TORONTO — Nearly 16 years before Saturday night, Vince Carter did what he seemed to be doing annually at that point: mess with the Toronto Raptors in the most painful way possible.
On Nov. 22, 2008, Carter scored 12 points in the final 45 seconds of regulation to help his New Jersey Nets force overtime after trailing by 7 points with 39 seconds left. That flurry ended with a tying 3 just before the buzzer. And then in overtime, Carter broke a tie by finishing an alley-oop pass out of an out-of-bounds play with a reverse dunk.
“Carter — oh no!” then-Raptors play-by-play man Chuck Swirsky said on the call.
That fit as a general description of the Raptors’ relationship with their first superstar back then.
That game wasn’t even the most memorable of Carter’s “revenge games” against his former team, from which he bitterly parted, bad feelings on both sides, four years before that via trade. That distinction belongs to his third game back in Toronto following the trade, when Carter scored 42 points, including the game-winning 3, in January 2006. (That was the same month Kobe Bryant scored 81 against the Raptors.) When Carter dunked that ball home in 2008, Raptors fans were deflated, but not especially surprised. At that point, Carter’s Nets tenure was past its peak. Jason Kidd, who helped revitalize Carter’s career, was gone. The Raptors were at a nadir, but the Nets were in a bad place, too.
Mostly, it just seemed like Carter would continue to underachieve based on the expectations he set with his electric early seasons in Toronto, but return to gleefully twist the knife in the back of the franchise he put on the map every so often until he retired. It felt like everyone was resigned to the relationship playing out that way.
Instead, the Raptors retired his number Saturday night.
Vince Carter’s iconic No. 15 is officially raised to the rafters at Scotiabank Arena 🙌
🎥 @NBApic.twitter.com/UgNgE0NmJC
— The Athletic (@TheAthletic) November 3, 2024
“Have you seen me lately?” Carter said more than three hours before the ceremony at halftime of the Raptors’ 131-128 overtime win over the Sacramento Kings. He had to stop repeatedly to collect his emotions several times during his 30-minute news conference. “I really don’t know what else to say. I feel like my emotions speak louder than words. … If you can’t really understand that, I mean, (you’re) walking around with deaf ears and blind eyes.”
To get from 2004 to 2008 to Saturday was one of the least likely recent NBA journeys. Documenting it fully would require a novella, or at least a long oral history. Anger, apathy, gratitude and forgiveness were all part of the ride.
Saturday, finally: catharsis. For Carter and maybe some of the fans who cheered for him, too.
Celebrating a Legend #15Forever pic.twitter.com/jV8h9vVI1e
— Toronto Raptors (@Raptors) November 3, 2024
“The celebration of the time spent is what I’ve always wanted,” Carter said. “If it went as far as just the (City Edition jerseys featuring the Raptors mascot putting the ball through its legs, like Carter in the 2000 Dunk Contest), with the honour of me on a uniform, do you know how big that is?”
“I think trying to put (his journey with the Raptors) in perspective is probably — not the toughest, but (it) fills my heart and it oozes and overloads, because I have an appreciation of all of this. And I think that’s why I’m so damn emotional. I was always taught, and I always believed, that when you appreciate something and it means something, this is how you react.”
There are no opinions left to have about the Raptors honouring Carter; you agree with it or you don’t, and nothing that was going to happen Saturday was going to change that. There are valid reasons to hold both opinions.
What was cool about it, though, is that it didn’t feel like a normal celebration of a player. It sounded and looked like a typical hagiography, because these things inevitably trend that way. It is the language of the jersey retirement.
It was the messiness of everything — the highs and lows — that makes the Carter-Raptors relationship so different, and made Saturday different.
Relationship. That is the key word, because it connotes the fullness of what has been involved between Carter, the Raptors and their fans. No highlight, sentiment or image can capture the quarter-century Carter and the Raptors have been in and out of each others’ lives, which is precisely why Carter has been so overtly emotional over the last month.
The fans greeted Carter with a monstrous ovation to begin the 23-minute ceremony at halftime. Carter responded with more tears and a primal scream. That lent a clue to why this ceremony felt a little rawer than other similar festivities. Most honourees are defined by the good times. With Carter and the Raptors, there was as much good as bad, with his tenure ending on a bummer of a note.
We will see how the relationship continues. He will be a colour commentator, along with former teammate Alvin Williams and play-by-play man Matt Devlin, for a few broadcasts on Sportsnet this year. The Raptors have gone out of their way to promote Carter’s ties to the team during their 30th season, but it is admittedly a season when they don’t have much else to promote.
That there might be more to the relationship is the shock of the year — if the year were 2008.
“Today, your emotion being here (might be) a proud moment or a cool moment or a wowing moment, but it’s still a moment and a feeling,” Carter said at the news conference “And I say all those feelings are splattered on that Carter, 15 (banner) tonight. And it’s gonna sit in that arena — forever.”
In all its glory, in all its messiness, and everything in between.
(Photo: Mark Blinch / Getty Images)
