Vince Carter talks about his slump
Vince Carter had a January to forget.
He averaged 8.7 points per game and shot just 28.4 percent from the field as he endured one of the worst slumps of his decorated NBA career, which is now in its 12th season.
Carter was asked about his recent struggles by reporters on Tuesday, but he politely tried to deflect those questions.
“Do you see this as a slump personally or something you just shoot yourself through?” he was asked.
“I don’t really get into that,” Carter responded. “As a team, we’re playing well. I don’t care about that [talk about slumps]. I’ll be fine.”
Carter later said he just needs to “keep playing” and that he’ll shoot himself through the slump.
“It’s what I’ve learned over 11 years,” he said. “If you’re in a slump, keep playing. The days get better.”
Carter acknowledged that his left shoulder, which he sprained on Jan. 8 and forced him to miss three games, still isn’t all the way healed.
“Like I said,” he added, “I’ll never use it as an excuse. I’m out there. I have to perform. It’s good enough to play, but there’s some painful times sometimes.”
Here is the complete article from the Magic BasketBlog.
posted by Mike from Illinois @ 4:33 AM
3 Comments:
At 4:47 AM,
Mike from Illinois said…
Three things I'd like to see VC focus on this month: 1) continue to play good defense; 2) limit his shots to no more than 15-16 a game, and make sure they come in the flow of the offense; in other words, no more forced shots or off-balance shots; and 3) continue to look to set up teammates for good shots.
Vince did all those things well against Milwaukee, and as his shoulder continues to heal, he should be more consistently good on a game-to-game basis.
At 9:47 AM,
Matt said…
It is a simple situation and I see the same sorry statements all over the media about his slump but no one is seriously considering resting him. It makes sense for him to keep playing if he is in a slump not caused by injury. But I suspect that is not the case. So we come down to:
1 - His presence on the floor, with exceptions like MIL and CHA, is more hurtful than helpful to the team.
2 - We need Carter at full capacity come play-offs time.
3 - We really don't need him as much right now. J.J. can fill in for the time being.
Anybody who goes through that logical process should reach the conclusion of resting Carter until he is fully healed. Now the MIL game showed different signs of maybe LIMITED PLAYING time helping Carter. We need to see more signs of the same to verify that he is healed. In the tough stretch of four games starting with Sunday game at BOS, we cannot risk the consistency of the team since every possession would be important in those games.
At 6:21 PM,
Mike from Illinois said…
Notice how much more effective VC was against Milwaukee as compared to the game against Atlanta Saturday night. Against Atlanta, he played just a little over 19 minutes and did not look good at all, but the limited playing time and the 2 days off after that made him a lot fresher for the Milwaukee game.
It will be interesting to see how Coach Van Gundy handles Carter's minutes with the two back-to-backs coming up, and if the 4 days off in 5 (prior to the Washington game Friday night) helped Carter heal at all.
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