Even Dwight Howard boos Vince Carter

Photo credit: Ron Turenne/NBAE

Don’t believe me? Check out the 53 second mark of this video. 🙂

As a sneakerhead, I wonder who Vince Carter gave his royal blue Nike Shox player edition kicks to after he switched to black ones (shown above) at halftime? Were they booing him too? I doubt it.

All jokes aside, with Sunday’s win, Vince Carter is now 7-6 in his career (including playoffs) when facing the Raptors IN Toronto as an opponent. As a fan of the Raptors franchise since its 1995-96 inaugural season, I choose to remember the positives that Vince brought to a relatively new franchise as opposed the negatives that caused him to leave Toronto in such a disappointing way for everyone: Vince, the organization, and the fans.

I understand the disdain most Raptors fans have for Vince, and why they are compelled to boo him relentlessly, especially if you were a season ticket holder during those years – specifically in Vince’s final 2 seasons with the team. I’m certain my attitude toward specific players would change tremendously as a season ticket holder, knowing my hard earned dollars are helping to pay athletes’ million dollar salaries.

Despite a less than warm reception Vince was likely to receive, the Toronto Raptors organization had planned to honour Vince in the form of a jumbotron tribute as part of the franchise’s 15 year anniversary. To avoid embarassing Vince, or themselves for that matter, if the home ACC crowd had other ideas, they ultimately left the decision to Vince himself. He politely declined, and considering how much of a sore spot VC still is for many Raptors faithful, it’s probably for the best that any type of franchise honour is now left until he retires from the league. As Eric Smith of the Fan 590 & Raptors.com said, “We might just have to wait for another 15 years to pass for that to happen…”.

Are Raptors fans holding a grudge they should let go of? I can tell you that I have heard that sentiment from more than one NBA fan. Or is it justified, and those who think it’s petty don’t know the full story because they didn’t have to ‘go through it’ as Raptors fans did?

With that said, I personally like to think Vince helped make the Raptors a legitimate franchise and put Toronto on the map in the minds of the basketball fans south of the border. He was the 1999 NBA Rookie of the Year, 2000 All-Star weekend Slam Dunk champion, and he was the reason NBC changed their NBA schedule to televise a Raptors matinee tilt the following weekend for the Raptors first ever US broadcast. Not to mention that Vince led the Raptors to the 2001 Eastern Conference Semi-Finals playoff appearance (in a Game 7 road loss to the Philapelphia 76ers).

Vince Carter’s infamous 2005 interview with John Thompson televised on TNT was the validation disgruntled Raptors fans wanted, when he stated that he didn’t push himself as hard as he should have in Toronto. There’s no doubt that Vince immediately became one of Toronto’s most loathed athletes with those comments, but to believe he NEVER pushed himself or NEVER gave 100% while he was in Toronto is ludicrous in my mind – given the accolades I mentioned earlier that spanned his 7 seasons with the Raptors.

Holly MacKenzie of The Score, SLAM Magazine, and NBA.com, posted a nicely written piece today that presents her thoughts on Vince Carter. She was also able to interview him and get his thoughts as he returned to Toronto once again.

In an attempt to try and make this as objective of a blog post as possible, for an Orlando Magic fan’s perspective, check out Ben Q. Rock’s game recap from Sunday at his blog ‘3rd Quarter Collapse‘.

I don’t know that Vince Carter will be a subject of discussion that will ever lose it’s bitterness within Raptors Nation. Well, maybe once the Raptors are able to get to the Eastern Confernce finals or beyond it’ll have less of a sting…but until then Vince will still arguably be the best player the Raptors franchise has had AND at the same time…the most vilified.