Vince Carter scored 21 points for the Raptors but only six after the first quarter, when he hurt the ring finger of his right hand diving for a loose ball.

In a shooting slump recently, he finished 9-of-23 but made only four of 18 shots after hitting his first five. With Los Angeles ahead 82-59 after three periods, he didn't play in the fourth.

``The fingernail actually rolled back on my ring finger and it was bleeding,'' Carter said.

Raptors set to bow to Prince Vince again
Abdur-Rahim deal could end badly

When Vince Carter stepped aboard the luxury private jet that would take him to the 2000 NBA All-Star Game, he turned up his nose at the wide-ranging in-flight menu, which included prime rib and shrimp cocktail.

A lackey with a van was dispatched to correct the wrong, and soon a 20-pack of Carter's beloved Chicken McNuggets was arriving on the runway.

It's a tiny story, but it also sums up the entire sordid saga of Carter's rise and fall in Raptorland. For more than seven years the local hoop proprietors have bowed to Vinsanity's every flaky whim, buying him everything from fast food to favoured teammates, ditching the players he disdained. And now it looks as though the Raptors are prepared to acquiesce to Prince Vince yet again. It looks as though they're about to give him the trade he wants to a team that's better than his current squad, even though it will almost certainly come at the franchise's pricey expense.

Ever since he arrived at training camp out of shape Carter has been happily watching his stats plummet and his trade value bottoming out, laughing and smiling through wins and losses alike. And if he's concerned — heck, if he even still enjoys playing basketball — he hides it well.

But it won't be long, the trade winds were strongly suggesting yesterday, until Raptor fans will be reading the stories of Carter's renaissance in the U.S. Pacific Northwest, where the Portland Trail Blazers are dangling Shareef Abdur-Rahim in a softie-for-softie swap.

And if it doesn't tick you off that Carter will get his way, go to Portland, and probably immediately play like he means it — and like we know he's always been capable of — then your skin is thicker than Carter's skull.

You'd like to believe there's a general manager in Toronto who would ride this out, let the prima donna discredit himself while opposing general managers, some of whom will inevitably be tempted to make Carter their reclamation project (à la a previously lost cause named Rasheed Wallace), sweeten the pot. The Raptors' 4-5 start is no reason for panic. This club has shown it can win some games without Carter's contribution. So even if he rides the pine, even if he moans, so what?

But if Rob Babcock figures this is his best-case-scenario outcome from the Carter crisis, here's where Babcock's career starts being defined.

If it's Abdur-Rahim for Carter, it's dicey, not the least because Abdur-Rahim shoots too much, plays scant defence and famously wilts in the clutch. If your starting lineup includes Abdur-Rahim and Chris Bosh, both natural power forwards, one of them is out of position. And Donyell Marshall (who is a valuable, albeit tradeable, asset) is out playing time.

What's more, Abdur-Rahim's contract expires at season's end. So if Babcock is basically trading Carter for salary-cap room, the general manager had better understand how attractive Toronto looks to the players he'll presumably try to woo.

Clearing cap space is no panacea. Babcock and his scouting staff will be tested to spend that money productively.

Then again, getting out from under Carter's hefty contract — and, in a better scenario, Jalen Rose's too — would at least give Babcock options where he currently has few. In an ideal world you'd like to see the Raptors ship Carter for a couple of productive players whose contracts will keep them in Hogtown for a few years. In this case you get the sense Babcock's making a career-defining move too hastily, because a lot of potential trade partners won't consider making a move until the season's further along. You get the sense it could end badly when Abdur-Rahim walks and the free agents don't exactly get in line at Canada Customs.

But above all you get the sickening feeling that Carter is about to have his way again, that the ingrate who has repaid Toronto's many kindnesses with a shrug and a fallaway 26-footer is about to go giggling out of view after another Raptors loss.

Didn't Damon Stoudemire start off in Toronto too?