6ixpessant wrote:
Um no.... have you not listened to say Jamal or Dillon? Shai loved him some Bosh and Ford, but without Vince, the Raptors could have been the Grizzlies... then what? That's not hyperbole... I remember that time very well... the Raptors were a broken organisation.
The growth of development programs across the country can be traced back to the Vince Carter era when the sport really exploded in Canada. Growth has to start somewhere, and Vince was the seedling... now we have a healthy and growing tree. Without Vince? As much as I loved Shareef... he didn't move the needle.
It's absolutely hyperbole. Carter had a real positive effect on the growth of basketball for sure. The idea that we'd be the Grizzlies is ridiculous because it fundamentally does not register the fact that Vancouver and Toronto are two entirely different markets.
At that time the population of the metro Toronto area was significantly more than twice as high as Vancouver and that makes a difference. Toronto is a major city now, but it was a large North American market back then as well.
The media market, the potential fan base, the number of people available to buy tickets, you can't just ignore that stuff.
It's always ridiculous to say we would have been the Grizzlies because Vancouver was just a significantly smaller market.