Who’s better – Nowitzki or Carter?
The 1998 NBA Draft was a great one because players such as Vince Carter, Dirk Nowitzki, Paul Pierce, Jason Williams or Antawn Jamison entered the league. Since then a lot has changed into the National Basketball Association, many players came and left, but something remained unchanged. Vince Carter and Dirk Nowitzki are still playing in the league, as they are in the 21st season of their careers.
That’s why today I want to make a comparison between these two future Hall-of-Famers. The first thing that I considered worthy to be mentioned is that while Dirk stayed with Dallas Mavericks for his entire career, Vince played for 8 teams: Toronto Raptors, New Jersey Nets, Orlando Magic, Phoenix Suns, Dallas Mavericks, Memphis Grizzlies, Sacramento Kings, and Atlanta Hawks. Also, they play different positions. Nowitzki is a big man who loved a lot to play mid-range, with the fadeaway being one of his trademarks. In opposition, Carter was a shooting guard for the most part of his career, and in this athleticism has played a big role.
Maybe this is why Vince Carter is having a better year than Dirk Nowitzki. Currently, the Hawks’ player is having better numbers than Dirk in four of the five main categories: points (7.3 – 3.9), rebounds (2.9 – 1.5), assists (1.0 – 0.4), and steals (0.6 – 0.0). Also, if we look at percentages, Vince Carter is dominating: 2P% (48.1 – 40), 3P% (37.3 – 25.9). At the free-throw line, Dirk Nowitzki is perfect but he only attempted 6 this season, while Vince Carter has attempted 26, scoring 20. The last aspect that I want to look into is the player efficiency rating (PER). Vince Carter is having a PER of 11.6 while Dirk Nowitzki’s PER is 4.9, That shows that Father Time gets everybody because the NBA average PER is 15.
So, we can conclude that Vince Carter is having a better season than Dirk Nowitzki but we are looking over their entire career I think that Nowitzki has been the better player, and the numbers confirm this. Last but not least, Dirk Nowitzki was selected 4 times in the NBA 1st team and 5 times in the 2nd team and Vince Carter just 1 time in the 2nd team.
David Istrate, info@brainbasketball.net
