Through good and bad, the smile has been a constant.
Vince Carter’s face has always been a transparent window into his emotions, playing out in real time. Sometimes he scowled. Sometimes he mean-mugged. Sometimes he looked genuinely tortured, like a youngster being told it was time to turn off the video games.
But mostly he smiled. A great, broad smile that split his face perfectly. When he was grinning ear-to-ear while hugging players on other teams, it could kind of drive you crazy. When he was laughing it up on the bench when his team was getting blown out, it didn’t seem right.
It’s there in most of the highlights of his six-plus years in Toronto, of which there are many. It’s his defining feature, along with his explosive leaps and body control that a trapeze artist would envy.
But from now on the smile will always be book-ended by a tear, or maybe a few.
It was a big night for the Raptors as they faced off against the Western Conference-leading Memphis Grizzlies barely a week after coming up flat against the Chicago Bulls in their last litmus test.
Wednesday they were all business, with Terrence Ross contributing 14 fourth-quarter points as the Raptors overcame an eight-point deficit late in the third to win 96-92 and improve a franchise-best start to 9-2 while maintaining their position atop the Eastern Conference.
Their cause may have been helped by the fact five Memphis players were out of the lineup due to a stomach virus, but the Raptors took advantage, as they should.
The night was made perfect, however, because Carter was in the building. Made perfect by how those in the building treated him and how he responded to a Raptors video tribute midway through the first quarter, the first official gesture to thaw what had been cold war between the franchise and it’s all-time biggest star.
"It was amazing. I was asked earlier, how would I feel, how I would react.
he said. "But it’s just an amazing feeling, amazing to be in the moment to kind of relive as it was happening."
Any montage of his time in Toronto will always include "It’s over" at the 2000 dunk contest, his game-winning dunk on Hakeem Olajuwon, his annihilation of Tim Duncan way back when and of the course the oh-so-close attempt in Game 7 against the Philadelphia 76ers.
Now there will be a new addition: a long shot of him in a Grizzlies shooting shirt, a role-player near the end of a long, well-travelled career. And it will feature a big, fat tear rolling down Carter’s left cheek, disappearing into his beard and it’s grey whiskers as a Toronto crowd roared for him again.
That’s what happened at the sold-out Air Canada Centre Wednesday night, the building he christened with an alley-oop dunk from off the tip against the then Vancouver Grizzlies on Feb. 21, 1999.
Anyone who was there won’t forget it.
"It’s emotional," Grizzlies centre Marc Gasol said. "You know when the window gets smaller and smaller you know you won’t be able to duplicate that feeling that you had. He told me before the game how much he loved this place and how he was sad how he left … it’s emotional. It’s an emotional game."
The emotions have worked both ways. The vitriol directed at Carter during his first few visits back to the ACC after he was traded to the New Jersey Nets in a cloud of accusations that he’d simply given up on the franchise was unprecedented, like something out of professional wrestling. Over time it’s eased, but for much of those 10 years the idea of Carter being honoured at the ACC seemed far-fetched. He had his defenders, but “traitor,” “cry-baby” or “quitter” are tough labels to overcome.
With the Raptors celebrating their 20th anniversary season, they were in a predicament: how could the best player in franchise history come to town and not be recognized?
The mood has softened in the past year. A fuller picture of the organizational dysfunction that Carter was dealing with has emerged. The legacy he’d left as he streaked through Canadian basketball like a comet was real and had names like Andrew Wiggins, Tristan Thompson, Kelly Olynyk and Anthony Bennett.
"It amazes me," Carter said. "These guys who were loving Toronto basketball at the time and now they’re getting older and getting their chance to become professional players, these little kids who are in the NBA. It makes me feel old, but I’m loving it."
Carter didn’t know before Tuesday that the club was going to recognize him, but he quickly warmed to the thought. The team arranged for his mother, aunt and some friends to be on hand.
Watching a video of a younger version of himself flying through the air on the same floor where he performed his feats was more moving than anyone expected.
"As each play was happening I could remember all of that stuff as if it was yesterday," he said.
The tears?
"It was an honest reaction. It was just a feel good moment. It really felt good. You couldn’t write it any better."
There were no boos, or if there were they were drowned out by an ovation that only grew the longer the montage played. The power of it surprised everyone there. As the cheers grew, those on the fence seemed to feel empowered to give up the old grudges and remember some of the best times in franchise history.
Carter was in the middle of it. The sound washed over him and the tears rose up, tumbling over. All he could manage was a silently mouthed ‘Wow,’ raising his arms in thanks.
Moments later he checked into the game and was booed the first time he touched the ball — perhaps the ultimate sign of respect for an athlete whose days of thrilling home crowds or terrifying those in opposing arenas are well past.
Carter was a memory-creating machine when he played in Toronto. Most of them will never be duplicated. Some of the memories are painful, but even the jagged edges of those have been rubbed smooth by the years.
Last night he created one more memory that had nothing to do with him defying gravity or his electric smile. Instead his heart spoke; the window to his soul was open again. The tears were an exclamation point, ending one chapter of his relationship with the NBA city that formed him and which he in turn shaped, and ushering the chance for many more.