Toronto Raptors: Five best draft picks in team history
By Jason Mills
1. Small forward/shooting guard – Vince Carter
Vince Carter is the best draft pick the Toronto Raptors ever made, the most exciting player they ever employed, and simultaneously the most hated alumni in team history. The vitriol spewed toward Carter, for the way he exited town in the worst trade ever executed by the Raptors, turned to admiration once again over the last few years.
Now retired, the player known in Toronto as “Air Canada” or “Half Man, Half Amazing” was acquired on draft night at the1998 NBA Draft when the Raptors swapped their pick, Antawn Jamison, for his North Carolina Tar Heel teammate Vince Carter.
Vince Carter would electrify the Toronto fanbase for 6 and half seasons with jaw-dropping dunks. Perhaps his most famous dunk, other than his slam-dunk contest-winning efforts in 2000, was at the Summer Olympics when he quite literally leaped over a vertical seven-foot Frederic Weis of France and at full stretch posterized the French big man as depicted below.
It’s the weekend, so grab your favorite cocktail & let’s talk sports! Ryan will talk about:
— A-Round for the Weekend (@BellyUpAFTW) September 25, 2020
- college football’s latecomers;
- the MLB playoff picture;
- & mark the 20th anniversary of “The Dunk of Death.”
Watch on Periscope, Facebook, or Twitch - just search BellyUpAFTW! pic.twitter.com/ASBKY3zyrR
While in Toronto, Vince Carter amassed 9,420 of his all-time 25 728 career points for 19th on the all-time scorer’s list. In all, Carter played 21 seasons for eight teams and retired this year.
Vince Carter had a profound generational impact on basketball in Canada, as documented in the film, the “Carter Effect.”