If someone had told you in 2003 that Vince Carter’s No. 15 would be the first jersey retired by the Toronto Raptors, no one would’ve batted an eye. Of course, Carter’s contentious 2004 exit and the events that preceded his midseason trade to New Jersey changed the equation. The perennial All-Star left behind a complicated and polarizing legacy.
Two decades later, news that the Raptors will bestow Carter with this unprecedented honor has been met with understandable debate. But those still fighting this reconciliation need to let it go.
No one’s defending the way Carter handled his final days in Toronto. He half-heartedly pledged to stop dunking, he reportedly tipped off opponents about what game-ending play the Raptors were about to run, and he later admitted that he didn’t always push himself as hard as he should have.
That attitude, and Carter’s injury history at the time, played a role in the Raptors settling for perhaps the worst trade return for an All-Star in NBA history. Carter then made matters infinitely worse by playing some of his best basketball as a member of the Nets. He took great pleasure in saving his most dramatic road heroics for the Air Canada Centre, an arena he’d helped christen only a few years earlier.
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No matter how inept the mid-aughts Raptors front office was or what was going on behind the scenes to disgruntle Carter (like the team taking his mother’s parking spot away), the way he handled it was inexcusable. Few players have earned the level of vitriol hurled Carter’s way the first few times he returned to Toronto. So this decision wasn’t exactly cut and dried, especially with only one playoff series victory to show for all the Carter-era drama.
But the franchise wasn’t blameless in how the relationship deteriorated and ultimately ended.
Over the last decade, the hatchet has mostly been buried between the player and team, with boos turning to cheers during the franchise’s 20th anniversary season. Carter has also acknowledged the younger version of himself could’ve handled things better and stated unequivocally that he’ll represent Toronto when he’s inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame next month.
What better time to rise above the pettiness and hang Carter’s jersey?
Some, including people within the walls of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, believe franchise icon Kyle Lowry should have his No. 7 retired first. That would’ve been a tremendous gesture if Lowry had retired at the end of last season. In that case, raising Lowry’s jersey to open the season and hanging Carter’s next to it a week later would’ve made sense.
But Lowry is still active, Carter is set to become the first true Raptors Hall of Famer (all due respect to Hakeem Olajuwon, Tracy McGrady, and Chris Bosh), and the franchise is preparing to celebrate its 30th anniversary season. The timing for Carter just feels right.
It also would’ve been embarrassing for all involved if Carter’s jersey hung in Brooklyn, of all places, before it did in Canada. (The Nets will retire Carter’s jersey in January.)
Carter may not be the best Raptor ever, and he no longer boasts the greatest Raptors resume, but he was the franchise’s first megastar. He brought a desperately needed measure of relevance and respectability to a burgeoning team north of the border at a time when the country was losing professional sports teams from Vancouver to Montreal.
I don’t believe the Raptors would’ve gone the way of the Grizzlies without Carter, but Toronto’s development as a basketball city undoubtedly got a boost from the hysteria of Vinsanity. Fans of a certain age will never forget where they were the first time the Raptors appeared on U.S. national television, with NBC’s iconic “Roundball Rock” giving way to shots of the Toronto skyline and scenes inside the Air Canada Centre. Carter then dropped 51 points on the Phoenix Suns.
Two weeks earlier, Carter had put his stamp on Slam Dunk contest history. The ensuing years saw him become the All-Star Game’s leading vote-getter, with No. 15 Raptors jerseys appearing in rap videos and countless other mainstream settings.
Future Raptors legends like Lowry and DeMar DeRozan may have usurped Carter in terms of on-court success, but no one who’s ever worn a Raptors uniform – save for perhaps Kawhi Leonard during the team’s 2019 championship run – has ever been as popular or must-watch as Carter was around the turn of the century. You could argue no Toronto sports figure has ever been as internationally renowned as Carter was then.
That level of stardom sparked a Canadian basketball boom that’s still reverberating today. Such lasting impact far outweighs any ill will created in Carter’s last year as a Raptor.
There’s something to be said for what’s now a championship organization, on the cusp of celebrating a milestone anniversary, burying any petty disputes of the past – closing the book on an era defined by an inferiority complex. This isn’t 2004. Times have changed. Vince Carter and the Toronto Raptors have changed, their rabid fan base included.
What better way to celebrate that, the first true Hall of Famer in franchise history, and all the memories made in the house that Vince built than by raising Carter’s number to the rafters and letting it hang forever in the rarified air where he soared.
