6. Vince Carter
No matter where Vince Carter went, fans seemed to warm to him. What’s not to like about a player who had that dunk contest performance, was routinely doing incredible things on a basketball court early on in the NBA, and who played on until he was 43-years-old.
Yet the further we get from his career, the more it can leave you feeling a bit cold. Carter never won a championship, and it is hard to know for how long he was even the best player on a team. Even more difficult, how often – if ever – was he the best player on a roster that had even an outside shot of winning a championship?
OTD in 2000, Vince Carter scored a career-high 51 points in a win over the Suns in front of a sold-out Air Canada Centre. It was the Raptors’ first ever nationally televised game, and it took place just two weeks after Vince’s GOAT performance in the Dunk Contest. He was UNREAL. pic.twitter.com/srTAoto1pB
— Brett Usher (@UsherNBA) February 27, 2023
Carter got to Phoenix after a pair of finals appearances with the then New Jersey Nets, and another finals appearance in 2010 with the Magic. He was 34 when he joined the Suns briefly, but the hope was that he could be that overqualified third or fourth option, as he had been with the Magic, on a contender.
Instead he played 51 games for a group that went 40-42 and didn’t even make the playoffs, offering up 13.5 points in 27.2 minutes. Carter quickly moved on to play for the Dallas Mavericks, with this being a case of right player at both the wrong time, and the wrong time in their own career.