25,000 reasons to expect a vintage Vince
Knowing Carter, he will aim to hit a major scoring milestone against his original team
The list of NBA players who have eclipsed the 25,000-point plateau in their careers truly is a group of the greatest of all time, a cross-generational collection of big men and guards and forwards who represent the best scorers in basketball history.
There’s Kareem AbdulJabbar at the top, Kobe Bryant third and LeBron James fifth but closing in on the top three.
Wilt Chamberlain is there and Shaquille O’Neal and the trio of Moses Malone, Elvin Hayes and Hakeem Olajuwon one after the other after the other.
Oscar Robertson, Dominique Wilkins, Tim Duncan and the sublime Alex English, former assistant coach of the Raptors.
And soon, Vince Carter.
The Raptors icon, currently the oldest player in the NBA, is about to join an august group of only 21 players to ever score more than 25,000 points.
Now with the Atlanta Hawks — his eighth team in a career that’s in its 22nd season now — Carter needs just 13 points to get to 25,000, and it’s not inconceivable that he will reach that level against the team that gave him his start.
Carter, averaging seven points a game this season, would need an above-average showing Wednesday night in Atlanta, when the Hawks host the Raptors. Given his sense of the moment, though, it would be folly to bet against him.
And while it would be fitting if he got to 25,000 on some emphatic dunk — he’s still throwing down 360-degree slams at 41 years old — the points are more likely to come on some three-point shot. For as much as he made his name as a dunker during the height of Vinsanity, the six-foot-six swingman said earlier this
month that he takes as much pride in his shooting ability as he does in his dunks.
“For all those people who said ‘We didn’t know,’ it’s real easy to go to this thing called YouTube, pull it up and just watch any game at the time,” Carter told the Charlotte Observer. “You can see that I did more than (dunk) and I had to do more than that because back in the time, yes, I was able to dunk the ball, but it wasn’t that easy.
“It wasn’t just allowing you to go through the lane, and the lane wasn’t as open as it is now, so I just had to create those opportunities with the jump shot and knowledge of the game.”
Carter’s shooting ability has long been an underappreciated part of his game. He is a career 37 per cent shooter from beyond the arc and fifth among Raptors all-time in three-pointers made with 554 — behind Kyle Lowry, Morris Peterson, Terrence Ross and Andrea Bargnani.
The first basket he ever scored for the Raptors came not on some drive and dunk but on a smooth, baseline fadeaway jumper. It was Feb. 5, 1999 — in the first quarter of his first game in a lockout-shortened rookie season. He took a behind-theback bounce pass from Charles Oakley, spun on fellow NBA rookie Paul Pierce of the Boston Celtics and scored the first two of his 9,420 points in 403 games with the Raptors.
That’s the most points and most games he’s played for any of his eight teams, and he remains third on Toronto’s alltime scoring list today — behind DeMar DeRozan (13,296) and Chris Bosh (10,275).
Carter will become just the fourth active player to go over 25,000 points. He trails only James (31,498/fifth), Dirk Nowitzki (31,187/seventh) and Carmelo Anthony (25,551/19th).
Immediately ahead on the list of top scorers is No. 21 Jerry West (25,192) and No. 20 Reggie Miller (25,279). Carter could conceivably retire at the end of this season as one of the top 20 scorers in NBA history.
He’s remade himself a bit, more a shooter than a driver now, but there is proof he’s had the ability to be more than a dunker all along.
“My daughter, when we talk about sports or different things, I’m like ‘Look at YouTube,’ ” Carter joked.