“It Wasn’t Really a Fight”: Vince Carter Elaborates on Physically Slamming Coach Sam Mitchell

Vince Carter spent the first six years of his NBA career in Toronto — an eventful and controversial stint for many reasons. Toward the end of his time with the Raptors, there was an infamous incident with Sam Mitchell, which reportedly involved Carter body-slamming his then-head coach.

Carter addressed the rumors of the incident during his appearance on the Run It Back show. After playfully denying it initially, the former Raptor painted a picture of the events that transpired and claimed that the slam was more a result of a friendly wrestling match than an actual fight.

He said, “Sam was in the training room and they said that he walked up to me…and they said that he grabbed the player [who was Carter himself], whoever the player was and the player grabbed him back and they got to tussling.”

However, Co-host Lou Williams wasn’t pleased with Carter’s attempt to narrate the incident from a third person’s perspective.  Carter heeded and switched to first person.

He said that the biggest thing in a ‘fight’ is that no one wants to be the one to get slammed. So, keeping the basics in mind, he decided to be the one to take advantage and deliver the body slam on his coach.

“It wasn’t really a fight more so…we were having a good time. Like, get off me, man, get off me,” Carter added.

The 47-year-old broke down the ‘fight’ from a technical point of view as well. Like a trained martial artist, he said that once he was scooped, he planned on getting inside to gain enough momentum to lift the coach up and then slam him to the ground. Carter insisted that it was not a fight, but a banter in jest.

Regardless of what happened, there seems to be no bad blood between the two. The only way to get this story straightened out would be to get Carter and Mitchell in a room and ask them to talk about it.