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NBA legends and ex-Raptors teammates show Vince Carter love in touching tribute

Adam Laskaris
Adam Laskaris
|
Nov 3 2024, 1:12 am
NBA legends and ex-Raptors teammates show Vince Carter love in touching tribute
TSN

The Toronto Raptors made history on Saturday night with the franchise’s first-ever jersey retirement.

And though Vince Carter’s No. 15 was the one being raised to the Scotiabank Arena rafters, he wasn’t the only former member of the team who made the trip to Toronto for the moment.

Carter was joined by ex-teammates Jerome “Junkyard Dog” Williams, Dee Brown, Kevin Willis, Muggsy Bogues, Antonio Davis, Alvin Williams, Morris Peterson, Charles Oakley, and his cousin Tracy McGrady as part of the special moment.

“Thank you for being great teammates, and also great friends,” Carter said in an emotional halftime speech.

Fellow Raptors icons DeMar DeRozan [who was on the opposing bench] and Kyle Lowry, current Toronto star Scottie Barnes, ex-Raptors announcer Chuck Swirsky, and Golden State Warriors point guard Steph Curry all shared some words in the tribute video shown on the organization’s jumbotron.

LeBron James, who was also in the building after playing the previous night against Toronto, showed some social media love.

“I’m fighting,” Carter said pregame to a question asked from Toronto writer Katie Heindl about his emotions of the moment. “Even if a jersey retirement didn’t happen, the celebration of the time spent [with Toronto] is what I’ve always wanted… “[Getting honoured by the Raptors] fills my heart and it oozes and overloads, because I have an appreciation of all of this and I think that’s why I’m so damn emotional. I was always taught and I always believed that when you appreciate something and it means something, this is how you react. So I’m going to react like this. Every time. Believe it.”

One of the opportunities Carter has had was the chance in the lead-up to the retirement was the chance to recreate a 2002 photo with former Toronto Maple Leafs captain Mats Sundin, with the pair swapping jerseys.

Sundin has been in Ontario promoting his book Home and Away, while Carter has been in and out of the city for several appearances over the past month.

“Walking into the same practice facility, taking the same picture in the same area, having that conversation again, now as 40-something year olds, was pretty, pretty cool that it worked out that way,” Carter reflected.

Carter added that while Saturday meant a lot to him, he felt just as many emotions finding out the Raptors were honouring him with a special City Edition jersey inspired by his between-the-legs dunk en route to winning the 2000 NBA Dunk Contest.

“That’s equivalent to me of Jerry West [being honoured as the face of the NBA Logo], on an NBA sock, on an NBA backboard. That’s me now. This is crazy. Like, I look at that like [getting inducted into the] Hall of Fame. I look at that like a jersey retirement. [Tonight is the] icing on the cake. Like that came about I was like ‘Oh man, I’ve died and gone to heaven. I’m on a jersey. This is official. It’s not like I’m on a Pro Am or Summer League or AAU team, this is a National Basketball Association team that will have something with me on it, and it’s the Toronto Raptors,” Carter said.

Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic is actually two years younger than Carter, but also reflected on what watching him while living in Serbia was like.

“I thought there was something wrong with my TV. It looked like human beings can fly,” Rajakovic joked in response to a question by Raptors Republic’s Samson Folk.

At press time, the Raptors led the Sacramento Kings by a 66-61 score at halftime.

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