Vince Carter has had to be patient throughout his NBA career.
Carter had to show patience when he had his comments taken out of context and Raptors fans were led believe that Carter was a lazy player who put it in cruise control and tanked through the end of his Toronto career.
Carter had to be patient when he suffered through losing seasons in each of his last two seasons after advancing to the second round of the playoffs during the two seasons prior to that.
Carter has been waiting for the opportunity to play for a championship contender. Carter, 32, has never been past the second round. Carter has finally been given that opportunity and he says that he is going to make the most of it, no matter what it takes.
Carter scored just 12 points in Wednesday night’s victory over the Toronto Raptors, but he turned to other aspects of his game to set his teammates up for scoring success by dishing out seven assists and grabbing six rebounds.
"“It’s kind of how the game went. Early, the layup was there for me, but later they stopped the layup and other guys started getting going. We just take what’s there.”"
Carter says that when you’re playing on a team with so many good players, patience is the key.
"“I’m on a team where you need to be patient. You might have a good scoring night but if not, somebody else is going to have a good scoring night so you work on the other parts of your game. You get more rebounds, more assists because of it.”"
Sure, Carter’s numbers are down. He’s playing less minutes, taking less shots and has seen a reduction in nearly all of his statistics, but Carter has done just what the Magic have needed him to do. Whenever the Magic need Carter to use one of his certain skills, he unleashes it.
Orlando’s win over the Celtics in November is a perfect example of Carter showing off his wide variety of skills. Last month in Boston, Carter was having an off-night shooting as the Magic raced out to a big lead. Carter used his ball handling and passing skills to find Orlando’s open shooters. When the Celtics came back and tied the game late, Carter took over the fourth quarter, scored nine fourth quarter points, including the eventual game winning jump shot with 2:32 to play. Carter finished that game with 26 points and 6 assists.
Carter is doing an excellent job rebounding the ball, grabbing 5.0 per game. That’s below his career average of 5.5 rebounds per game, but his rebounding percentage is 9.1%, which is among the highest of his career. That’s impressive considering that he is a guard and plays with the most dominating rebounder in the NBA.
"“It starts off with Dwight taking care of the paint, but second of all, I think our helping him out when he didn’t block it, we were able to box out. That’s one of things we haven’t done a great job with, we were just boxing out and not allowing them to get second opportunities.”"
Carter has struggled with his defense at times this season, but takes pride in his team’s defense and has really made an effort to improve that area of his game.
"“I don’t know how many points they had – 40, no 45 points after giving up 54 in the first half – so that was one of the things, we wanted to hold them. We really pride ourselves in keeping the number of points down in a half. 54, we felt was a lot.”"
You have to remember that Carter is still adjusting to his teammates. He’s only played in 21 games with the Magic and the Magic have been missing at least one key play in every game this season. First, Carter played in the backcourt with Jameer Nelson. Carter had to get adjusted to playing with Rashard Lewis and Jason Williams and will now have to become comfortable playing with Both Nelson and Lewis.
Carter has shown improvement throughout the season so far and is starting to get a better feel for his role on the team. The Magic team and fans must be patient with Carter as he continues to find his place on the Magic.
He has patiently waited for this opportunity for 11 years and he’s going to do everything in his power to take advantage of it.
(Andrew Melnick is Howard the Dunk’s lead blogger and a contributor at NFL Mocks Subscribe to his RSS feed and add him on Twitter to follow him daily.)