Thoughts on Vince Carter

This is from Chris Broussard's blog.

posted: Tuesday, November 22, 2005 | Feedback
filed under: New Jersey Nets, Vince Carter

This is what Nets fans have been dreading since the team traded for the league's most exciting player nearly a year ago. Monday night, in a 100-97 loss at Golden State, Vince Carter left with a strained back muscle late in the third quarter. In his brief time with the Nets, Vince had killed his reputation as a soft, injury-prone player. Now that he's once again facing adversity, it'll be interesting to see what the future has in store for him. Will he shake this off quickly and get back on the court? Will this hamper him for the better part of the first half of the season? Or, with the Nets off to a disappointing 5-5 start, will he be traded? I was down on Half-Man/Half-Amazing at this time last season, when he seemed to be tanking it in Toronto. But when he got to New Jersey, I got to see him play on a regular basis for the first time ever. I was amazed. He was flat-out tremendous. I knew he was a great slasher and a good shooter, but his passing ability stunned me. I began thinking Vince's name should be mentioned alongside Kobe's, LeBron's, D-Wade's and T-Mac's as the top swingmen in the league. Here's why it's not: In my opinion, Vince Carter is about 70 percent of the player he should be. From what I see, Vince plays almost completely off of natural ability. Has he added anything since he took the league by storm as a rookie? I look at Vince's body and I see no additional muscle development. That tells me he's not getting after it in the weight room. Look at Kobe -- you can see he pumps the iron. Think of how MJ's body changed over the course of his career. That weight work is almost certainly one reason why Kobe's career isn't hampered by strains, sprains and pulls (and why MJ's wasn't). This is purely speculation, because only Vince truly knows the answer to this, but I see him as a guy who likes the game but doesn't love the game. There are two types of players in the NBA: those who love ball and those who like it. Those who merely like it break down into two categories: those who like hoop, but love the NBA lifestyle -- the fame, the fortune, the females; and those who like hoop and see this more as their job than their passion.

I see Vince as the latter. That is not necessarily meant to be a knock. There are people like that in all walks of life.

In journalism, for instance, there are folks who live and breathe their job, who are legitimately passionate about it and who are constantly looking to be the absolute best. Then there are those who are good, even great, at what they do, even as they see it simply as a way to feed their family and have a nice lifestyle. To me, that's Vince. This is incredible considering he's such a great player. If he had the determination and drive of Kobe, Vince would be off the charts. He'd probably be the best player in the league. And he probably wouldn't be on the sidelines in street clothes so much.

This was exactly what I was talking about with Kevin and Calvin last weekend. The guy is ridiculous, talent wise. Like I said last week, Carter is probably the most talented of the bunch of swingmen we have in the NBA today.

He hits the 3 at nearly 40% clip. That is over 5% better than McGrady, and well over 7% better than Kobe. In fact, taking into account all that he has done behind the 3-pt line, it puts him along side Kenny "the Jet" Smith, Larry Bird, Jon Barry, Donyell Marshall, Dirk Nowitzk. And if we don't even look at it holistically - say we just look at % - he matches up well with that list, and now you can toss in names like Reggie Miller, Ray Allen, Eddie Jones and Glenn Rice. How is that for reasonable company?

His defensive PER is among the league's best at his position. In fact, both Carter and Pierce crack the top 10. Kobe and McGrady don't really make the top-anything-significant.

And you would think that he could board at a higher rate for a guy who can dunk over 7 foot men.

But Carter will be Carter and you do see him take plays off. My subjective lens probably is as cloudy as anyones - but here is what I see. I see a guy who definitely says "oh shit, we are up by a lot ... hmm ... I can shoot .. ok let's settle for this 3". And later on the other side of the court, "shit, I just ran into a pick - oh well - switch! ... I doubt this guy will roll, so I will just kind of hang out back here". Now he obviously doesn't do shit like this most of the time - or else our tools wouldn't give him such high marks for efficiency and defense. But just qualitatively, I think, there is an argument to be made that he just takes off plays here and there. I don't know why. I guess it is just his character. I know I come down pretty hard on Bryant, and I do think he is a rather selfish player. But though I may question his decision making on the court (and his ability to remember that this is a team game and the best player in the league is Tim Duncan and not him), I rarely will question his drive and effort on the court.

It's too bad that Carter doesn't have Kobe's or AI's drive. Imagine how ridiculous that would be.