Longtime NBA forward Vince Carter has already transitioned into a new broadcasting role after calling it a career earlier in 2020, but he received one more honor as a player from the NBA this week. The league announced on Thursday that NBA players voted Carter as the recipient of the NBA Sportsmanship Award for the 2019/20 season.
The aim of the award is to honor the player who “best represents the ideals of sportsmanship on the court,” the league noted in its press release. Six players – one per division – were nominated as finalists, with Carter beating out Harrison Barnes, Steven Adams, Langston Galloway, Tyus Jones, and Garrett Temple for the honor in his final season.
Carter earned 143 of 266 possible first-place votes and finished with 2,520 total voting points. Temple was the runner-up, with 22 first-place votes and 1,746 total points.
Here are more odds and ends from around the basketball world:
- In a conversation with Tim Reynolds of The Associated Press, NBPA executive director Michele Roberts said she won’t leave the players’ union until “we’ve returned to some semblance of stability,” but the plan is still for that to happen in 2022, when her current contract ends. “This PA has to have a succession plan,” Roberts said. “Every company does, we need to have one and we need to get about the business of getting somebody in place. … We’re going to get somebody in place and it’s going to be someone fantastic.”
- Former Thunder two-way player Kevin Hervey spoke to Joe Mussatto of The Oklahoman about leaving the NBA and G League to play for Lokomotiv Kuban in Russia. “I see it as such an opportunity to grow not only as a basketball player, but as an individual,” Hervey said. “To go experience a different culture, to go see a different side of the world.”
- Teams around the NBA – especially in smaller markets – should be rooting for the Heat over the Lakers in the NBA Finals, according to John Hollinger of The Athletic, who contends that a Miami win would be a point in favor of patiently building a roster from the ground up, rather than hoping two superstars will choose to join you.
That is true about the Heat, but acquiring one superstar in Jimmy Butler did help.
Miami knows how to draft and find great players. They are definitely not winning the championship but Miami has a great group of players no matter how much I dislike Riley for leaving NY.
Only bicoastally- placed teams can have the confidence to hope for two superstars joining, and actually, the Heat/Riley were one of those teams. It’s just that one less-than-super, star, Butler, was only ever needed to get this far (dummy Riley delaying a few years). Of course the title does not look likely this year.
I think Riley was looking for “transcendent”, not just the appropriate allstar… maybe next year.
And how,about respect for the “appropriate”. It’s not always the thought outside the box.
Could the Heat package 3 players for a stud? Lillard? The Greek freak?
Everyone wants Giannis, but with what the Heat could offer… in that case MIL should be the one wanting! Using Olynyk for matching salary, Adebayo, Herro & Nunn would be tempting. MIA would still have Dragic, Butler, Robinson, Iguodala, Crowder, Silva, Jones & Leonard to join and probably have the best EC team at least for a while.
But whoever trades Giannis may get lynched in Milwaukee! Nobody wants that on their resume. The Bucks once traded Kareem Jabbar for multiple good players an d have not broken through since.
The way Dragic has been successful weaving & scoring, McCollum would have good prospects. They could use Olynyk & Iguodala, who was probably signed for 2+1 years for trading.