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Did Carter tip Sonics?
FRANK HUGHES; The News Tribune
Tacoma, WA
Two days before Toronto Raptors general manager Rob Babcock traded Vince Carter to the New Jersey Nets, he was informed that Carter may have tried to sabotage his team in a game a month ago.
Whether that information led to Carter being traded Friday for Alonzo Mourning, two other players and two draft picks is unclear. But after being part of trade talks for more than a month, Carter was dealt less than 48 hours after Babcock was interviewed for a story about Carter’s actions Nov. 19.
Three members of the Seattle SuperSonics say they believe Carter intentionally tipped off a play during the final minute of the Raptors’ 101-94 loss to the Sonics in Toronto.
With 29 seconds remaining in that game and the Sonics leading 97-90, the Raptors called a timeout. After returning to the court, Carter lined up along the edge of the key. He was facing the Sonics’ bench with his hands on his knees. According to a member of the Sonics, before the play began, Carter said directly to the Seattle bench, “It’s a flare. It’s a flare.” Two other members of the Sonics confirmed that Carter told the Sonics bench that the Raptors were running the flare play.
The Raptors, inbounding the ball above the Sonics bench, then ran a flare play for Carter.
In the play, which Sonics scouts had observed was a common go-to play for the Raptors, Carter worked his way up the key on the near side as Sonics guard Ray Allen followed. At the elbow on the near side, Raptors forward Matt Bonner set a screen on Allen for Carter, who then flared toward the opposite corner. The pass from Morris Petersen was too long for Carter to handle easily, and, unable to make a clean shot attempt, he passed the ball to Bonner, who hit a 22-foot shot from the top of the key.
According to one member of the Sonics, the bench reacted immediately to what Carter said, with Sonics players saying, “Did you hear that? Did you see that? That’s (expletive) up.”
Another member of the Sonics said he discussed the play with a coach after the game, and the coach said, “If you ever do that, I’ll run you out of the league.”
Allen, who was guarding Carter, said: “I didn’t hear it, but that’s what those other guys were saying (after the game), Reggie (Evans) and those other guys. But all I said was, ‘Why would he do that?’ I don’t know why he would do that.”
When asked to detail the incident, Evans chose not to discuss specifics.
“I don’t want to get involved in that stuff, man,” Evans said. “That stuff is deep. I ain’t scared of Vince or nothing like that, but that is between him and his conscience. I ain’t saying it did happen or it didn’t happen. I’ll leave that for Ray. I’ll let Ray do all that type of talking, man.
“For real. I’ll let Ray open his mouth, he is the one ... who got into it with Kobe (Bryant), so I will just leave that alone. I don’t want to get into no beef with nobody.”
Carter, reached through Raptors spokesman Jim LaBumbard, responded, “I’m not going to comment on something as ridiculous as that.”
Babcock was reached on Wednesday evening and said: “I hadn’t heard that. I would hope that would not be the case, but I am not aware of that. If he did do that, I would be quite upset with that. But I don’t know anything about that. It is nothing I heard.
“That’s the type of thing that, if I was aware of it, we would deal with it internally, and we certainly would deal with it. But I am not aware of that.
“If something comes up to me like that, and it is solid, and it is obvious that it did happen, we would take care of it internally.”
Carter was traded to New Jersey two days later.
There are other possible explanations for Carter’s actions.
“I guess you could look at it both ways,” Allen said “Either, he was being cocky and saying, ‘I am still going to score,’ or, ‘I don’t want you guys to let me make this shot.’”
When asked if Carter was merely being cocky, one member of the Sonics said he did not believe so, pointing out that the Raptors were down seven points late in the game and that Carter had scored only 21 points.
Also, when asked if it were possible that Carter could have been trying to decoy the Sonics, the member of the Sonics said, “Sure, but they ended up running the play he told us, so I don’t see how it could have been a decoy.”
Asked why Carter would reveal the play, the Sonics member said, “We were all under the impression that he was sabotaging his team because he was getting booed by the fans and he wanted to get traded.”
The incident occurred one day after the Raptors and the Portland Trail Blazers were widely reported to be holding trade talks involving Carter.
It also came less than a week after Carter and Raptors coach Sam Mitchell got into a spat because Mitchell benched Carter for the entire fourth quarter of a game against Portland after Carter scored just four points in 22 minutes.
“Personally, for me it would be disrespecting myself,” Evans said of Carter’s actions. “Players should have more pride than to do things like that. You’re playing for the love of the game. These days, obviously, they are playing for money ... but you still have love for the game. Just balance it out.
“It’s crazy because that could be somebody else out there, who wants to win, who wants to make a difference for a coach, somebody like a Damien Wilkins or a Mateen Cleaves who would love to be in that situation to get them over that hump.
“Stuff like this just makes the league look bad.” Frank Hughes:
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OWNED!
