Looking Back: Vince Carter’s Best Chance to Deliver the Nets Their First Championship

With Vince Carter's Nets jersey retirement on the horizon, let's take a look at him getting the closest he could to also hanging a championship banner for the Nets.

Vince Carter played a crucial role in elevating the Toronto Raptors franchise, the only team that resides outside of the United States. After six seasons there, Carter was traded to the Nets in 2004 for Alonzo Mourning, Aaron Williams, Eric Williams and two first-round picks. It was no doubt that the Nets were ready to go after making this trade for one of the most prolific and entertaining scorers of all-time.

This is especially true given he was paired with one of the best point guards to ever play basketball, Jason Kidd. The Nets were already Conference champions in 2002 and 2003, it was just a matter of having enough to beat whoever came out the West.

The best chance the Nets had at winning an NBA championship with Carter was in the 2006-07 campaign. He averaged 25 points, six boards and four assists per game on 45% shooting from the field.

In the first round, the Nets just had to run into the Raptors, Carter's former team. Despite mixed emotions, the Nets won the series in six games to move on and play the Cleveland Cavaliers in the Conference Semifinals. Not only did the Nets would get eliminated, but Carter would notably go an abysmal 17% from three to get the series started in Game 1. In what could have been a seven-game series, the Cavaliers would move on to the Conference Finals in 6 and then the Finals a bit later on to take on the San Antonio Spurs.

If the Nets would have made it all the way to the Finals in 2007, they would have had their 2003 Finals rematch with the Spurs, a series that went to six games. With a juiced up Carter in the frame, the Spurs could have been overwhelmed in a second go around between the two sides during that era.

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