Paul Jay is a graduate of the Ryerson University School
of Journalism with nearly a decade of experience writing news and features. His
previous sports-writing experience includes a four-year stint as Sportsnet.ca's
resident basketball columnist, and most recently as a member of CBC Sports Online
covering the Athens 2004 Olympics. As a freelance writer, Paul's work has appeared
in Saturday Night, This Magazine, National Post Business Magazine, Canadian Lawyer
and the Toronto Star. He maintains a blog devoted to basketballl called Shoot
the Jay.
INDEPTH: VINCE CARTERVince
Carter and the Raptors: Dissecting the Trade
by Paul Jay | Dec. 18, 2004
Vince Carter has finally been traded from
the Toronto Raptors. Not for an equivalent star like Steve
Francis, Ray Allen or Baron Davis, for those days of pie-in-the-sky
optimism have long since passed. And not for some unholy collection
of equally overpriced and underwhelming players (Tim Thomas? Anfernee
Hardaway?) found amidst the lint of New York Knicks general manager
Isiah Thomas' deep pockets.
No, the trade of Carter to the New Jersey Nets for Alonzo Mourning, Eric Williams, Aaron Williams and two first round draft picks brings cold reality to the value of a player once thought of as a league standard-bearer. What is Vince Carter worth? A couple of solid veterans, a couple of draft picks and an aging big man of suspect longevity. That's it.
Here's what is amazing about this trade: it's actually a good deal for Toronto. But that has more to do with Carter than who Toronto received.
Carter has taken a heap of criticism over the years for everything wrong with the Raptors, and some of it was unfair. He wasn't tough enough, they said. Reporters who must have minored in physiology reported that Vince had a "low pain threshold" and often compared him unfavourably to Alvin Williams, the team's point guard who insisted on playing on knees that lacked cartilage. Alvin, now gone for the season and possibly for his career, was lauded for continually damaging his legs, while Carter was lampooned as a "momma's boy."
This year, however, Carter finally proved his critics right. From the moment he asked to be traded during the summer, he mentally checked out. If you looked closely as he loafed on the court in a state of permanent ennui, you might have been surprised to note that his eyes were indeed open, for if anyone could be accused of sleepwalking through games, it was Vince.
He didn't even try to play defence. His shot selection, never a strong suit, became almost flippant. Increasingly he spent the fourth quarter on the bench. He spent more time hugging the opposition than his teammates. He played 20 games like this before finally crying ouch and taking a seat on the bench.
So for Toronto, Carter's departure was as inevitable as it was necessary. But can basketball survive financially in Toronto without Vince?
It's a reasonable question, but the truth is the Raptors were already on their way to finding out. This year the team has averaged 17,069 fans per game, down from last year's average of 18,307. It marked the third straight year attendance declined since the 2001-02 season, when the Air Canada Centre averaged 19,766 fans a game. As Vince declined, so did the fan base. His departure will likely continue the trend, but so long as NHL hockey is off the map, attendance will likely stabilize.
The greater question is whether general manager Rob Babcock and coach Sam Mitchell can give the fans something to cheer about in the absence of Carter's all-too-infrequent but still-exciting aerial manoeuvres.
In the short term, Toronto gets two gritty players (small forward Eric Williams and centre Aaron Williams) with modest salaries and experience and size -- two quantities in short supply in Toronto. Both players could supplant Morris Peterson and Loren Woods, respectively, in the starting lineup. But even if they don't, they'll play significant minutes in coach Sam Mitchell's 10-man rotation.
The Raptors also get Mourning, but what they do with him is a mystery. Likely he'll beg to join a contender like Phoenix, Dallas or Minnesota, and maybe Rob Babcock has a deal in mind. Mourning is set to earn $6.4 million US in 2006-07, the last of the three years remaining on his contract. It's intriguing to imagine a healthy Mourning paired alongside cornerstone player Chris Bosh, but the veteran's kidney situation makes him a continual risk.
Over in New Jersey, the trade should make star point guard Jason Kidd happier. It gives him two of the most athletic players in the league (Carter and Richard Jefferson) to be on the receiving end of alley-oop dunks, and makes it marginally more likely New Jersey will make the playoffs, although the loss of Mourning and Aaron Williams leaves the Nets with one of the smallest lineups in the league. And any playoff hopes are based on the never-certain assumption that Carter will be healthy.
But this deal will always be more important to Toronto than New Jersey. Should the Raptors waste their draft picks, as they appear to have done this season with Rafael Araujo, then fans may start yet another doomsday clock on the Raptors career of Chris Bosh, the team's last hope for superstardom.
And should Carter return to his glorious form of four seasons ago, NBA historians may look back on this trade in dismay, as we do now when we see that Wilt Chamberlain was once traded from the Philadelphia 76ers to the Los Angeles Lakers for Archie Clark, Darrall Imhoff and Jerry Chambers -- three men who, it can be safely said, you have never seen play.
Trading a superstar is always fraught with peril. But is Carter indeed a superstar, or just another shattered could-have-been like Penny Hardaway? The answer to that one now matters to another fan base. As the Raptors trade Carter away, so too must Canadians give up asking whether he has any air left.
As we say goodbye to him, we might also take a moment to say goodbye to the six years of debates in bars, on talk radio, on TV highlight shows. Canadian fans may never again have such a strong opinion of an NBA player as we did of Carter, who excited, mystified, enraged and always brought exciting and animated discourse to any conversation about sport. In the end, that may be what I miss most of all.
