NBA Free Agency: The Final Chance for Vince Carter’s Redemption at BetLM

NBA Free Agency: The Final Chance for Vince Carter’s Redemption

At the 2000 NBA All-Star Game, Vince Carter put in one of the most pro­lific, maybe the sin­gle best per­for­mances in NBA history.

In the 2000 sum­mer Olympics, Vince Carter dunked over Fred­eric Weis in arguably the most famous pos­ter­i­za­tion of all time.

And in the early to mid-2000-s, Carter put together one of the best runs in New Jer­sey Nets his­tory along­side Jason Kidd and Richard Jef­fer­son (shoutout to Kerry Kittles).

Other than that, Vince Carter has been a model of dis­ap­point­ment for fans and exec­u­tives. Which is bizarre since he is simul­ta­ne­ously one of the top 40 best play­ers of the past decade. You can make a pretty good argu­ment for him to be top 20 and if you got top 15, you’re not high. Top ten and things get a lit­tle smokey, but the point is the same.

In Orlando, it was sup­posed to be his chance to make the dif­fer­ence, to be the final piece. He didn’t need to be the man, he just needed to be Vince Carter Great, which is a very spe­cific brand of Great at his age. And yet, the same issues that have plagued him and lead to mock­ery (eas­ily sus­cep­ti­ble to injury, ques­tion­able heart, fail­ure to deliver in the biggest moments, air­balling free throws) tor­mented him. He was traded to the Phoenix Suns in essen­tially a com­bi­na­tion deal for Hedo Turkoglu and Gilbert Are­nas for cry­ing out loud (the Arenas-for-Lewis deal was sep­a­rate but wouldn’t have occurred with­out the Phoenix deal for Carter).

So there it is. More injuries, more ques­tions, more vul­ner­a­bil­ity, more jokes, despite an arguable Hall of Fame career if a few more things had gone his way. His 2006–2007 sea­son? He played 82 games. And the list of play­ers who scored 24 points and a 21 PER? It includes play­ers like Dwyane Wade, David Robin­son, Larry Bird, and Oscar Robinson.

But he never made the dif­fer­ence and the way he bailed on Toronto and the way his time ended in so many places will haunt his legacy.

But he gets one more shot.

From ESPN.com:

Vince Carter isn’t a free agent yet, but sources close to the sit­u­a­tion say the eight-time All-Star will be thrust onto the open mar­ket shortly after the end of the lockout.

Based on an amend­ment in his con­tract obtained by ESPN.com, Carter must be waived by the Phoenix Suns within 72 hours of the offi­cial start of free agency or his $ 18 mil­lion salary for the 2011-12 sea­son becomes fully guaranteed.

The Suns, sources said, have already decided to waive Carter within that window.

The Suns and Carter amended the con­tract in June to delay the guaranteed-salary date in Carter’s final con­tract year until after the lock­out ended. Waiv­ing Carter inside the first 72 hours after the league’s sched­ule start of free agency Fri­day means that Phoenix would only have to pay $ 4 mil­lion to Carter and likely ensure that the Suns avoid luxury-tax ter­ri­tory this sea­son even after try­ing to com­plete the re-signing of Grant Hill and moves with other poten­tial free agents.

via Sources: Phoenix Suns to cut Vince Carter when lock­out ends — ESPN.

Carter will hit the open mar­ket. The Suns and Carter restruc­tured his con­tract to help both sides out in the face of the lock­out. This move was expected for months. And when he does, he’s the kind of player that can help a team win a title. “Right, like the Magic?” you say. But hear me out.

He’ll never again be the dif­fer­ence maker. Run­ning the pick and roll is not a strength (ask Dwight Howard). If he’s going to make a dif­fer­ence, it’s going to be as a spot-up shooter and the guy who pump-fakes and hits the mid-range J. But there are sim­ply not many guys with his abil­ity to blend into an offense if he’s not expected to cre­ate. That’s the biggest issue with Carter at this point, he can’t cre­ate and he can’t give heavy min­utes. But in lim­ited min­utes, off the bench for a stocked team, he pro­vides enough to force away dou­ble teams. The Heat are an obvi­ous tar­get. But then so are the Bulls. You have to dou­ble Der­rick Rose. It’s a neces­sity like breath­ing. But if you do so and he kicks out to Carter, and you do man­age to recover to chal­lenge on the perime­ter, Carter is one of the few play­ers who can pump fake and drive. He can make the plays few play­ers can, even at his age with his injuries. Lim­ited min­utes will reduce his work­load. And being a glue guy? It’s hard to fine any­one in the league who will speak badly for Carter as a team­mate. Fans may hate him, but play­ers love him, even if some may ques­tion his intensity.

He shot 42% from the field in Phoenix. Pretty bad. 36% from the arc. Not great. But it’s sim­ply unlikely that with a bet­ter role, in a bet­ter sys­tem, with fewer expec­ta­tions, he can’t be a dif­fer­ence maker. There’s a chance here. Carter can redeem him­self, rede­fine his legacy.

It’s Carter’s last chance. We’ll see if the story that began with a pro­lific dunker gets a much-needed full-circle to greatness.

Our sports betting news features unique sports betting articles as well as current sports news compiled from leading wire services. This arti­cle was dis­trib­uted by Syn­di­cated Sports news wire and aggre­ga­tion ser­vice, For more NBA news see: NBA Free Agency: The final chance for Vince Carter’s redemp­tion.

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