Malinhion wrote:Vince gets a bad rap. While his volume scoring hasn't been that great, IMO he is one of the easiest players to fit into an offense. He can carry the load like he did in Toronto, or be a secondary playmaker alongside a dominant point-guard like Jason Kidd.
True.
Truth is, Vince gets knocked a lot for staying out at the three-point line. But he actually drives to the hole a lot more than other players, drawing fouls at a higher rate and taking a greater percentage of his shots in the paint than do most wings--especially at his age.
Not so much, no. Vince's DrawF and his other indicators (FTA/FGA, FTA/g and such) are indicative of a guy who really isn't as aggressive as he should be and have been since 01-02. He got a bit of a boost in his first year and a half, two and a half years in Jersey because of the new rules but he's rather markedly below the elite level in terms of drawing fouls.
Yes, he takes a lot of treys, but its because he shies away from his midrange game, not from driving to the hole. This actually results in a very high scoring efficiency despite his tendency for jumpers, even on the inside.
That's actually explicitly untrue, especially last year. Vince took 495 shots point-blank, took 273 3PA and took 518 shots in the mid-range zones.... or a good 40% of his shots. That's actually a higher percentage than either the point-blank drives or the threes (considerably more than the threes and roughly the same as the point-blank stuff). He was definitely working the mid-range game... as he has since his second season. Vince has a simple post game, has a great pull-up and moves (as you note) particularly well off the ball for jumpers on curls and pin-down action and the like.
He's more of a combination of finisher and playmaker, in line with players like Kobe and Carmelo.
Worse than Kobe, markedly superior to Carmelo. Kobe Bryant is one of the point-forwards of the league, ala Lebron and T-Mac. Vince isn't quite at that level, though he is indeed an underrated ball-handler and distributor. We ran him at the point in short stretches when we wanted big lineups in one of his last two seasons in Toronto.
This added versatility really makes him easy to put onto any team. I think he could easily be a second option on a title contender.
Unquestionably; Vince's ideal role is second bananna on a contender.
Carter is just as good as Pierce, if not better.
Talent-wise, undoubtedly. But he's neither a comparable rebounder nor a comparable defender. Vince is a more talented scorer and in general a better shooter. Pierce is a better post scorer, close as a shooter (he's had a 40%+ 3P season or two himself) and is a lot tougher.
Pierce may indeed be hyped because of the Finals but there are truths (excuse the awful pun) about his game that have been noted since early in his career and those things have not changed to date. He's tough, he's aggressive... Vince is a better playoff performer as "The Man," though. A lot better.
Birth of the Cool wrote:I'll agree with the above. VC was naturally gifted with a great physique but he was never a gym rat and who knows how much that might have effected his potential to get injuries. I'll also agree the Nellie thing was unprofessional (not saying he faked an injury or that doing some dumb dance steps means he wasn't injured but it's just dumb on all other levels). However, VC has matured since the trade and maybe the backlash helped speed up his maturity process. For the most part as a Nets player he is far more mature but he still gets hated on for things far in his past and has innuendo /false "facts" that burdens his image (Thompson interview saying that he didn't try his last year with the Raps which was edited & Thompson already stated wasn't true or that he called out a play vs Seattle which Ray Allen who was guarding him had denied & the play resulted in a Matt Bonner score from a VC pass).
Yeah, I was watching that game, that wasn't a big deal at all. And Vince's comments about effort and the like were indeed taken out of context and muddled. That was unfortunate, and Toronto's response to that was mostly unfair, especially to a guy who had been The Franchise for a half-decade or so. Vince basically made basketball in Canada relevant, and it isn't often that we stop to recognize that.
I'll agree VC doesn't like contact but that doesn't mean he makes half ass attempts to score.
I never meant to imply that, I meant that he tends to go to his jumper (especially his fade) or to incredibly difficult, acrobatic layup attempts instead of putting his shoulder in a guy's chest and bullying his way to the rim, or just jumping into a guy to incite contact. He's certainly no Wade or Kobe, he doesn't do a lot to help inflate his foul calls, he just whines at the refs (not a criticism, almost everyone does that and it's basically expected).
VC once said that he tried to play that way & go full force to the paint & try to initiate contact & draw fouls (ala Maggette) but it wasn't working (wasn't getting the fouls) and he was frank and said he didn't feel comfortable doing so & preferred to try and find a way to score and if he gets fouled he gets fouled.
Which is a weak mentality and Vince hasn't played that way since basically his second season in the league. He wasn't getting a lot of respect because he was a really young player and he just didn't stick with it.
Sometimes I do wish he would just get real aggressive and force the ref to make a call but on the other hand I respect a guy who has the old school mentality of scoring on his opponent and not relying on a referee to bail him out.
It's not necessarily about relying on the ref to bail you out, though, I mean he doesn't have to be Wade, flailing around like he got hammered or Iverson, sliding 18 feet across the floor with a miffed look on his face. Just stay aggressive and initiate contact while trying to make the shot.
In regards to the jumpshooting thing again VC last year & year before & year before took less % of shot attempts as jumpshots than guys like Kobe / Pierce / T-Mac, etc.
This year for example 67% of his shot attempts were jumpshots which is the same as someone known for being aggressive, Maggette. (Also See Joe Johnson 80% / Paul Pierce 70% / Ben Gordon 85% / Josh Howard 79% / T-Mac 80% / Kobe 75% / Redd 71% / Crawford 86% / Igoudala 72% / Arenas 79%, etc). He's not the aggressive player that RJ / LeBron / DWade / Artest are but he's not this chucker that many seem to think he is either.
He's not a chucker, the problem is more the type of long shots he takes. He takes a lot of bad fadeaways. Anyway, in New Jersey, he's actually posting very solid scoring efficiency numbers and in particular, this past season, he took under 4 3PA/g, which was FANTASTIC to see. The big problem was that his FTA/g dropped off from 7 a game to 5.6. and he was taking almost 3 fewer shots per game than the previous year, so he went from around 25 ppg to around 21 (he lost a full ppg because of the FT drop and 2.2 ppg from the drop off in shot attempts, as well as about 0.7 ppg from fewer 3s).
I'll also agree that in Toronto at a certain point he started to get those nagging injuries too often and seemed to nurse them too long BUT he got berated for it in the media and with the fans and at one point he came back too early to try & help the Raptors make a push for the playoffs and ended up injuring his knee (this might have been soon after the dunk & twirl over Duncan and the Spurs IIRC). So again it cut's both ways.
Well, no; it's his own damned fault for being a lazy punk about his conditioning. It's one of the reasons T-Mac fell off so hard after his epic 32 ppg season (he hadn't started doing in-season conditioning until that season). And yes, Vince came back too early one season and that hurt him... but one instance doesn't forgive 3 years of that stuff. Some of them (most of them) were perfectly legitimate injuries (though primarily his fault), some were freak accidents from landing on, say, Bruce Bowen's foot and crumpling his ankle (which legitimately can take over a month to heal), but some them...
tsherkin wrote:Again agree (but disagree again lol). He enjoys the limelight & loves to take the pressure shots for sure yet at the same time he prefers to defer leadership
That is precisely what I meant; he's as cool as the smoke off of dry ice in the clutch, one of his many very positive traits... but he's neither a vocal leader nor a guy who wants the media presure of being The Man.
I think expectations really are at the heart of the matter. The OP asks what did Vince Carter do ? Most critics see it as What Vince Carter didn't do. Expectations has killed him in the media. I read so many people saying he could easily have been MJ or better which I find laughable.
He had the physical traits for it (everything from body type to body control to leaping ability and quickness) and he turned himself into an outstanding shooter. He had everything but the mentality to be as good as anyone ever saw out of a wing player. He just didn't live up to his potential.
It's shouldn't be VC's fault or burden that he OVERACHIEVED early in his NBA Career
He did not overachieve at any point in his NBA career.
VC worked on these things & improved but no one gives him credit for that.
Yes they do; most people point to his jumper as the only time he ever put in any kind of off-season work on his game while playing for the Raptors, though it is fair to note that he improved his dribble-penetration strategies and skills while here and since leaving, he has become a very fine passer in Frank's offense (and just in general, I don't want to imply it's system-related).
I don't think it's that disappointing. His dunk in your face style has lessened due to decrease of athleticism (still high among NBA players) and also frankly because it is a style that increases one's chances of injures (impact of knee's/joints landing on the court over & over & over & also just the increase of physical contact when playing that way...see DWade).
I'm not disappointed that he's not a dunk-in-your-face guy; I'm disappointed he didn't develop his post game more effectively, because that skill gives Kobe Bryant 10 FTA/g in tandem with his dribble-driving ability and is a lot easier on the body than those forays to the rim. Jordan did it, too, it helped him maintain his DrawF as he got older.
I'm disappointed Vince hasn't become a craftier scorer and that he hasn't maintained around 8+ FTA/g, especially in the 04-05 and beyond no-handchecking era. I'm disappointed that he hasn't developed his game and been a dominant scorer, regardless of style. I like watching Vince, even now. I like it even when his only dunk in a game is a breakaway 360, all alone. He's got a beautiful game to watch, the problem is that he just doesn't apply himself sufficiently in order to be truly amazing at it. It's frustrating to see all that talent, to see what other guys do that he could easily emulate and just DOESN'T.
Vince is a great player... but he could have been an all-time great if he just cared about basketball more and worked on his game. If he didn't want to do the run-and-dunk thing, that's perfectly understandable... being able to walk after you retire is high on the list of things to be capable of doing, I understand that. But there are ground-bound guys who draw craploads of fouls without threatening to get much farther than 6" off the floor and he could do that, certainly he could do it better with his strength, jumper and hops (Jordan's turnaround fadeaway comes to mind, as long as he knew when and how to counter with the inside pivot and then the reverse pivot and the duck-in floater, etc).
