Raptors should announce retiring Vince Carter's jersey soon

[Dennis 37]

It's always funny to me that we're going to probably retire his jersey here when someone like Carmelo stayed for longer with Denver, had more success with Denver, had a less ugly departure (Nuggets definitely got more out of the trade request) and yet ownership was very much of the opinion that no, we're not going to put that legacy in the rafters.

I guess they have higher standards. We are the Raptors fanbase, we celebrate losing and Carter allowed us to be recognized by
US media.

As many have mentioned in this thread, Toronto wasn't even on the map and Carter helped give us exposure and validate us Canadians by putting us on American television.

I say put his jersey up there. He didn't represent winning or leadership but did help us to get exposure and be liked by Americans at that time. He put us on the map. Perhaps a future Raptor player will see his jersey up there and use it as a symbolic gesture one day as an inspiration to emulate Carter's leadership, attitude and success.

Uh, I am so tired of this. This being June 6th, we should recognize that this is the anniversary of the day Canadians were put on the map. The Normandy landing map. We were assigned Juno beach and our volunteer army made it further into France than the other armies. Credit to the Americans though, as their beach was more of a challenge.

While it is all good that Americans like us, that is not the reason we exist. We shouldn't really give a crap how many American Raptor fans there are as it does not benefit our team at all.

Putting Kyle Lowry's jersey up there some day will be a far greater inspiration to Canadian kids. Carter excelled because of talent, whereas Kyle excelled due to hard work. Every one can work hard, only the few are gifted bodies and talent that will have an advantage.

[Fairview4Life]

I said it before and I'll say it again. At the time, our franchise was run by a bunch of clowns. If I were him, and we drafted Araujo, and hired Kevin Oniel / Sam Mitchell, I'd be calling my agent every day demanding my way out, and if that didn't work I'd just call in sick or stop dunking. Ya, professional athletes get paid millions, but they are also not free to leave whenever they want or quit a bad situation like us plebs. Everyone's holding onto their childhood / teen feelings of betrayal by their hero and need to let it go and look at it like an adult. Our franchise was a poorly run, amateur hour joke.

If we had the management, facilities and culture we do now, Vince would have never left.

But he did leave. After accomplishing very little, except for some relatively meaningless personal accolades. So why retire his jersey. Seems more like the people holding on to their childhood might be the "Vince put us on the map and is the GROAT" crew to me.

[TheGeneral99]

I’ve changed my mind on this. I’d rather not retire it.

I don’t mind retiring it eventually but Lowry needs to be first and since he’s still going, I see no problem in waiting to retire his number a few years from now. They can do some nod to him with a city edition jersey if they want.

You can't set that precedent. If you do that then any star that we develop and has any modicum of success will feel entitled to having their jersey retired even if they **** off the franchise and the city. It will be "Well look at how Vince left and they still retired his jersey". Management sucking was an unfortunate reality during Vince's time here, but I don't think it excuses the way he left. It's a no for him and Bosh. It's Lowry and maybe DeRozan who I lean more towards having his jersey retired. Nobody else at this point, not even Kawhi as legendary as he is in this city.

I agree with this, the bar for jersey retirement needs to be HIGH. I think we already mended the fences with Vince by honoring him on the 20th year anniversary for example. No need for more.

Sure, Vince had a lot of personal accomplishments with our franchise and accelerated the growth of basketball here, but his actual team accomplishments were subpar, he was injured for half of his stint here, was a poor leader, and did not have a great work-ethic, often preferring to take difficult jumpers instead of being aggressive, something many of his teammates complained about him. To top it all off, he left in an unprofessional manner. We tend to look at older players with rose coloured glasses as time passes, but if Vince was playing today and acted like he did back then he would get absolutely roasted by this board and all over social media.

Lowry and Derozan, while not even close to as talented talented as Carter, had the heart/leadership/work-ethic that Carter never had. They played hard every night, had significant team accomplishments with multiple 50+ winning teams and deep playoff runs, and made improvements every year. Lowry, in particular, was everything that the city represents...being an undersized underdog who played like a bulldog, sacrificing his body, and playing harder than everyone on the court. Both Lowry and Derozan played here for 9 years...a very long time and were healthy for the majority.

In an ideal world you wish that Derozan possessed the physical/athletic gifts that Carter had because that would have turned out to be one of the greatest players of all-time in my opinion. I give credit to Derozan from revolutionizing his game from a raw athletic player to one of the craftiest and skilled players of this era despite his poor defense.

[TheGeneral99]

I said it before and I'll say it again. At the time, our franchise was run by a bunch of clowns. If I were him, and we drafted Araujo, and hired Kevin Oniel / Sam Mitchell, I'd be calling my agent every day demanding my way out, and if that didn't work I'd just call in sick or stop dunking. Ya, professional athletes get paid millions, but they are also not free to leave whenever they want or quit a bad situation like us plebs. Everyone's holding onto their childhood / teen feelings of betrayal by their hero and need to let it go and look at it like an adult. Our franchise was a poorly run, amateur hour joke.

If we had the management, facilities and culture we do now, Vince would have never left.

But he did leave. After accomplishing very little, except for some relatively meaningless personal accolades. So why retire his jersey. Seems more like the people holding on to their childhood might be the "Vince put us on the map and is the GROAT" crew to me.

And the irony is that Bosh was just on the cusp of becoming an all-star.

Vince and Bosh together would have been a pretty lethal duo from 2005-2008 and may have had a deep playoff run with some luck.

Would have been very interesting to see a line-up of Calderon, Parker, Vince, Bosh, Rasho hypothetically.

[PerfectJab]

I said it before and I'll say it again. At the time, our franchise was run by a bunch of clowns. If I were him, and we drafted Araujo, and hired Kevin Oniel / Sam Mitchell, I'd be calling my agent every day demanding my way out, and if that didn't work I'd just call in sick or stop dunking. Ya, professional athletes get paid millions, but they are also not free to leave whenever they want or quit a bad situation like us plebs. Everyone's holding onto their childhood / teen feelings of betrayal by their hero and need to let it go and look at it like an adult. Our franchise was a poorly run, amateur hour joke.

If we had the management, facilities and culture we do now, Vince would have never left.

But he did leave. After accomplishing very little, except for some relatively meaningless personal accolades. So why retire his jersey. Seems more like the people holding on to their childhood might be the "Vince put us on the map and is the GROAT" crew to me.

And the irony is that Bosh was just on the cusp of becoming an all-star.

Vince and Bosh together would have been a pretty lethal duo from 2005-2008 and may have had a deep playoff run with some luck.

Would have been very interesting to see a line-up of Calderon, Parker, Vince, Bosh, Rasho hypothetically.

Lol, I don't think that lineup would have been successful. It would be one of the softest and poorest defensive lineups in the league at that time.

[Corson27]

I said it before and I'll say it again. At the time, our franchise was run by a bunch of clowns. If I were him, and we drafted Araujo, and hired Kevin Oniel / Sam Mitchell, I'd be calling my agent every day demanding my way out, and if that didn't work I'd just call in sick or stop dunking. Ya, professional athletes get paid millions, but they are also not free to leave whenever they want or quit a bad situation like us plebs. Everyone's holding onto their childhood / teen feelings of betrayal by their hero and need to let it go and look at it like an adult. Our franchise was a poorly run, amateur hour joke.

If we had the management, facilities and culture we do now, Vince would have never left.

But he did leave. After accomplishing very little, except for some relatively meaningless personal accolades. So why retire his jersey. Seems more like the people holding on to their childhood might be the "Vince put us on the map and is the GROAT" crew to me.

And the irony is that Bosh was just on the cusp of becoming an all-star.

Vince and Bosh together would have been a pretty lethal duo from 2005-2008 and may have had a deep playoff run with some luck.

Would have been very interesting to see a line-up of Calderon, Parker, Vince, Bosh, Rasho hypothetically.

That would have been an all time bad defensive lineup lol

[Corson27]

I said it before and I'll say it again. At the time, our franchise was run by a bunch of clowns. If I were him, and we drafted Araujo, and hired Kevin Oniel / Sam Mitchell, I'd be calling my agent every day demanding my way out, and if that didn't work I'd just call in sick or stop dunking. Ya, professional athletes get paid millions, but they are also not free to leave whenever they want or quit a bad situation like us plebs. Everyone's holding onto their childhood / teen feelings of betrayal by their hero and need to let it go and look at it like an adult. Our franchise was a poorly run, amateur hour joke.

If we had the management, facilities and culture we do now, Vince would have never left.

Independent of the Vince debate that's been dealt with ad nauseum, I think it's interesting that otherwise rational people are generally quick to let the worst run management in the sport at the time off the hook. Peddie and Babcock were a generationally bad management duo (what Peddie did to the Leafs was worse in ways unseen since Harold Ballard since the Raptors at least had some playoff appearances under Colangelo) and set the MLSE sports teams back a literal decade until Leiweke was hired. But their profit margins were good so that's all that mattered to the board i suppose.

[kalel123]

I said it before and I'll say it again. At the time, our franchise was run by a bunch of clowns. If I were him, and we drafted Araujo, and hired Kevin Oniel / Sam Mitchell, I'd be calling my agent every day demanding my way out, and if that didn't work I'd just call in sick or stop dunking. Ya, professional athletes get paid millions, but they are also not free to leave whenever they want or quit a bad situation like us plebs. Everyone's holding onto their childhood / teen feelings of betrayal by their hero and need to let it go and look at it like an adult. Our franchise was a poorly run, amateur hour joke.

If we had the management, facilities and culture we do now, Vince would have never left.

Independent of the Vince debate that's been dealt with ad nauseum, I think it's interesting that otherwise rational people are generally quick to let the worst run management in the sport at the time off the hook. Peddie and Babcock were a generationally bad management duo (what Peddie did to the Leafs was worse in ways unseen since Harold Ballard since the Raptors at least had some playoff appearances under Colangelo) and set the MLSE sports teams back a literal decade until Leiweke was hired. But their profit margins were good so that's all that mattered to the board i suppose.

Someone needs their basic logic 101. Saying Carter should be held accountable of his own actions doesn't mean you are letting the management at the time off the hook. Just like holding that management accountable shouldn't mean you let Carter off the hook for the **** he pulled.

[Kris_Banks]

I would never retire Vince Carter's jersey. He faked an injury, stopped playing hard, and gave out our team plays after time-outs, all in an attempt to get traded. He's someone I never want to see in Toronto ever again.

[Nebuchadnezzar]

I would never retire Vince Carter's jersey. He faked an injury, stopped playing hard, and gave out our team plays after time-outs, all in an attempt to get traded. He's someone I never want to see in Toronto ever again.

And yet without him there's a good chance we wouldn't have Kelly Olynyk and RJ Barret on our team 20 years later, not would Shai or Jamal be balling out of there minds on the national team, nor would the Denver Nuggets have a championship......

That's the real impact he's had. That's why his jersey should be retired.

[C_Money]

I would never retire Vince Carter's jersey. He faked an injury, stopped playing hard, and gave out our team plays after time-outs, all in an attempt to get traded. He's someone I never want to see in Toronto ever again.

And yet without him there's a good chance we wouldn't have Kelly Olynyk and RJ Barret on our team 20 years later, not would Shai or Jamal be balling out of there minds on the national team, nor would the Denver Nuggets have a championship......

That's the real impact he's had. That's why his jersey should be retired.

Put him in the Canadian basketball hall of fame in that case. He doesn’t need his Raptors jersey retired for it.

[Nebuchadnezzar]

I would never retire Vince Carter's jersey. He faked an injury, stopped playing hard, and gave out our team plays after time-outs, all in an attempt to get traded. He's someone I never want to see in Toronto ever again.

And yet without him there's a good chance we wouldn't have Kelly Olynyk and RJ Barret on our team 20 years later, not would Shai or Jamal be balling out of there minds on the national team, nor would the Denver Nuggets have a championship......

That's the real impact he's had. That's why his jersey should be retired.

Put him in the Canadian basketball hall of fame in that case. He doesn’t need his Raptors jersey retired for it.

The basketball Hall of Fame is not necessarily about the NBA, there are players in the hall that never played in the NBA. Also, greatest dunker of all time achieved while in a raptors jersey, so there's that.

[Corson27]

“They don’t run any plays for him,” Marbury said. “He doesn’t get the ball at all. You could tell he’s not the focal of the team anymore. I don’t understand it, but hey, he doesn’t have to be the focal when he plays against us.”

Marbury and Tim Thomas both had turns on Carter, who lit the Knicks up Wednesday for 23 points. “I don’t think the offense is geared for him,” Marbury said. ” I’m just speaking of just guarding him. When you’re guarding him, you expect to be running off a lot of screens, having a lot of isolations, For him to be posting me up. There wasn’t any of that.”