is going to win in the post season even if they are. Michael Jordan who actually lost with prime, not 37 year old Charles Oakley. Does Jordan win with Clifford Robinson, Kristic or Josh Boone? No. People attach the losing to Vince because he was famous, however, if you follow those player's careers as starters you can see that they had their peaks with Vince Carter. Kristic 'starts' in OK City, but only plays 22 minutes a game.

People still act as if the losing is all Carter's fault. He didn't play optimally, his heart is questionable, he lacks toughness but even if he put in MJ performances, he probably wouldn't have won much more then he did, or at all. Maybe one year in TO he gets to the east finals. That's about it. MJ on the Raptors still loses. On the nets he loses to Shaq and the Heat twice. He still loses to Big Z when he was still an effective player with Bron in 07 cuz over 40 Cliff, Josh Boone and Mikki Moore just can't compete. And no one even considers that when Kidd left the Nets the team won the same # of games, 34, as the year before. When Carter left, they won 12 and Devin Harris did not look nearly as spectacular.

Sure, Vince mailed in some games and he's hated for it. Lest we forget though that in the NBA situation is everything. Carter's attitude stank, but not nearly as badly as the dysfunctional teams he spent his prime on. Now he's frankly too old to make up for either vs an absolute defensive juggernaut.

Vince Doesn't Deserve This

Lets be fair. Look up Coleman, Derrick or Mercer, Ron for players who are much worse examples of no effort postage. He's unquestionably the greatest NBA dunker of all time which is an accomplishment and put up pretty great numbers for his whole career. People are trying to fill him full of 'blame pie' like Kevin Spacey filled the fat guy full of spaghetti in Se7en. Hey, maybe that's justified. All I'm saying is relax Kevin, now that he's full of your hate-fruit filling, is it really necessary to kick him in the stomach?

What Lebron Really Said After Game 6

Bron Bron Didn't Seem As Happy After Game 6
Apparently Lebron was not so silent after all. Full Court Pest took the liberty of hiring the world's foremost body language expert to decipher exactly what Lebron was getting at after Orlando's game 6 win. He was kind enough to take some time away from his CIA post to give us this world exclusive. Enjoy.

"Gratz Magic, you won, but you're not the better team. I destroyed you and everyone in the world knows it. One, two or three open shots falling that normally fall for us and you don't make the finals. So I'm not taking anything away, but I'm not walking over and saying gratz as if you're the better team.I don't care that the media is going to say you are, you're not and we both know you're damned lucky to make it past us.

As for you guys in the media, I'm not going to go up there and listen to questions about why were not good enough and aren't going to the finals. My teammates didn't hit open shots. My front office chose to save money when they could have traded Wally's contract for a true star in a buyer's market and gotten him back when he agreed to a buy out to save that team more money anyway. Which would have happened because his trade was a money dump and Wally stated he did not want to leave in no uncertain terms. We could have gotten an extra star for free, and instead we got Joe Smith for extra.

If James Sprung For Something Better Then Digital Cameras When Buying For Multimillion Dollar Athletes, Maybe They Would Have Played Better
Lastly I'm not going to slag my teammates and pretend like its really their fault that a live by the three team happened to live, cuz while the magic won, they're going to get killed in a finals match up that my team would have killed in. Even though everyone will say the Magic were the better team because that's what Stern and ABC and ESPN and TNT and the sports writers and the owners and everyone who makes money off this game wants. I don't care to say it and dance for the man. I don't believe it and I don't need it. I have my pride.

They need to say that so they make as much money as possible. I'm a player. And players don't give a damn what you say. We make our money under contract and don't need to create a false sense of accomplishment for the teams at the end to sell the finals. I don't have to recoup the millions Nike wasted from the ads pitting me and Kobe against each other. The millions they paid me to do them are in my bank account right now. I'll use the money I made in the fraction of a second I coughed on set to pay the 25k fine. They were ripping off Jimmy Kimmel and Adam Carrola's Crank Yankers anyway.

Hedo Turkoglu In His Best Possible Defensive Stance vs Lebron... Or Anyone
If we played this series out 10 more times my team wins 10 times. Its the secret everyone knows but won't say. No, I'm not going to your press conference to talk about other people. I know no one has questions about me because I made sure all Lebron related questions were answered fully, in triplicate, on the court. Did you see what I did to their defense? I'm not going to let you see me defeated and make a spectacle out of Lebron James failing like you did to Dirk in 97, Kobe in 98 and Britney Spears 'come back' at the MTV awards. I'm smart enough to see a media set up coming and I'm not walking into it to give you an opportunity to mess with my head for a couple of headlines so you can sell yourself by putting your name below my picture.

You'll see us here again next year because you know and I know that I'm the future of this league. Stern knows it too and you just watch his reaction to what I'm telling you. Slap on the wrist cuz for the first time in over a decade that man knows his league is in steady, capable hands once again. I reiterate, you're not going to see me in defeat. Not on the court saying good job. Not in the press conference answering questions you already know the answers to.

These Guys Are Saying The Two Best Teams Are In.......... SHOCKING!
If you think this is anything more then a blip I have two words for you. Fuck and you. I'm not arrogant or stupid enough to tell you the truth though. And I'm not lame enough to sit there and give political answers dancing around the truth. So I'm choosing none of the above and filling in the blank with integrity. See you next year twice as hungry."

Hmm... I'm not sure if thats 'precisely' a word for word translation, and something tells me this CIA guy might have grown up in Cleveland. If you'd like to send feedback just stand next to your nearest non-suspicious looking plant and voice your opinions... his people will make sure your input will find its way to him... or you can just comment below.