Raptors thought

[Jesus-Saves34]

Do you guys think if the raptors would of kept the rights to Jamison instead of trading it for Wince it wouldnt of caused a ripple effect throughout the organization? i.e tmac leaving because he didnt want to be in Wince's shadow and they would of had a few legit chances as playoff contenders?

[Anthony15]

A lil late with thouse comments, tmac was playing for toronto about 5-6 years ago...btw, Vince is spelled with a V, not a W

[Jesus-Saves34]

it was on purpose Carter is soft when he was in Toronto for the last couple years lol u are just trying to act like you know so much eh i was just thinking of what could of been dont be so quick to shoot down opinions u fuckin nazi:)

[[L3]1101]

it's a nice thought though. Obviously if we kept jamison, Tmac would've gotten more chance at his position. BUT would've have gone to the playoffs, and gotten all of that attention from the media?? One of reasons Toronto, before Tmac left, was able to attract some good or decent players were because of Carter's fame and the POSSIBILITY of being the NEXT ONE. Jamison is a great player, but he's no where near Carter's fame. But again, i would take Jamison over Carter today, he can play the SF and Bosh can play the PF, but again, this is just dreaming cause toronto has none of them....

[cyanide]

lol u are just trying to act like you know so much eh... dont be so quick to shoot down opinions u fuckin nazi:)

Wow, that's pretty harsh. Have some respect, jeez, he simply just pointed out a spelling error.

Well, it's not a bad idea to pick Carter, who did help the team until he went uber lazy, but having Jamison would've been nice too. Either way, they couldn't go wrong. A lot of Carter's problems had to do with management, too.

[Abctest123]

keep in mind that if we did well with jamison, we would more than likely have villanueva or bosh.

[hipn]

Even though I hate Carter for betraying the Raptors and the ciy of Toronto, but I have to say I would rather have Vince Carter than Jamison. Carter just brought so much excitement to this city and was great until he went lazy and sh**. Jamison is a great player, but he wasn't exciting and I don't think he would have helped Toronto get into the playoffs a lot. I mean I don't think we would've gotten to the playoofs with Jamison, but with Carter we did for sure.

[D_up]

Look if the Raptors never had Carter their franchise would have probably crumbled into dust by now...

I hate to say it but it's true... Vince did more for the Raptors organization than any player before him.

Stop crying over the fact that he's gone and move on.

I know you threw this out as one big hypothetical statement but seriously considering the fact that the guy had the Raptors as a respectable team for a couple of years at least appeciate what the guy did for you.

It's not his fault management made some pretty bad decisions *and* he isn't the most sturdy of players.

[Its_asdf]

No. Jamison isn't as good as Vince or draws as big of a crowd like Vince does.

But the real question is, does anyone care anymore?

[tsherkin]

Let's see, 20 and 9 PF who competes hard on a nightly basis... 23/4/4 SG/SF who whines a lot, drifts, and plays soft a lot and doesn't condition himself properly...

In retrospect, keeping Jamison and McGrady would've made for a pretty nasty team. We never would have acquired Bosh but we'd also have likely had a lot more success.

Vince (or Wince, depending on whether you saw his last 3 or 4 years in Toronto first-hand or not) certainly did a lot for the franchise.

But would we have collapsed without him? No, only someone ignorant about the nature of the Raptors' team would have said something like that.

You look at a team that would have had Antonio Davis, Antawn Jamison and T-Mac and you see a team undersized up front but with good rebounding and a pair of 20 ppg scorers. Hell, we had 12 and 8 from Kevin Willis in Vince/Antawn's rookie year.

We had Doug Christie, Alvin Williams, Charles Oakley (you want what-if? What if we kept Camby instead of trading for Oakley), and Dee Brown.

We'd eventually trade Christie for Corliss Williamson, who turned into Montross and JYD. We'd trade Kevin Willis in a deal for Keon Clark, Mamadou and Tracy Murray. We'd sign Dell Curry.

We'd draft Jonathan Bender and trade him for Antonio Davis. We'd sign Mark Jackson

You want what-if? If we had Antawn Jamison, we could've afforded to have held onto Camby and suffered through his injury problems.

Suddenly, our roster looks kinda like this:

Marcus Camby/Antonio Davis
Antawn Jamison/Keon Clark/JYD
Tracy McGrady
Alvin Williams/Dell Curry
Mark Jackson

Even for the 15-20 games annually we'd play without Camby, a frontcourt like that can handle it no problem. We'd have playmaking, interior D, post scoring, perimeter damage, a dominant scorer, T-Mac could handle PG duties a lot to take the load off of Mark Jackson and Alvin Williams...

We'd eventually draft Mo Peterson for D and perimeter shooting, a little slashing from time to time... He plays well in the shadow of another good wing scorer.

Jamison could play the 3 from time to time, as could JYD.

If you want to bandy about what if Toronto didn't trade for Vince, there are a lot of different ways the Raptors could've succeeded without him, especially if T-Mac was the superstar product developed in Toronto.

That team right there, hell, even with Oakley instead of Camby, that team would've done way better than the Raptors did WITH Vince Carter, because we've never had a 20 ppg scorer who could do most of his damage inside 15 feet like Jamison.

[hipn]

Look if the Raptors never had Carter their franchise would have probably crumbled into dust by now...

I hate to say it but it's true... Vince did more for the Raptors organization than any player before him.

Stop crying over the fact that he's gone and move on.

I know you threw this out as one big hypothetical statement but seriously considering the fact that the guy had the Raptors as a respectable team for a couple of years at least appeciate what the guy did for you.

It's not his fault management made some pretty bad decisions *and* he isn't the most sturdy of players.

Who's cying about Carter leaving? We were just comparing Carter Jamison so fuckin noob.

[[L3]1101]

ahhh..... what if we kept Keon Clark
The organization wanted to keep him, the fans wanted him to stay, but he was asking a little too much for the team to afford him. I really liked Clark . All the what if's....

[Cable]

You can say 'what if' about any team. There's always something you can look back on and say 'we could have done this and look where we'd be', but the point is that 1) the chances of doing that 'what if' are slim, because of 2) the reason it never happened is because at the time, the moves that were made were thought to be best for the team, so we wouldn't have kept Jamison because at the time Carter was predicted to be so much better than he turned out to be.

If we'd have kept Jamison with the oppurtunity to get Vince, the fans would have complained and Vince could possibly have blossemed into an awesome player in GS who for whatever reason never got into the whining or the injuries.

[Its_asdf]

Let's see, 20 and 9 PF who competes hard on a nightly basis... 23/4/4 SG/SF who whines a lot, drifts, and plays soft a lot and doesn't condition himself properly...

Believe it or not, Vince actually did play with some effort in the beginning of his career. If Carter had not played with effort, we wouldn't have made the playoffs for those few years. Regarding his soft nature, that also gradually surfaced over the previous years, but Carter was a very agressive guy who attacked the basket. I guess he just didn't care anymore, which grew obvious during his final season with Toronto.

These what-if questions really piss me off.

[Emiliano]

Where is Keon Clark anyways? He just dissapered from the NBA

[Its_asdf]

Where is Keon Clark anyways?

I read in the Toronto Sun that he has been recently spotted sitting at home doing nothing. He said that he's tired of playing in the NBA and is happy.

Lazy fuck.

[hipn]

How old is he?

[cyanide]

Like 36 or something.

[Its_asdf]

lol, the guy's 30/31.

[#12]

man lots of people are pissed at Keon Clark in the world. he is 1 of 300 out of billions of people in the world that are talented to play in the nba, and he just sits home?????????lot of people would kill to play in the nba

[kinokong]

if i had a couple 10 million in the bank right now, id probably do the same thing....

[[L3]1101]

if i had a couple 10 million in the bank right now, id probably do the same thing....

what if you could make more?

keon clark had a great potential, but he really struggled with the Kings and Jazz. Toronto was the only place where he really fitted.

[Fenix]

if i had a couple 10 million in the bank right now, id probably do the same thing....

what if you could make more?

keon clark had a great potential, but he really struggled with the Kings and Jazz. Toronto was the only place where he really fitted.

Must... resist... sarcasm... suckness... Toronto...

[tsherkin]

Let's see, 20 and 9 PF who competes hard on a nightly basis... 23/4/4 SG/SF who whines a lot, drifts, and plays soft a lot and doesn't condition himself properly...

Believe it or not, Vince actually did play with some effort in the beginning of his career. If Carter had not played with effort, we wouldn't have made the playoffs for those few years. Regarding his soft nature, that also gradually surfaced over the previous years, but Carter was a very agressive guy who attacked the basket. I guess he just didn't care anymore, which grew obvious during his final season with Toronto.

These what-if questions really piss me off.

Oh, I know he did. Vince Carter played with good drive until the 00-01 season. Lenny Wilkens' first season ruined him... He had his second-best or best statistical season that year but started to rely on his J too much and it went downhill from there, his conditioning issues catching up to him, etc.

Yes, in 98-99, 99-00, the man was a force. But remember, his career high in FTA is still only 6.7 per game, which is actually lower than any of T-Mac's FTA per game averages in Orlando or Houston. He dunked a lot and drove a lot but he still did what he could to avoid contact instead of accepting or seeking it.

Anytime people played physical with Vince, he crumbled. See the '00 series against the Knicks for a good example of that.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed Vince's time in Toronto for his first three years. We were one shot away from the Conference Finals and he basically put the team on his back to get us there.

But I'd have much rather have had Antawn Jamison, especially if it meant keeping T-Mac.

[Its_asdf]

Must... resist... sarcasm... suckness... Toronto...

What are you talking about? What he said was the truth, Clark averaged career highs on the Raptors, but yet when he left Toronto he stunk it up pretty bad and his terrible work ethic really started to show.