There was a lot of speculation about a possible trade of former All-Star Vince Carter around the time of the trade deadline in March, yet no deal took place. However, a few hours before the 2009 NBA draft started, the New Jersey Nets and Orlando Magic were able to agree on a significant trade for both teams.

Vince Carter and Ryan Anderson will head to Orlando in exchange for Rafer Alston, Courtney Lee and Tony Battie. Without any doubts, Vince Carter is far the best player involved in this trade but it remains to be seen which team will be better off in the long run. More specifically, Vince Carter comes with an impressive career stats line of 23.5 points, 5.5 rebounds, 4.7 rebounds and 1.2 steals per game. Moreover, he had eight All-Star game appearances, won the NBA Slam Dunk Contest and an Olympic gold medal as well as earning the Rookie of the Year award in his first NBA season.

Nonetheless, the Nets also acquired valuable assets for the future, especially Rafer Alston and Courtney Lee should improve New Jersey’s backcourt. Rafer ‘Skip to my Lou’ Alston is not only a former playground legend but also a veteran pass-first point guard who played an essential role in Orlando’s successful post-season run this year. Likewise, the Magic are giving up a possibly great future combo-guard in Courtney Lee who showed vast improvement during his rookie season in 2008-09. In contrast, the acquisition of Vince Carter may bring some problems for Orlando on and off the court. Firstly, the trade puts the Magic over the salary cap which will make re-signing Hedo Turkoglu difficult. Turkoglu was the most productive player in Orlando’s offense during the playoffs, thus it remains questionable to what extent replacing Turkoglu with Carter would help the franchise. Furthermore, the Magic lost their best perimeter defender in Courtney Lee, thus more slashing to Orlando’s hoop is bound to happen which might further increase foul problems for Dwight Howard. Taking everything into consideration it seems to be too early to tell which team might be better next season, but right now the Magic certainly took a bigger risk than the Nets.

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