http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/04/20/1388690/this-may-be-carters-best-shot.html
This may be Carter’s best shot at NBA title
By Scott Fowler
sfowler@charlotteobserver.com
Posted: Tuesday, Apr. 20, 2010
ORLANDO, Fla. His dunks have long been legendary.
His fingers have long been bare.
Vince Carter has been one of basketball's best showmen for more than a dozen years now, but he doesn't have a single championship to show for it.
He didn't win one at North Carolina as a collegian, and he hasn't come close to one in a 12-year NBA career.
This season, however, may be the best chance Carter will ever get. For the first time in his life, he's on a team that won more than 50 games in the regular season - an Orlando Magic squad that made the NBA Finals last season without him and now leads Charlotte 1-0 in a best-of-7, first-round playoff series. The teams play Game 2 Wednesday at 7 p.m. in Orlando.
"What an opportunity," Carter said Tuesday. "You live for these moments."
Carter had a horrible Game 1 in this series - shooting 4-for-19 and fouling out. Those sorts of numbers would have meant a sure loss for the Toronto and New Jersey teams Carter starred on for his first 11 NBA seasons, but Orlando is so deep that the Magic won anyway.
Indeed, Carter struggled for much of the first half of the regular season because he couldn't figure out where he fit on this loaded Magic team.
"He's always played where he was ' the guy,'" Magic coach Stan Van Gundy said of Carter. "And with us, he knew there were other people around. It seemed like early in the year he was caught between forcing the issue too much - still trying to be ' the guy' - or saying, 'Wow, I'm not the guy' and then becoming passive."
Carter found his place starting in February, Van Gundy said. He averages 16.6 points per game - second to Dwight Howard but a career low for Carter - and developed a good balance between passing and shooting.
Carter, 33, regressed against the Bobcats in the series' first game, however. Van Gundy called it "a very, very bad day" for Carter offensively, then added: "I still would like to see him attacking more."
This has long been one of the raps on Carter - that he takes too many jump shots and doesn't drive to the rim enough. Carter averaged about four free throws taken per game this season. LeBron James averaged 10.
Carter and Kobe Bryant used to be thought of as the most likely heirs to Michael Jordan's throne. Now Carter has fallen out of that mix entirely, with LeBron and Dwyane Wade taking his place.
Still, Carter is immensely talented - an eight-time all-star with a career average of 22.9 points per game.
"Vince is as good as they get," Bobcats coach Larry Brown said. "I'm happy he's in an environment where he has a chance to win the championship. He's one of the best players I've seen in the league.... He can take over a game at any time."
When Carter is fully engaged and in the air, he can be spectacular. His performance in the 2000 NBA slam dunk contest remains the most thrilling in league history. In the 2000 Olympics, he literally leaped over a 7-foot-2 French center to dunk, scissoring his legs to avoid hitting the Frenchman's head.
But Carter occasionally seems to float through games, to be a "style-over-substance" player. At North Carolina in a three-year career, he averaged a modest 12.3 points despite usually being the best athlete on the floor. Orlando had a chance to trade for Carter in 2007 but Magic general manager Otis Smith rejected the idea, calling the proposed deal "fool's gold."
Smith changed his tune in 2009, acquiring Carter from the Nets while letting Hedo Turkoglu walk away and sign an enormous free-agent contract with Toronto. The trade delighted Carter. He grew up in Daytona Beach, Fla., and has long made his offseason home in Orlando, where he lives a couple of streets over from Tiger Woods.
"Now I step out on the court each and every night and know we can compete with anybody," Carter said. "What's left? Just for us to go out and prove it."
The Magic would need to win 16 playoff games to win its first-ever NBA title. Carter referenced that when he told Orlando fans at the final regular-season home game: "We've got 16 more to go."
It's 15 now - but the Magic probably won't get there unless Carter plays better than he did in Game 1. Carter said he will - and that he would consider playing until age 40 if that's what it would take to win an NBA title.
Said Carter: "I'm not going to go down without a fight."
Scott Fowler: 704-358-5140; sfowler@charlotteobserver.com.
