I would love to see Vince Carter get a ring

[Dice]

I'd have to agree with Pack. Despite the fact that Vince had the talent to probably be the second best shooting guard of all time, doesn't mean he was a complete waste.

Could he had been better than what his career turned out to be? No doubt. If he’d cared a little about defense, he would have been one of the best players of this generation. BUT that doesn’t mean he’s a complete waste. BUT here is what separates Derrick Coleman, who I think is a true waste, and Vince Carter.

Looking at it from a position standpoint, Coleman’s ceiling was much higher than Carter’s. Coleman had the chance to be the BEST POWER FORWARD OF ALL TIME. If Coleman would have squeezed out every inch of talent he had, we would have been arguing about who was a better power forward between Karl Malone, Tim Duncan and Derrick Coleman. That’s how good he was. Carter on the other hand would have never exceeded Jordan as the best shooting guard of all time even if he squeezed every inch of talent he had. The best Carter would have done was to surpass Kobe.

Another thing about Carter and Coleman was Coleman’s personal deficiencies hindered his team more than Carter’s. Was Carter a ball hog who would stop an offense? In most respects, yes. BUT Coleman was a clubhouse cancer. His issues was more off court than on court. And if you ask anyone, off court issues are much harder to resolve than on court issues. Now in the case of Carter, yeah, he never did resolve his on court issues BUT his was less serious than Coleman’s.

And to Carter’s credit, he is an 8 time all star. Doesn’t mean much to some folks, including me. BUT take into consideration that Coleman only made ONE all star appearance when he’s was competing against guys like old Larry Nance, Horace Grant and Larry Johnson for top PF’s in the East during his prime. Not exactly HOF power forwards.

[VDusen04]

Quote: Originally Posted by Ruff Ryder

You could say the same thing about 98% of basketball players. But only a tiny percentage of them were gifted like Vince was.

I must ask, how do we believe these players become so gifted in the first place? I suppose it becomes a question of ethics and basketball development. On my end, I've never seen basketball players who were just born incredibly awesome. Yes, it's a supposed gift to grow to be 6'6'' with giant hands but developing the basketball skills, coordination, and abilities that Vince did is not a matter of being gifted, in my opinion. Rather, it's the result of years and years of hard work.

I find there to be a large spectrum between not trying at all and trying as hard as humanly possible every day of a person's life. I get this feeling that because people know Vince Carter did not work as hard as humanly possible, he must have then not worked at all. At the risk of sounding redundant, there's a lot of people out there with Carter's measurements and what many would refer to as "natural athletic talent". 99.9999999% of those players didn't do what Carter did. Youtube mixtapes are full of guys who could jump like Vince, but definitely couldn't play like Vince, and I don't think that's because Vince Carter was simply blessed at birth with the ability to pull up and drill buzzer beaters from 35 feet. Instead, it was something Carter spent a very significant amount of his life working toward.

A specific example may be James "Flight" White. I think it's arguable that White may have been nearly equal or superior to Carter in terms of athletic ability (and in this case, we seem to be using athletic ability to refer to height, length, speed, mobility, and jumping ability). As it turns out though, White wasn't a fraction of the player Vince Carter was and again, it's not my feeling this was because Carter had some mysterious natural basketball talent that he never had to develop and White didn't. Rather, again, I find Carter's skills were something he had to commit a lot of blood, sweat, and tears toward developing. I don't doubt White worked his butt off as well, but that should only go to show how tough it can be to achieve success on the NBA level and why I feel Carter catches an overwhelmingly excess amount of criticism, as if he's never had to work hard a day in his life.

Quote: Originally Posted by Ruff Ryder

There's something about just watching him play that rubs me wrong. Maybe it's his body language. Or maybe his lack of emotion. He looks disinterested most of the time. He doesn't even look like he's competing. On defense he just stands around, doesn't even know what a defensive stance looks like. He plays so unaggressively it's painful to watch. God knows he could have whipped anybody that tried to guard him but most of the time he decided he was going to settle for bad jumpshots.

This is most certainly not a criticism toward you, Ruff, but that paragraph there is a very good example of what I've heard a lot from folks in regards to Vince. I get a lot of "He just looks kind of disinterested sometimes" and "It's just his body language" and "All he does is settle for jumpshots". In many cases, it seems to be merely a hop, skip and a jump from the "I don't know if I like how his face looks" comments to the "he has no heart and is a waste" point of view. In short, it's often felt like open interpretations of how people thought Vince was working, playing and living and over time they've seemed to slowly turn into stones of truth, and that's where I object.

Quote: Originally Posted by Ruff Ryder

[b]I agree with Matrix. I went back and watched some of his old stuff over the summer and he was ridiculously gifted. I think talent wise, he had all of the ability to be the best player to play. You don't see guys gifted like him. He could jump higher than Mike, Kobe, T-Mac. I watched a couple games from that Philly series and in his third season, he was a complete offensive dynamo. He could score out of the triple threat, he could attack the basket, he had a post game, he had a jump shot, he could handle the basketball and had no problem creating space off the dribble. But at 24 years old, he seemingly just didn't get better.

I could see your point about his athletic peak possibly coming at age 24, but I feel there's a few things that clearly contributed to such a case. Further, I don't find it'd be accurate to say he severely dropped off after that age (nor do you suggest as such). However, I do think it's important to keep in mind that Vince did suffer relatively significant injuries as a 25 and 26 year old (playing in 60 and 43 games in the '02 and '03 seasons, respectively). I don't think it's terribly far-fetched to assume his game changed a little. Still, I don't find a player's improvement to be exponential and infinite. Different players peak at different points of their career. Vince averaged 27 ppg as a 24 year old. He averaged around 24 over the course of the next 6 years. Lebron James averaged 30 as a 24 year old. He's averaged around 28 in the years since. So again, I don't think it's outlandish to reach a statistical peak at 24.

With all that said, I do feel he continued to add wrinkles to his game as he aged. I thought he became a better facilitator, more willing to share the ball at the right moments, and even more likely to let the game come to him. I thought he was spectacular for a lot of his time in New Jersey. I do think those injuries zapped him of some athleticism (perhaps bouncing him from being out of this galaxy instead to being simply out of this world) but I'm still not sure I ever saw the potential for Jordan or Kobe-like greatness with Vince. I saw people saying that's what he should be achieving, but I'm not sure I agreed with their sentiments.

[Dice]

LOL @ Shaq being a waste. Probably one of the best centers of all time and he's a waste?

[ZB9]

Do ya'll think Vince Carter is a future hall of famer? With his 8 all star appearances and Olympic Gold Medal, he might be. He's probably borderline, but there are players in the HOF with lesser credentials.

[RedSceptile]

Quote: Originally Posted by Dice

LOL @ Shaq being a waste. Probably one of the best centers of all time and he's a waste?

Think Matrix point is he could have been the best player of all time. It's a waste in that his ceiling was much higher but he never worked to fully reach it. I see where he's coming from.

[Hassan Darkside]

Quote: Originally Posted by VDusen04

I must ask, how do we believe these players become so gifted in the first place? I suppose it becomes a question of ethics and basketball development. On my end, I've never seen basketball players who were just born incredibly awesome. Yes, it's a supposed gift to grow to be 6'6'' with giant hands but developing the basketball skills, coordination, and abilities that Vince did is not a matter of being gifted, in my opinion. Rather, it's the result of years and years of hard work. I find there to be a large spectrum between not trying at all and trying as hard as humanly possible every day of a person's life. I get this feeling that because people know Vince Carter did not work as hard as humanly possible, he must have then not worked at all. At the risk of sounding redundant, there's a lot of people out there with Carter's measurements and what many would refer to as "natural athletic talent". 99.9999999% of those players didn't do what Carter did. Youtube mixtapes are full of guys who could jump like Vince, but definitely couldn't play like Vince, and I don't think that's because Vince Carter was simply blessed at birth with the ability to pull up and drill buzzer beaters from 35 feet. Instead, it was something Carter spent a very significant amount of his life working toward. A specific example may be James "Flight" White. I think it's arguable that White may have been nearly equal or superior to Carter in terms of athletic ability (and in this case, we seem to be using athletic ability to refer to height, length, speed, mobility, and jumping ability). As it turns out though, White wasn't a fraction of the player Vince Carter was and again, it's not my feeling this was because Carter had some mysterious natural basketball talent that he never had to develop and White didn't. Rather, again, I find Carter's skills were something he had to commit a lot of blood, sweat, and tears toward developing. I don't doubt White worked his butt off as well, but that should only go to show how tough it can be to achieve success on the NBA level and why I feel Carter catches an overwhelmingly excess amount of criticism, as if he's never had to work hard a day in his life.

I feel you but my issue is it's like he stopped working, developing his game, becoming better. Some things come more natural to people than others. It's very possible that Vince could be more of a natural at basketball than James White was.

Quote:

This is most certainly not a criticism toward you, Ruff, but that paragraph there is a very good example of what I've heard a lot from folks in regards to Vince. I get a lot of "He just looks kind of disinterested sometimes" and "It's just his body language" and "All he does is settle for jumpshots". In many cases, it seems to be merely a hop, skip and a jump from the "I don't know if I like how his face looks" comments to the "he has no heart and is a waste" point of view. In short, it's often felt like open interpretations of how people thought Vince was working, playing and living and over time they've seemed to slowly turn into stones of truth, and that's where I object.

That's a big hop, skip, and a jump. A players attitude/body language is actually important and it reflects off of them either positively or negatively to teammates and observers. I don't understand why I'm supposed to sit here and watch him walk up and down the basketball court, trot around on defense not even looking at the ball, or stand in the corner at the 3 point line for an entire possessions and think that he's playing hard.

Quote:

I could see your point about his athletic peak possibly coming at age 24, but I feel there's a few things that clearly contributed to such a case. Further, I don't find it'd be accurate to say he severely dropped off after that age (nor do you suggest as such). However, I do think it's important to keep in mind that Vince did suffer relatively significant injuries as a 25 and 26 year old (playing in 60 and 43 games in the '02 and '03 seasons, respectively). I don't think it's terribly far-fetched to assume his game changed a little. Still, I don't find a player's improvement to be exponential and infinite. Different players peak at different points of their career. Vince averaged 27 ppg as a 24 year old. He averaged around 24 over the course of the next 6 years. Lebron James averaged 30 as a 24 year old. He's averaged around 28 in the years since. So again, I don't think it's outlandish to reach a statistical peak at 24.

Well LBJ had also been in the league 6-7 years when he was 24. I guess what I'm getting at is what people consider players "prime." I don't want to turn this thread into a debate over what prime is but I'm pretty certain most players don't reach it in their 3rd season. Usually when you see a guy tearing up the league in their third season you sit there giddy knowing that he's put this much together in this short of a time frame, he MUST be on the verge of destroying the league.

Now I agree 100% injuries impacted him, but he was also very much an athletic freak and still seemingly as athletic afterwards. Just not as aggressive. It's like the injuries had more of a mental impact on him. He definitely got jumpshot happy afterwards. He stopped attacking the basket like he used to. He lost that "fearlessness." A couple good fouls on him and he wouldn't go near the paint. The dude averages practically as many 3 pt attempts as he does freethrows.

Quote:

With all that said, I do feel he continued to add wrinkles to his game as he aged. I thought he became a better facilitator, more willing to share the ball at the right moments, and even more likely to let the game come to him. I thought he was spectacular for a lot of his time in New Jersey. I do think those injuries zapped him of some athleticism (perhaps bouncing him from being out of this galaxy instead to being simply out of this world) but I'm still not sure I ever saw the potential for Jordan or Kobe-like greatness with Vince. I saw people saying that's what he should be achieving, but I'm not sure I agreed with their sentiments.

I agree that he became more of a facilitator, but he also was on a better team in NJ as well. He was one of those guys that was a great player on a crappy team for a long time, but he just never struck me as the type of guy that was a "Put the team on my back even though we suck and try to take them as far as I can" type guy, like KG was. He seemed like the "I don't want to be here anymore so I'm just gonna go on auto-pilot until I can get out of here" type guy.

I just feel like if you gave VC that same drive/passion for the game that someone like Kobe or MJ had, he'd surpass both of them. And I know that it's "immeasurable" and "subjective" but you can just look at a guy and tell, just like when you watch enough sports and can look at a guy and tell that he's uninspired.

[ProfessaPackMan]

Quote:

"Put the team on my back even though we suck and try to take them as far as I can" type guy, like KG was. He seemed like the "I don't want to be here anymore so I'm just gonna go on auto-pilot until I can get out of here" type guy.

So what was he all those years in Toronto? Or does all that get ignored because he forced his way out in 05?

Hell, he did that in Jersey up until Ownership decided they didn't want to pay him or any player for that matter.

You say you could tell he was uninspired...but if that's the case, what was he in Toronto, when he put them on HIS back, and in Jersey when he carried them on HIS back then, especially in the playoffs? Again, that's a good *** front he put on during those times then.

[Dice]

Quote: Originally Posted by RedSceptile

Think Matrix point is he could have been the best player of all time. It's a waste in that his ceiling was much higher but he never worked to fully reach it. I see where he's coming from.

Eh. I never saw Shaq as potentially the best player of all time. Could he have had a better FT percentage? No doubt. Shaq could have been the NBA's all time leading scorer BUT he'd never would have been regarded as the best player of all time. He could have had the title of 'Best Center of all time' locked down with a little more effort. BUT he's far from a waste just because he's 'arguably' the 'Best Center of All Time'