Cavaliers Big Shares What Vince Carter Means to Raptors: 'My Michael Jordan'

Cleveland Cavaliers center Tristan Thompson says it's about time the Toronto Raptors retire Vince Carter's No. 15 into the rafters of Scotiabank Arena

Oct 23, 2024; Toronto, Ontario, CAN; Cleveland Cavaliers center Tristan Thompson (13) controls the ball as Toronto Raptors center Ulrich Chomche (22) tries to defend during the fourth quarter at Scotiabank Arena. Mandatory Credit: Nick Turchiaro-Imagn Images / Nick Turchiaro-Imagn Images

Without Vince Carter, none of this would have been possible.

That’s how Tristan Thompson put it Wednesday night as he sat at his locker preparing to take on the Toronto Raptors with Carter in the arena to broadcast the season opener. All the success the Raptors have had over the past few decades, all the Canadians who now litter the league, it all goes back to Carter.

“Basically (he was) my Michael Jordan,” Thompson told Raptors OnSI. “I fell in love with the game watching him play. Watching him in the dunk contest with the throwback jerseys that they gonna wear tonight. I mean, he’s a very important pillar to my journey in falling love with the game.”

It was everything about Carter from the windmill fastbreak dunks to the Nov. 1, 2002, one-handed slam he had on Tim Duncan that Thompson still recalls watching as a boy. The so-called “Dunk of Death” on French center Frédéric Weis in the Olympics has been seared into Thompson’s memory.

So too have the feelings of those early 2000s.

Thompson was one of the thousands of children across the country who stuffed the ballot boxes to get Carter into All-Star Games as the league’s leading vote-getter for three straight seasons.

“Felt like I helped the cause,” Thompson said with a smile.

That’s the "Carter effect," as Raptors president Masai Ujiri put it last month, and the reason Carter’s No. 15 is going up in the rafters of Scotiabank Arena early next month as the first player in franchise history to receive the honor. Sure, Carter’s time in Toronto ended in controversy, but his legacy on the organization and impact on the country can’t be understated.

“I mean, about time, shit,” Thompson said of Carter's jersey retirement. “I mean, if it wasn’t for Vince Carter there would be no Toronto Raptors. There's no Toronto Raptors, there ain't no myself, Cory (Joseph), Shai (Gilgeous-Alexander), Jamal (Murray), (Andrew) Wiggins, there’d be none of us.”