SG - Vince Carter
For all of the grief Carter gets for not being a winning player, it's becoming time for people to just accept what he is and move on. Carter represents a particular aspect of professional sports that exists so far out of normal public life its endless intriguing. Here is a player who is perfectly happy being where he is as a player and a teammate, and yet because of his natural abilities people vilify him for being complacent and indifferent. It's like someone slamming a gifted co-worker at the office for not dying to do paperwork long into the night. Carter is simply a guy who is living out his dream and not holding anyone back as a result of it. Sure he's getting paid unimaginable sums of money, but no one can argue that he doesn't put forth effort to earn it - scoring, rebounding and assisting like he does in the NBA takes tremendous effort -he, however, just chooses to play his game and go home. People want borderline sociopathic behavior from all comers because a league of guys with the dedication of Kobe Bryant or Kevin Garnett would be incredibly exciting to watch. But that kind of personality is rare and potentially destructive even amongst winners. Carter has simply chosen his path and found people willing to pay him gobs of money to do it. He isn't the first athlete for whom this is true and he won't be the last. To continue to rail on about it a decade later is getting a little bit redundant, one thinks.
http://www.tsn.ca/nba/story/?id=248308
