Get Carter

Is Vince leaving New Jersey?
The short answer is yes. The long answer is a little cloudier, but still basically "yes." I would bet the farm Vince Carter gets traded, either by the deadline, or in a sign & trade deal this off season. The thing is he's an expensive malcontent, one who can ball, no doubt about that, but a malcontent nonetheless. Also it's become evident that he can't make the Nets win. If a squad featuring JKidd, Vin, Dick Jefferson and Nenad "Can I Buy a Vowel?" Krstic can't win games, they need to blow it up. Oddly enough, that core did win last year. A lot. In fact, with the steep learning curve Krstic has been on, the rejuvenated play of Kidd and Carter and the rugged all around game of Jefferson, many had the Nets as a title contender this year. Those plans were derailed by the injuries to Krstic and Jefferson, and have the Nets battling the Knicks for the right to be called worse than the Raptors but better than the Sixers or Celtics. Not really much to brag about.
Now New Jersey's got lots of options. They're shopping both Carter and Kidd to anyone who'll listen. The offers back for Kidd have been paltry, and they're not likely to get anything sexier for Carter. At the end of this season, Carter can opt out of his contract and walk away amicably. As we learned from Mark Cuban, this isn't necessarily bad for the Nets. In a free agent rich off season, the Nets would be happy to let Carter walk and then attempt to re-direct his 16 million dollar salary at a stud who's been unleashed and taking bids. Unfortunately this is not a free agent rich market, this off season will not feature an overabundance of guys worth sinking serious loot into. It could; Rashard Lewis, Chauncey Billups, Antawn Jamison, Gerald Wallace and Mike Bibby all have opt out clauses similar to Carter's and could become free agents if they wanted to. But other than Orlando & Charlotte (and potentially Chicago) no team has got the bread to throw at them, so there's not much chance any of these guys are changing teams, without a trade happening, in the near future. Carter's situation is slightly different, because he's got a vested interest in going to either of those 2 teams with significant bank. Carter's family lives in the Florida-Carolina region, and he owns, amongst other things, a house down there. That's why this little snippet from Brian Schmitz at the Orlando Sentinel comes as no surprise... if it's true:

Then there was the talk that TNT, following Dwight Howard around, might have intercepted some dialogue between Carter and Howard that indicated VC might become magic property before the trade deadline.

If that's true my first question is: why the hell hasn't TNT made this little gold nugget known to the public? That's a frickin' page 1 exclusive. Regardless of the truth, or Otis Smith's firm denials, the concept of Orlando trading Grant Hill's expiring contract for Vince's services is almost too good to be true. Orlando talks a lot of yang about wanting to keep Grant Hill, but I can't believe they really mean it enough to pass on the versatile scoring threat (they desperately need) in Carter. Can you imagine a more lethal starting line than this? C- Darko, PF-Dwight Howard, SG/SF- Hedo Turkoglu, SG/SF- Vince Carter, PG- Jam Nelson. I'd have to call them favorites in the east with a line like that, and the best part is they don't have to give up instrumental bench guys like Dooling, Diener, Arroyo, Reddick and Battie to make it happen. I can't fathom why Magic GM Otis Smith is against such a deal, other than Vince's tradition of underachieving teams. And honestly this is actually the only reasonable thing standing in the way of a deal for Vince; Vince himself.