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For 3 a long time we’ve coated many wonderful basketball characters, however some stand above the remainder—not solely due to their on-court expertise (although these are all the time related), however due to how they influenced and proceed to affect basketball tradition, and thus influenced SLAM. In the meantime, SLAM has additionally modified these gamers’ lives in numerous methods, as we’ve documented their careers with traditional covers, legendary photographs, wonderful tales, compelling movies and extra.
We compiled a gaggle of people (programming notice: 30 entries, not 30 individuals whole) who imply one thing particular to SLAM and to our viewers. Learn the full list here and order your copy of SLAM 248, the place this listing was initially printed, here.
The best play within the coolest sport on this planet is the slam dunk. We find it irresistible a lot we named our journal after it, and we’re hardly alone in our obsession/fascination. And as neat as they are often in contrived dunk contests or glorified exhibition video games that will additionally go by the names “streetball” and “All-Star Video games,” the best dunks of all occur in video games. And NBA video games are the very best type of the sport on this planet. And now, for everybody from the entrance to the again to listen to loud and clear: VINCE CARTER IS THE GREATEST IN-GAME DUNKER IN HISTORY.
The run he went on throughout his truncated Rookie of the Yr marketing campaign in 1999 by means of the Sydney Olympics in 2000 [Doug Collins: “He jumped OVER HIS HEAD”] and possibly one other season or two in Toronto had by no means been seen earlier than. “Wonderful,” you say. “Dunkers have advanced. Elgin to Doc to MJ to Vince. In fact somebody on the flip of the millennium was iller than a dude from the ’70s.” Yeah, properly, nobody has completed it like that since both. And it’s been greater than 20 years! Undergo the SLAM archives and skim the SLAMadamonths from again then. They had been nearly all Vince, and solely Russ might make the monotony appear recent. Or if YouTube’s extra your factor, right here’s a PSA that shall be outdated information to longtime SLAM and SLAMonline readers however new to lots of you: take a look at “Matt Adam’s Notorious Vince Carter Mixtape” beneath and sit again.
9-plus minutes of pleasure, and irrefutable proof of the in-game dunker assertion I made earlier.
If Figs and SPT informed me to put in writing 250 or so phrases about VC’s inclusion on this unique listing, I’d name it a day and really feel my work is completed. That’s how memorable and impactful Vince Carter’s run because the GOAT dunker was.
Alas, they want extra phrases, and he really impacted the sport three different big-time methods.
The primary is that he saved the NBA in Canada. When Carter obtained traded to the Raptors on Draft night time in 1998, they stunk and their colleagues in Vancouver had been even worse—and on the quick monitor to transferring to Memphis. Carter’s arrival on NBA courts, recent off a horrible lockout and the retirement of Michael Jordan, was a boon to the whole League, certain, however it had precise resonance in Canada. “Essentially the most thrilling participant within the NBA performs in Toronto,” was not a sentence anybody—not to mention Canucks—ever anticipated to utter. He the North, certainly. To not preserve supplying you with video-watching assignments, however there’s actually a documentary about this: The Carter Impact. Stream and be taught.
One other unbelievable truth about Carter that deserves main props is that he performed the third-most video games in NBA historical past. Greater than Stockton and Malone. Greater than KG. Greater than LeBron (not less than once you learn this). The one gamers who’ve performed extra video games than Vince Carter are Robert Parish and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who’re ineligible for this listing as a result of they didn’t play within the SLAM period (the Chief did barely, however you get the purpose). So at 1,541, Vince Carter is the games-played chief in SLAM historical past. Additional inexorable proof of his relevance and in addition a stat that you simply by no means would have fathomed in these early days when he was actually leaping over defenders. As a result of as you’d think about, that fashion of play got here with harm danger, and for a lot of his profession, VC was labeled injury-prone. However he obtained higher at avoiding contact, obtained higher at taking pictures from distance and morphed right into a locker-room favourite who might present some pop off the bench till he was 43 years younger.
Final however not least, VC deserves everlasting props for his affect on the sneaker recreation. He performed in fly Nikes and Jordans at UNC earlier than turning into the uncommon NBAer to rock Pumas as an NBA rookie. By his second 12 months within the L, he was having points with Puma and had a stretch of de facto free company. This led to him carrying the AND1 Tai Chis for the 2000 Dunk Contest. No shade to these footwear, that are classics, however it says right here that Vince’s iconic carrying of them is the explanation the footwear have lived on to today. VC circled again to Nike for the steadiness of his profession and rocked pure warmth. To cite the well-known marketing campaign and one of many extra genius SLAMadamonths in Russ’ oeuvre: “Boing.”
Picture through Getty Pictures.
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