Two guys who could pass, shoot, dribble, run an offense and defend at a high level: They had all the makings of the next Jordan and Pippen, even experts and old timers who normally baulked at Pippen/Jordan comparisons could not help but admit that the talent was there and at that time, the drive. Tracy McGrady was part of the new generation of preps-to-pros as the 7th pick in the 1997 NBA draft, he was so highly coveted that it is now widely known Jerry Krause was willing to trade Scottie Pippen for the rights to draft T-Mac. His first season he played 18 MPG, averaging 7.0/4.2/1.5/0.8/1.0* not all that different from Pippens first season with the bulls: 21MPG averaging 7.9/3.8/2.1/1.2/0.7*[1]. The deal never happened but Jerry Krause proved prophetic with the attempted deal as T-Mac in Orlando and Houston would blossom into a multiple time all-NBA player.
Vince Carter went the more conventional route, after being a HS basketball star in Florida he went to Chapel Hill to play under one of the greatest coaches of all-time, Dean Smith, and the UNC Tar Heels. He spent 3 years at UNC and declared for the 1999 NBA draft, he was 22 when he was drafted by the GSW with the 5th pick in the NBA draft. At the time my brother and I could not have been happier, the Raptors drafted Antawn Jamison with the 4th pick, the consensus player of the year and back then I was only 12 years old, I barely watched college basketball and had NO IDEA who Vince Carter was, so getting the player of the year seemed like you were getting the best player in the draft. Then right after they were drafted, both players were traded for each other and Vince was a Raptor, we were pissed. Also, this trade never really made sense to me, neither team got a conditional draft pick or anything. If Toronto knew Golden State wanted Antawn, then why not ask for a sweetener to move up? Anyways, the Raptors were just toddlers in the NBA at this point so chalk it up to having no idea what they were doing.
In Tmac’s first season the team was not good, Damon Stoudamire was the Raptors first franchise player and after his mentor Isiah Thomas quit as the GM of the team, so Damon could not wait to get out Toronto and demanded a trade. His wish was eventually granted but the entire situation hung a cloud over the team that was still so new to the NBA and basketball in general that the team never recovered that year and the Raptors had, still to this date, the worst record in franchise history at 16-66. Not the best way to start your career. The other thing, Tracy was only 18 years old when he began his first NBA season and must have thought himself a fish out of water going from the great year-round weather of Florida to the deep cold winters in Toronto, couple that with an organization still learning how to navigate the NBA and a psycho coach Darrell Walker, this was a terrible culture with which to foster a would-be future star. Add to that every American not knowing a whole heck of a lot about their friends north of the border and to him it must really feel like going from USA to the north pole. Case in point, Antonio Davis during 2001 NBA free agency infamously said on a Chicago radio station that part of the reason he did not want to stay in Toronto was “his kids in primary school have to stand every morning to hear the Canadian national anthem and learn the metric system”. THESE were actual arguments players had in their heads when choosing between Toronto or Utah or Denver or New Jersey, let alone a big market city like Chicago or New York, it was a stigma that was not going anywhere anytime soon. This did not help a young kid trying to learn how to navigate the NBA.
Vince Carter was a different story, after 3 years at Chapel Hill under the deep-rooted value system of Dean Smith, he was vastly more prepared for the NBA and how to deal with the day-to-day grind of being a pro athlete. His body was filled out as well so he had an NBA body right away, a lightning quick first step and once in a generation athleticism. Basketball is a sport where only 10 players are on the court at any one time, so more than baseball, football, soccer, etc, one player can make a larger effect on their teams and Vince did just that, he elevated the play of the entire team, the Raptors also made some shrewd trades that offseason trading for Charles Oakley and Kevin Willis, two veteran players who could teach Vince and T-Mac how to be a professional in the NBA both on and off the court. The Raptors did great in the lockout shortened season and finished 9th in the eastern conference with a record of 23-27, by far the best season to the point in franchise history. Vince Carter was the unanimous ROTY that year on averages of 18.7/5.8/3.0/1.1/1.6, Toronto had their franchise player and what looked to be a great Robin in T-mac.
The following season was more of the same, the raptors finally, FINALLY made the playoffs but unfortunately were swept by the Knicks. At the time the Knicks were an institution, still with NBA great Patrick Ewing, a great young coach in Jeff Van Gundy and a pedigree of how to play the right way, not to mention being the defending Eastern Conference champs. The Raptors were simply not ready (Vince particularly played quite poorly coming up against a championship level defense and double teams every time he touched the ball), but that was OK because that regular season VC blossomed into a full blown young MJ clone, dunking on anyone and everyone, hitting game winning shots and giving future Canadian NBA players a reason to watch basketball in Canada. In only his second season his stats were fantastic, 25.7/5.9/3.9 on .403 3FG%, the Raptors had a bonafide, no two ways about it, NBA star. A guy that had every reason to be discussed along with Kobe, AI, Ray Allen, (still) Penny Hardaway and Grant Hill as the best wing players in the NBA. He made 3rd team all-NBA that year so by year 2 VC was a top 15 NBA player.
T-mac made great strides as well the same year (his 3rd) upping his averages to 15.4/6.3/3.3/1.9/1.1, the guy was great at both ends of the floor but particularly on defense, he could guard positions 1-3.5 and was a menace whenever on the court, swatting shots and along with Doug Christie, guarding the other teams best player every night. His offense was not there yet, if he was given the ball at the top of the key or plays were run for him where he had to create, it just was not in his repertoire yet to be a play maker, it was there, it was coming but for now VC was the no-brainer #1 option and T-mac was #2 or #3 depending on the game switching back and forth with a steady Antonio Davis. And that was the thing, when T-mac left Toronto in the offseason for ORL, no one knew he was going to be this THIS good! Seriously, it wasn’t there, his handles were still shaky, his play making was slightly above average, his jump shot was erratic, it was unbelievable the leap he made from season 3 to 4, this is a bit of a moot point because T-mac has made it clear he was leaving Toronto no matter what, but IF the Raptors had to choose between T-mac and Vince, at the time, 100/100 people would have picked Vince, in all honesty it wasn’t even that close. The rest of their careers, we all know how it goes, both ended up being all-NBA talents for most of the next decade (well Vince actually only ever made 2, more on that later).
T-mac’s career ended up being short-lived due to injury which we’ll get to in the later “Legacy” debate but what a career it was for those years in the 2000s. I was wrong, T-mac was an instant hit, starting his career in Orlando looking every bit like Kobe 2.0. He was long, fast, quick and had every offensive move in the book, he could triple threat, shoot from range, run a pick and roll, isolation, pin downs, flare screens you name it, he could do it all at a hall of fame level PLUS he was 6,9 and a legitimate SG. T-mac was legitimized immediately, no one in the NBA said this was a flash in the pan or early season success, T-mac was a superstar and everyone knew it. The highlights didn’t disappoint, dunks, sensational MJ-like plays, unbelievable passes and with a poise well above his age. Unfortunately, Grant Hills injuries prevented the Magic from being anything other than a 1st round exit but it didn’t diminish T-mac at all, he was every bit the player Orlando front office wanted him to be and plenty more.
He made 2 ALL NBA 1STs, 3 ALL-NBA 2NDs and 2 ALL NBA 3RDs, in total 7x ALL NBA, 7X ALLSTAR, 1X MIP, 2X scoring champ and averaged 38 MPG over a 9year NBA span, playing time that would make Tom Thibodeau blush. It was a different time, you maxed out every minute your player could get on the court; Injury history, if he worked too hard to come back too soon, those things were not NBA norms as they are today, in fact they weren’t anything at all, they were not topics of discussion. With todays medicine there’s no reason to believes T-macs 8 quality NBA seasons, couldn’t have been stretched out to 13 or 14 and by quality I mean 14 years of being a top-15 NBA player. That sounds a lot like Russel Westbrooks career to me if you think about it, gawdy stats with shooting inefficiencies.
Vince Carters career should be considered much rockier and filled with more greys. For instance, its all pretty clear that T-mac never played in a playoff series where his team was considered the favourite. Also were it not for his injuries, it seems pretty clear he was headed for at least 4-5 more seasons of top-10 NBA level ability, could we ever really say that about Vince? Vince’s career had more greys because so many seasons were clouded by the idea that it all seemed too easy for Vince, he never had the injury that are potentially career enders, the achilles or ACLs of the world. His were always more soft tissue or strains or pulls or partial tears. And if these were all legitimate injuries that should keep a player out multiple games, then why did they all but disappear once Vince was traded to NJ?
Vince went from averaging 64 games per year with the Raptors to 79 with New Jersey! You cannot deny Vince played with better teammates in NJ, he had Jason Kidd who is a top-10 ALL-TIME NBA PG and Richard Jefferson who is likely the greatest NBA player to never make an all-star game, but why would that make how many games he played per year so much lower? It couldn’t be because it was “easier”, Vince was still asked to take on a heavy offensive load and go through 1-on-5 isolation defenses player after play and season after season, he was still asked to make every end of game play and still given the burden of franchise player therefore only compared to the Shaq, Kobe, AI, TDs of the world. This was the same early to mid-2000s that was a dirt field of slow, defensive minded, low scoring, pushing and shoving style basketball. No, the game was the same, the player had changed.
By Vince’s 4th season something clearly had changed, he wasn’t the head and shoulders greatest dunker of all time, he was more arguably the greatest dunker of all-time. Due to injuries piling up, he had lost 5, maybe 10% of his peak athletiscm, still from 1998-2010 Vince Carter was the greatest show on hardwood. With all due respect to the Kobes, Ais, and T-macs of the world, but Vinces highlights were something else, there was a charisma to everything he did. That charisma would cost him if he had end of game misses or playoff failures as a “player that does not care enough”, but when it DID work, there was nothing like it. You know what, on second thought, Iversons highlights were pretty crazy, we’ll call it a tie. But this was part of the problem, Vince was known for taking it easy during the summer and when questioned about his play and clear change in offense from driver to shooter, he did not have the maturity to answer the questions that gave a satisfactory answer. You always felt like you were being teased by Vince instead of the feeling I’d expect of having Kobe or Paul Pierce on your team in their primes, the feeling that he cared more than anyone else on the court, you never felt that about Vince.
Vinces playoff record does not have quite the letdown that T-macs does, he did make it to the second round with more consistency and did make 1 conference final in 2009 with the Orlando Magic. This is where his legacy takes another hit, Vince at this point was 33 years old and much like Paul Pierce who a few years prior finally won his first NBA championship once he had the necessary pieces around him, Vince 2 years later was in a very similar position. Finally, Vince Carter was on a Conference Finals team and 4 wins away from a Finals appearance and validation of an all-star career.
But Vince choked.
He averaged 13.7 PPG on .367 FG%. Vince took 24 free throws in the series, the same number as JJ Reddick, he was never the high game scorer in any game, his highest total was 23 points in a 4 point Game 1 loss, his lowest total was 3 points in a 4 point Game 4 win. His two lowest scoring games were Orlando’s only 2 wins in the series.
Orlando lost in 6 games.
Midway through the following season, Orlando realizing Vince is not that guy, cut ties and shipped him to Pheonix with Marcin Gortat, Mickaël Piétrus, cash and a 2011 1st round draft pick (Nikola Mirotić was later selected) for Earl Clark, Jason Richardson and Hedo Türkoğlu. Vince’s career as a star was essentially over.
Legacy
Both players later in their careers took reduced roles and became end of bench veterans for playoff and non-playoff teams. I don’t really care about this when discussing their legacies. I do have to laugh alittle bit when I see people posting Vince Dallas highlights with a caption ‘Vince would have been an all-star at 35 but chose a lesser role’. Did they not see Orlando & Pheonix Vince? 2 teams with still legitimate contender hopes that he no showed to both?
In the end, the numbers are as below. T-Mac had the better overall stats, was a better playmaker but Vince always was a more efficient player. To me the number that stands out is 7-2. Vince only made 2 all-NBA teams his entire career. Demar Derozan has more all-NBA selections and Dennis Rodman has more top-15 MVP votes. Tracy McGrady was a 7x All-NBA selection and was constantly in the 1st team all-NBA talk whereas Vince never really was after the 2000-2001 season. Think about that, Vince played until 2020 and for the last 20 years of his career, never sniffed another all-NBA team. How do you account for that? How do you defend that? The answer is you don’t.
It seems instructive to look at their New Jersey vs Houston careers. Both players traded there and both at a point in their careers where winning should be goal 1, 2 and 3.
In Vince’s 4.5 years with New Jersey, they averaged 40 wins.
In T-Mac’s 5 years with Houston, they averaged 49 wins.
Vince’s best teammates were Richard Jefferson and Jason Kidd. T-Mac’s best teammates were Yao Ming, Shane Battier and later Ron Artest. Houston on balance was likely a better team but the Eastern Conference in the 2000s was far more inferior to the Western Conference. I would call this a wash and they both had similar successes: T-Mac with the aforementioned 49 wins and Vince has him beat during this time period in playoff series wins: 2-0. Vince never made it to the ECF with New Jersey.
They both had great hall-of-fame careers, and they were both spectacular athletes. I did not touch on defense too much but neither was knocking on all-defense doors however T-Mac was at least average whereas I would put Vince in James Harden territory.
He was a better all-around player and was regularly in MVP and ALL-NBA conversations whereas with Vince, though the highlights and (marginal) playoff success was there, he was the definition of an all-star player and not a true centerpiece. You can point to the dunks & highlights all you want but I watched every Vince Toronto game and most games on his other teams after that. Vince’s biggest problem was the in-between quarters: Not the first quarter where a player can get hot or the last 5 minutes where he was a very clutch player. It was in those middle quarters, those middle parts of games, and especially in the 2000s, where the game was slow, dirty and difficult. You needed a player who could handle the day-to-day beating and holding and grabbing. Vince didn’t want to do those things, he notoriously played his way into shape coming into seasons, he never wanted to put the extra effort in because he had so much God given talent. T-Mac got more juice out of the squeeze, he was a better rebounder and passer.
Time will tell where ESPN top 100s or the Ringers of the world put these two players, to me its pretty clear.
Tracy McGrady.
[1] * All splits go PPG/RPG/APG/BPG/SPG
