Despite being one of the all-time greats of the game and specifically a Toronto Raptors legend, Vince Carter has had a troubled relationship with his first NBA franchise. The eight-time All-Star is often regarded as the player who put the Raptors on the map. However, his trade to the New Jersey Nets in 2004 was the result of a long-standing rift with the franchise’s management. Carter recently unraveled some bizarre aspects of his stint in Toronto that still give him the chills.
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Despite his terrible fallout with the Raptors, which still haunts him two decades later, Carter knows that he left a massive footprint in the city of Toronto. He truly grasped the extent of his basketball influence when Denver Nuggets star Jamal Murray told him that as a Canadian-born hooper, he has always looked up to Carter.
During a recent conversation with Bleacher Report, Carter revealed,
“When you come back and you’re hearing what Jamal Murray had to say, Tristan Thompson has come up to me and said unbelievable things about how they viewed me as a player. It’s crazy to me. It gives me chills to this day.”
Even though every bit of praise he has received has been well deserved, Carter found it difficult to wrap his head around it all sometimes.
“This is an NBA player who’s standing in front of me with a uniform on in the NBA, he said, ‘You were my Michael Jordan.’ We’re not talking about just any person, we’re talking about Michael Jordan. And it was like wait, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa.'”
As unfortunate as it was, Carter’s departure from Toronto wasn’t an instantaneous decision. There was quite a bit of misunderstanding behind the scenes that created an environment that just didn’t suit him.
The 47-year-old said, “If you guys don’t need me that’s fine. But one thing I wasn’t going to be is a locker room problem, and I think that’s what they were looking for.”
In the end, it all worked out well for the soon to be Hall-of-Famer. More importantly, Carter left a rich legacy behind in Toronto that inspired a generation of Canadian hoopers. Even after Toronto’s 2019 NBA Championship win, Carter’s impact on the Raptors is as prominent as ever.
For a player of Jamal Murray’s caliber to admit that he practically worshipped the former Raptors man, puts into perspective the kind of impact Vince Carter has had. In fact, at one point, the Denver Nuggets star spoke on this subject himself, reminding Raptors fans of a moment they wouldn’t much like to remember.
Jamal Murray channeled his inner Vince Carter
This postseason wasn’t what the Nuggets expected it to be. To add insult to injury, their star player Murray lost his cool in Game 2 of the Conference semis and threw a heat pad on the court in frustration. As a result, when the series went to Minnesota, the home fans booed him.
However, they didn’t know that Murray had grown up watching Vince Carter in the NBA and he was more than prepared for everything that the fans threw at him.
After winning Game 3, he said, “Vince was my favorite player growing up…Every time he touched the ball, he got booed. I think he had a really good game playing against Toronto.” Murray said that the boos from Wolves fans helped him stay focused throughout the game.
The 27-year-old also added that he sees those antics as a challenge, and he will never back down from a challenge no matter what the situation is.
