LMAO! Yes, proper use of basketball statistics is the greatest sign of intellect this side of Asperger's Syndrome. And a specialty smilie, just for me! Look, like I told pg, I'm not going to make little jokes about your beloved hero again. If you want my honest opinion, (and I've watched a lot of the great ones starting with Moses, Erving, Magic, Bird, and so-on), after watching Vince, he doesn't seem to have that extra gear of competitive drive that will push him into elite company. But I don't want to give people such heartburn, 4sure. I'll let the heavyweights discuss him, and I'll go back to the Hangout. Who knew it was more civil there than in the NBA forum. edit: careful, Mr. C!
There is no tension. It was only the day after the draft. The ink was still wet. If he did say that after he met Bosh, then it would be stupid. But given the circumstances, it was no big deal. Carter probably wasn't hoping for a mid-level vet. The Raptors had talks about bringing in Rasheed Wallace, so Carter was probably hoping to play with his NC alumni. Besides, Carter and Bosh met on Monday to practice and train and I'm sure they get along just fine. Carter even said before the draft that he likes Bosh, because he's athletic. Again, the media trying to spin this whole thing around against Carter. Also, Carter's D is not 'horrible'...it's horrible for a superstar maybe, but average in the league. His play is just fine since his recovery. The month after he got back, he played well and passed amazingly. Too bad his teammates can't shoot open jumpers.
Nah, Mr. Clutchcity's point is valid. He does take ill-advised shots at times, but it's better than letting Antonio Davis, Mo Pete, or JYD shoot any shot, except for maybe a dunk.
I know Vince is soft, But a guard who shoots over 45% is not a bad shooter period. We had a superstar who used to shoot a ton of fadeaways and he turned out to have a pretty good career. And Vince has shot 40% from three point range in two of his seasons. Vince's problem isn't shooting, because he is really good shooter, its toughness.
Hakeem actually did not shoot all that many fadeaways. I'd say like 1 in 5 shots were fadeaways, if that. He relied a lot more on his hook shot. Carter needs to come up with another go-to move. Maybe it is his softness that makes him settle for that shot. It also looks to me that his first step isn't all that quick, he's pretty lanky and can't always get by the defender.
I think his softness is directly due to his knee injury. He was fine for the first 3 years and throughout college. If he manages to recover 100%, then I'm sure he can have a successful career. His first step coming into the league was pretty good. Check out some of these videos: 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 Team USA
Wow. Missed a lot. Okay, point by point... 1) The comment itself: Not all that big of a deal, but also not a wise move. There are two reasons why Carter shouldn't have made what was otherwise an pretty innocuous statement: It probalby doesn't make things any easier for Bosh, and Carter should know by now that he is wearing a huge bull's eye with the media. I would have to hear the context, and whether or not he feels misrepresented, or stands by these comments to be able to fully judge them, but it's hardly indicative of anything significant. The guy is merely echoing what all the draftniks ahave been saying re: Bosh, that he's a year or two away, and adding his own desire to win right away. Big whoop. The stupid part is, if accurate, these statemtns don't show a great deal of senstivity towards a younger player, and this from a guy who's gotten enough unwarrented criticism that he should know better. 2) Carter and winning: I did a huge thread on this once, but to narrow it down the numbers showed that Carter came to a worse team than jordan did, and got them a lot further than MJ did in his 1st 4 years. The difference is that from that point on MJ enjoyed great health and Scottie Pippen while Carter had a knee injury that knocked him out for about a year, and has had to make do without anything close to a Scottie Pippen. One player teams don't win, and in his 1st 3 seasons Carter improved the Raps significantly every year pretty much by himself. When healthy he is among the top players in the league, although that hasn't been for a while now. But people in the age of microwave attention spans forget what Carter was doing up till when he got hurt, and are also assuming a great deal about his injury that is based on conjecture...for example, his dunk over Tim Duncan last year came after the surgery, and when he himself said he wasn't back in top shape. 3) Carter and the playoff %: Three things should be remembered when considering his playoff performace: 1) They came in his 2nd and 3rd years in the league.Who can you name that were the stars of their teams and shot better in the playoffs early on, especially perim players?...look up MJ's percentages in his 1st 3 years in the playoffs...and don't forget to duck all the brooms. 2) They came when he was by far the guy each of the opposing teams ( openly) keyed on...and he still shot a decent %, all told...and 3) He played 3 playoff series...2 against JVG's Knicks, and 1 against Larry Brown's Sixers...which, I should remind you, were each among the top 3 defensive teams each of those years... 4) Carter as a person: Yeah, I have issues with the guy. Mostly I think he's kind of an undecided person who is constantly oscilating between being what different groups/people etc. say he should be. One week he's a gimmie the ball and I'll carry us kind of guy, the next he's looking to get everyone involved and be a team player...and he's good at both, which makes it tougher to tie him down. I think he has actually been wanting to have a tougher hand at the till than Wilkens, and O'Brien is certainly that. But in general I feel that Carter is too phlegmatic, and needs to find his own way and stick to it, and to hell with the critics. Yeah, he's really gotten some undue flack, and a lot of if started when he decided to balk at 'coming home' to the USA, so I can understand his frustration...but at some point you gotta kindsa say " Screw them, screw the refs, screw Jordan, screw Vescey, screw all of it." and go out and be what and who you want to be. 5) Carter and soft: yeah, sort of. Like many things with Carter, this is a weird area...There are times he plays through more crap than Iverson...he just gets pounded on a nightly basis, as teams have decided that's how to play him. And the problem is, unlike Iverson, Carter gets no calls. Partly his fault, as he does whine a lot, and he also is erratic in terms of when he does and doesn't play tough, so the refs aren't pre-disposed to give him the calls...but I will say this much in his defense: I have never...ever..seen anything close to the lack of ref-protection Carter gets, for a star, and this was even before his name was being bashed. He made it worse by getting into an ongoing feud with the refs, but if you watch the Raprs enough you will know what I'm talking about...the whole debate in Toronto isn't whether Carter gets screwed by the refs; that's a given. It's whether or not he deals with getting screwed properly, or whether by his actions ( pouting, throwing his hands up, avoiding the middle) he makes it worse/more permanent. I think if he decided to play tough, and keep his mouth shut for a couple of months straight, rather than on and off, he'd start to get the calls, or at least get called more fairly...but so far he does that for a little while, and then he has periods where he plays soft, or complains all the time, and any credit he's built up goes out the window. Forget about what's fair, Vince, and just play it as it lies, and it'll get better. Of course, it's easy for me to say that when I'm not geting drilled every time I go inside, and not getting the calls. 6) Carter's 1st step, and injuroes: Carter's 1st step, pre-injury, was better than Kobe or T-Mac or Pierce's. T-Mac himself said as much. It was amazing...whether it will get back to that level remains to be seen, but don't judge him too much on last year, as he was dealing with an injury for the very 1st time in his life, and was also, for the 1st time, out of game shape...add to that the fact that he had a lot of minor injuries, most of them what are called 'compensatory' injuries that players often get the 1st time they are coming back from being hurt, and it's waaay too soon to right him off as a diminshed talent. Jordan's injury early on in his career was a lot more significant, and he came back just fine...
Great post MacBeth, I think your best point is that Carter needs a coach to be firm with him because he doesn't know how he should play. Any guy who dunks on people's heads the way he does when healthy can't be too soft. I think Carter didn't expect his fame to rise so quickly and he really has never been in the spotlight. Even at Carolina he was second fiddle to Jamison. I think his success has surprised him and he just doesn't know how to deal with.
It WAS MOBLEY who said that..... And Carter. Haha. What team is going to trade their veteran for Chris Bosh?
Uhh....they already have Jerome Williams....who is like Kelvin Cato but a little smaller and better...Glen Rice would provide them with cap relief. But lol...I don't think they would do that.
Just a little sidenote to this thread, thought it'd be interesting Vince Carter: most overrated active player
Sorry MacB, but I have to try a little discussion now that a civil defender has arrived... Jordan shot 49% from the field during his first three regular seasons (so did Bird, by the way, approximately). For Jordan's career, he shot 48.7% from the field in the playoffs. During his first 10 playoff games, he "only" shot 45.3%, and this included, I believe a somewhat infamous huge game of 60 or so points against Boston (loss). After his first 20 playoff games, he was already back up to around 50% for his playoff total, but he had Pippen for some of those by then. And here is the team MJ joined in 84-85 (I'll give the top other six in terms of minutes played): Orlando Woolridge Quintin Dailey Steve Johnson Dave Corzine David Greenwood Wes Matthews Ugh. You'd have a hard time saying that's a better supporting cast (at the stages those people were in their careers) than a set of cadavers. By 86-87, he at least had Oakley and Paxson, and that is arguably better than any group Vince has had. As for "getting them farther," I don't think you can compare today's eastern conference with MJ's eastern conference during his early career! Look, it's not at all fair to compare Vince to MJ, in my opinion, but you did bring it up. And besides, I'm really enjoying getting in touch with my inner rainman now. In sum, we can't predict whether Vince will have an elite career, or a career that's a little better than that of Purvis Short (avg'd over 20 for a good number of years and had something like 20 40-pt games). For the record, I have no big problem with what he said about Hieronymous, or with Vince in general.
ESPN has a beef with Carter for some reason. Perhaps it's because he decided to stay with Toronto even though all their experts said he'd bolt. After all, they were the ones hyping him up big time. I don't think that being injured means a player is overrated. Overrated means that the person's skill is less than what everyone thinks it is, so if you get injured, it shouldn't count because it's not a good indicator of the skill level of that individual. Besides, if everyone thinks he's overrated, doesn't that nullify the point? If anything, Vince is currently underrated.
Wow, Vince Carter is a classless @ss. This isn't the same as Cat and Francis, Yao was an unknown, many people were down on Yao, and the majority of people had never seen him play. Mobley and others changed their tune after seeing him. Vince Carter, I don't know what he was thinking. Maybe if Vince Carter stayed healthy for a few months at a time they would win. Considering Carter's teammates get annoyed at him, he plays soft and he disappears in big games I wouldn't talk if I were him.
Maybe you should allow Vince to change his tune after seeing Bosh, which I'm sure he has by now. The quote was taken last Friday - less than a day after the draft. Bosh was still just a pick to him, not yet a player on the team.
on a second thought... you guys are taking this way too seriously, I never doubt that Vince will indeed change his opinion by the start of the training camp... just like the Vince-MJ All-star saga...
Woops..almost did it again, B-Bob... A couple of points...I don't have the numbers on hand anymore, but I did have them all on a post called " Letting The Air Out." Jordan's % was, I agree, usually pretty good to great for a guard. However a few salient points need to be addressed: Shot freedom, shot familiarity, and ref-protection. I broke this all down in that old thread, if you want to drag it out of the mothballs, but essentially it comes down to two factors: Jordan could and did take any shot he wanted, and his forays to the hoop or on the perimeter were so ref protected that if he missed he was usually expecting a call, and with some degree of foundation. His fta/fga ration was incredible for a guard, and when you break it down, his ppfga wasn't that much different from Carter's in his 1st few years. Add to that the fact that Carter is playing in a much more defensive era, and the fact that Jordan got to take so damned many shots which not only improves your flat ppg, but also, as Jordan himself climed many, many times, improves a great player's proficiency; ie the more shots you take, the better you get at them, particularly of the muscle memory type, like a fadeaway... And as to the teams they went to...I can't say much more than this: Carter went to a team with a worse record than Jordan, and improved them by more games. ANd as an added treat, do you remember the state of the Raptors when Carter was drafted? Isiah Thomas, their original architect, had bailed on the team, followed quickly by their coach, and star player and face of the franchise, Damon Stoudamire. Their two other star players, Marcus Camby and Doug Christie, were traded or demanded a trade respectively. The key player they got for Damon, Kenny Anderson, refused to join the team or even come to the city. Their new GM, Glen Grunwald, took the mike to addres the fans after the seasons closing game and was booed off the floor by a normally reserved Toronto crowd... ...and into this came Vince Carter. 1st year barely missed the playoffs...2nd year made it, but lost in the 1st round, amindst an attempted coup and generally bizarre behavour by their coach...3rd year won the 1st round and came within an inch of winning the second, and this after the one guy who had started to take some of the weight off of Carter's shoulders, T-Mac, bolted for warmer climes. And Carter was putting up 28 ppg, the Raps were selling out every game, and a huge draw on the road...People have since forgotten all of this. P.S...My biggest fear re: Carter has always been 'Nique. Neither has yet to have the number 2 star you need to really win. That is, IMO, what seperated MJ from Wilkens or Drexler for most of his career...you alone make your team good enough to not get a top draft pick, but not good enough to win the while thing...Jordan missed a year and got Pippen...Carter missed a year and got Bosh, but should have gotten Anthony...We'll see if that makes a difference.
spin, MacB, it's all spin! I've never seen such spin! Thanks for the reply. I should have dug up the old thread. Two small comments on your post (and your post makes some good sense to me): 1. not sure Jordan got all the calls during his first few years. I especially remember him always belly-aching about Detroit's defense of him. 2. I'm willing to call the today's-more-defensive era versus today's-pathetic-eastern-conference a wash. He truly had a phenomenal entrance to the league and made his team much much better. Your comparison to Nique (as a negative possible scenario) makes a little more sense than my Purvis Short mention, but still, Vince will have to stay really healthy to even reach Nique's historical status.
