22. Vince Carter (2010-11)
Inevitably every summer, Vince Carter will sign somewhere and some Orlando Magic fan will say, “Man, the Magic should have brought Vince home.”
The third act of his career as a veteran teacher has been an intriguing one. He has chosen not to chase titles and instead has been the old head on young teams — this year, it will be the Atlanta Hawks. It has brought the wave of nostalgia from his younger years with the Toronto Raptors. That was the electric Carter that redefined NBA culture in many ways.
Everyone is nostalgic for it.
Carter is on this list much more for that kind of popularity than he was for his Orlando popularity. He won three days of polling in our Twitter poll even if it seemed a bit unrealistic with his short tenure with the Magic.
But Carter still has that draw. And working in his favor is that he is a true local. He went to Mainland High School in Daytona Beach and is someone who still has a home in Central Florida. He still has deep roots.
Acquiring Carter the summer after the team went to the Finals was full of controversy. Orlando traded the popular Courtney Lee to bring Vince Carter in essentially to be the guy who drove the Magic’s perimeter attack. He was meant to take the Magic to the title. The piece they were ultimately missing.
Carter did not deliver that. He disappeared in the Eastern Conference Finals in 2010. As it always seems to with the Magic, Carter missed two free throws in Game 2 that would have tied the game for his team and put the Magic in a 0-2 hole they would not recover from. Carter took heat for his poor performance in that series — unfairly in some ways, but he averaged only 13.7 points per game on 36.7 percent shooting in that series.
The Magic caught Carter at the end of his stardom. He quickly transitioned to an interesting player off the bench. But still maintained the warm memories of his Toronto years.