25 years on, no one stirs a Raptors crowd like Vince Carter

TORONTO – In a 30th-anniversary season billed around celebrating the past and looking to the future rather than obsessing over the present, this was the one game every Raptors fan circled on their calendars.

A matchup between Toronto and the Sacramento Kings - featuring Raptors all-time leading scorer DeMar DeRozan - was merely a footnote. The main event took place at halftime when Vince Carter's No. 15 became the first jersey retired by the Raptors.

Amidst an overtime thriller won by the home team, Carter, now 47, reminded us that no one has ever commanded the city's basketball crowd - or held the fan base's emotions in the palm of his hands - quite like him. That feeling is clearly mutual.

Carter was arguably the biggest star and most world-renowned athlete to ever wear Toronto across his chest. As a Raptor, he turned Toronto into a basketball city, one that suddenly roared as loud on Friday nights and Sunday afternoons as it did on Saturday evenings. As a Net (and Magic, Sun, and Maverick), he evoked a measure (and volume) of vitriol that perhaps no NBA star since has earned, not even LeBron James upon his first return to Cleveland with the Heat.

As any jilted lover will admit, such levels of hatred are only reserved for those who were once loved just as fervently. That's why it meant so much to Carter when Raptors fans finally embraced him again as part of the franchise's 20th-anniversary celebrations in 2014.

Recalling that 2014 tribute in a pregame press conference Saturday afternoon, a sobbing Carter needed a nearly 40-second break to gather himself.

"Throughout the years leading up to it, you saw highlights and videos, and I enjoyed those moments, but there's something about seeing those highlights in this building because that's where they were created," he told reporters.

If you thought that decade-old moment was cathartic for Carter and the Raptors, the last month has been immeasurably purifying. From the jersey retirement announcement during the refurbishing of Vince Carter Court, to the Hall of Fame induction speech given "as a Raptor," to the unveiling of a mural and plane in Carter's honor, Carter's tears at every stop have been impossible to ignore.

"Have you seen me lately?" Carter joked about his recent public displays of emotion. "I feel like my emotions speak louder than words. It tells the story.

"Going from where we started to where we are, trying to put that in perspective is what fills my heart. I have great appreciation for all of this. I think that's why I'm so damn emotional. All those feelings are splattered on that Carter 15 tonight."

The emotional roller coaster Carter took Raptors fans on over the last quarter-century helps explain his unorthodox reaction to a jersey retirement. As an energized Carter interacted with the crowd, he looked more like an eight-time All-Star ready to check in than a middle-aged man here for a halftime ceremony.

As Carter asked an already deafening crowd for more and let out a guttural scream he's been suppressing for decades, you could almost close your eyes in 2024 and open them in the year 2000, with Carter putting on a show for the team's first U.S. national TV appearance. Or 2001, after he dropped 50 points on Allen Iverson's 76ers in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference semifinals.

Before Carter had even said a word to the present-day crowd, he had Scotiabank Arena rocking in a way it hasn't in a while. It turns out he can just as easily electrify Toronto in a suit and dress shoes as he could in a jersey and a pair of Shox.

However, the most emotional moment of Carter's whirlwind month was one that seemed especially implausible a couple of decades ago. Back then, the discourse surrounding the removal of a team-issued parking spot for Carter's mother served as the most toxic low point in his relationship with the organization and its fans. On Saturday, Vince and Michelle Carter stood arm in arm and tearfully watched as their family name and Vince's image rose high above an adoring crowd.

Earlier in the day, Carter spoke of how this entire experience could serve as a way to wrap his Raptors saga with a bow. That scene is how you put a bow on this 25-year odyssey.

"I understood a long time ago that if you have an appreciation for something - if you love something - and people don't see it, be patient, because it's going to shine through," Carter said during a pregame press conference. Whatever bitterness may linger in some circles, the mutual appreciation between him and the city he still calls his second home certainly shone through Saturday.

Just as he did in his playing days, both as a fan favorite and a loathed visitor, Vince Carter delivered the must-watch moment of a Raptors season.

Joseph Casciaro is theScore's lead Raptors and NBA reporter.