00:00Alright, so the Toronto Raptors are reportedly going to retire Vince Carter's jersey November
00:122nd, as Vince Carter gets set to go into the Pro Basketball Hall of Fame this year.
00:18And it leads to an interesting conversation, and one that we have had around these parts
00:22for a while.
00:25Vince Carter, um, it's a weird legacy with the Raptors.
00:31Because as time goes on, and as, again, like you see the dude behind me, um, Kawhi Leonard,
00:38you know?
00:39That guy did his thing for one year, and all of a sudden the sins of the past are forgotten.
00:43And as you get further away from that, and as the team won playoff rounds, and made it
00:48to Eastern Conference Finals, and then won a championship, as that stuff happened, the
00:54road that we took to get here, it starts to look a little bit more paved with gold than
00:59it was.
01:00And you start to see more of the highlights, and the between the legs, and the honey dip,
01:05and all of the windmill that is still one of the great dunks in the history of people
01:09dunking basketballs into rims.
01:11And you see all of that, and you forget how it ended.
01:15You just remember the good times, because that's how we're wired, and all of those
01:18things, and you forget about how frustrating it was at the end.
01:22Where he was like, yeah, I'm not going to dunk anymore.
01:24And then he forces his way out, in a trade that set the franchise back for YEARS.
01:29And reputationally, I think, set them back for decades, as a place that star players
01:33shouldn't go, because, well, Vince wouldn't want to be there, like, why should we?
01:38Like, he did all these great things, and then he wanted to leave, so why would I even want
01:42to go there?
01:43Like, I think, reputationally, it set them back.
01:45But ALSO, he kept this team above water at a time where the Grizzlies were shrinking.
01:50And I get, there's a documentary on it, and there's a whole lot of other things
01:51going on around it, so maybe the narrative of the Raptors would have been folded if Vince
01:56Carter wasn't a thing.
01:58I do think that that maybe gets overblown a little bit.
02:01But STILL.
02:02He made this team must-see.
02:04And he made this team important.
02:05He put them on national television.
02:07He got them to within one shot in the corner in Game 7 against the Philadelphia 76ers away
02:14from making it to the NBA's Eastern Conference Finals.
02:18And so, to have that go, and then turn around into, I hate this team and I want to leave,
02:25that is a little bit difficult to swallow.
02:27And when he's that important, it just, it hurt.
02:30It really did hurt.
02:31And there's a reason why.
02:32He got booed just relentlessly for, like, ten years.
02:36And then, eventually, he just hung around long enough.
02:38It was the reverse of Harvey Dent, right, like, he, you either die a villain or you
02:43live long enough to see yourself become a hero.
02:45That's kind of what happened.
02:46He just played long enough that we were just like, ah, no, it was pretty dope, though.
02:49Right?
02:50Like, all the, you know, like, the woo-woo and the ba-boom and all that, like, that was
02:52pretty sweet.
02:53Cool?
02:54Yeah.
02:55No, he's great.
02:56It's funny how that, like, time really did heal that wound.
03:00And when you see what he was able to do, and how important he was to that franchise at
03:04that time, I don't see how this is a bad decision.
03:09And I understand, like, for, for whatever, like, that this is the first jersey that you
03:13are retiring.
03:15And so, you, like, Kyle Lowry is the greatest Raptor of all time, given, like, what he did.
03:20And then, you know, like, he got this team beyond the points that Vince was able to take
03:24them to, and then to a championship.
03:26And then his performance in the championship clinching game, when he scored the first twelve
03:29points on his own, is the stuff of legends.
03:31And cements him, it is in pen, not pencil, that he is the greatest Raptor of all time.
03:36And yes, like, romantically, it would have been best if he could have had his jersey
03:41retire first.
03:43He also started his career, like, a decade after Vince.
03:45And Vince Carter's going in the Hall of Fame this year.
03:48And aside from, like, the funny Hakeem Olajuwon thing, we don't got many of those, right,
03:53and, like, the, the, the, the, the, the, Bosch, but, like, yes, the timing, it would have
03:59been perfect, to, like, the second Kyle Lowry's jersey goes up, then all of a sudden, alright,
04:04yeah, Vince's is there, too.
04:05and we just do this whole big thing.
04:06But the time, like, it doesn't have to work that way.
04:09Kyle Lowry is going to get his jersey retired.
04:11And it doesn't make it less retired
04:13if he is the second one that gets his jersey retired.
04:18If you want to build a statue for him outside, go nuts.
04:21And he can be the first statue
04:22that the Raptors have outside.
04:24And then Vince's between the legs dunk can be the second.
04:26And we can bring balance and harmony
04:28to the universe that way.
04:30There are always going to be people
04:31who view Vince negatively for how he left Toronto.
04:35And that is not an unjustified spot,
04:38given all that we just went through about how he did that.
04:42But I will say, to just ignore how important
04:46he was to this team, and to ignore all
04:49that he did accomplish with this team,
04:51and then to ignore what is happening with him
04:54as a Basketball Hall of Famer,
04:56just so that we can wait on Kyle Lowry
04:58not playing out the string of his career,
05:01I feel like that is just trying to create a scenario
05:04that just doesn't work.
05:05That there is absolutely nothing wrong
05:06with Vince being the first jersey retired
05:09and for what he did for this Toronto Raptors franchise.
05:13So I just wanted to get that out there.
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