HEIR WAVES

By MARK HEISLER

March 8, 2000 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Half mad, half amazing.

These are the days of Vince Carter’s life and they’re sweet, indeed, as he senses how high he can go, vertical leap-wise and otherwise.

In the first 10 weeks of 2000, the 23-year-old second-year phenom, sentenced to snowy, rarely-on-TV Toronto, topped the All-Star balloting with the second-highest total ever, appeared on Sports Illustrated’s cover, was named ESPN the Magazine’s athlete of the coming year and took over the All-Star dunk contest.

In the last two weeks, he scored 51 points in his team’s NBC debut, made a last-second, game-winning three-point shot at Boston, scored 10 points in a row in the fourth quarter at Vancouver and 35 points the next night at Portland as the Raptors won six in a row, coming into tonight’s contest (?) against the Clippers.

Of course, with fame comes the full-court crush and worse, The Comparison.

The Comparison, for those who haven’t already heard it applied to Grant Hill, Penny Hardaway, Jerry Stackhouse and Kobe Bryant, to name a few, is to Michael Jordan. It’s not only a cliche but a mindless one. Jordan won six NBA titles, 10 scoring titles, five MVPs and was a nine-time all-defense first-teamer. None of these young men has one of those.

But now Carter looks more and more like the One, so he’s the One who has to endure it.

Narrating tape of his game-winning three-pointer at Boston, ESPN’s Linda Cohn observes, “He says he hates the comparison to Michael Jordan, but let’s face it, how can you avoid it?”

By taking a deep breath?

After Carter goes for the 51, NBC puts on the eminent basketball expert, Chris Rock, who gushes: “He’s the best player I’ve seen since Michael. Allen [Iverson] is nice, Kobe’s nice. Shaq [O’Neal] is the most dominant but. . . .”

This is in keeping with NBC’s coverage. A New York Times breakdown of the telecast counts 165 mentions of Carter’s name and 105 shots of him, including some when he’s walking on or off the court or sitting on the bench.

OK, for the record, Carter does not think he’s the next coming of what’s his name.

“I’m not Michael Jordan,” he says. “I’m not close to him. I’m Vince Carter, and the things I do probably aren’t the things he used to do. . . .

“It doesn’t help any that I’m a guard from North Carolina, but, you know, one day it’s going to be all over and it’ll be like, ‘OK, this is what Vince Carter can do.’ And you never know, somebody else will have to deal with that problem of being compared to me.” He smiles.

“We hope,” he adds.

Aside from his graciousness at addressing this issue--he usually cuts off the question with an abrupt “I’m not Michael Jordan”--this is pure Carter, the humility, the optimism coupled with the hopeful tag line.

He’s a very late, very fast comer (OK, like you know who), so late and so fast, he can hardly believe it’s happening.

But it is, so if everyone could just stand back and enjoy it for what it is and stop trying to make him into someone he isn’t so he can save the NBA’s good name and NBC’s ratings, it would be a load off his mind.

Actually, no one is likely to do that, but he can dream, can’t he?

He’s Got Your Next, Right Here

” It’s flattering when people say you remind them of a player like him when you’re 14 years old. But for anyone to say you’re the next Michael Jordan also means you’ve got to come and win six NBA championships and do the scoring titles and do all the things he’s done. That’s just not going to happen.

“The sad thing . . . is that being half as good doesn’t count. If you’re not there, you’re considered a failure. . . .

“Even if you turn out to be a good player or even a really good player, it’s still said and written that you’re not that good because we said you could be the next Michael.”

--Jerry Stackhouse,

at the All-Star break

It’s true, it’s not only a cliche, it’s a setup.

Stackhouse knows; he got the big treatment. He was an early bloomer who was Jordan’s size and came from a small town in eastern Carolina, like Jordan. Stackhouse was compared to Jordan as a freshman--at Kinston High--and the drumroll got louder when he turned out to be a star in his own right.

The Philadelphia 76ers, who drafted him in 1995 after two years at North Carolina, took it as a merchandising opportunity, putting out a season-ticket brochure with a series of pictures showing Stackhouse morphing into Jordan.

Before their first meeting in January of ‘96, Stackhouse was indiscreet enough to tell reporters he and Jordan had played plenty of times in Chapel Hill, he’d always held his own and nobody could stop him one on one.

“Another thing,” Stackhouse said, “Michael fouls. I hope I get to the point in this league where I can hack, slap and get away with it all the time.”

Jordan then outscored him, 48-13. It might have been worse, but Jordan left with nine minutes left.

Stackhouse was out of Philadelphia in two-plus seasons, and took another two in Detroit before becoming a full-time starter and an all-star.

Others took similar pratfalls. The gentlemanly Hill was supposed to save sports, according to one magazine cover, and wrote a book called “Change the Game.” He turned out to be a perennial All-NBA pick and an Olympian, but his Pistons never got past the first round of the playoffs and he has had to struggle with the perception he’s a disappointment.

Bryant was nominated by NBA/NBC/TNT to shoot it out with Jordan in the 1998 All-Star game, fired off 10 shots in his first 11 touches and returned to the Lakers so spent, he went into a weeks-long slump.

Carter, a contemporary of Bryant--they even played together in the summer on an AAU team--is from Daytona Beach, Fla. He started hearing that Jordan stuff in high school, although it didn’t last. He was the Tar Heels’ leading recruit but didn’t start as a freshman and was eclipsed for all three seasons he spent in Chapel Hill by his classmate, Antawn Jamison, who had come in as a comparative unknown.

Nevertheless, by the end of his junior season, Carter was becoming someone. He had those amazing hops--he says he has never had his vertical leap measured, so all you can say is it’s way up there--and was becoming a high-percentage shooter and developing some range.

When he declared for the NBA draft, he was considered a top-10 guy. By the end of the pre-draft circuit, he was climbing, but on draft day, four players--Michael Olowokandi (Clippers), Mike Bibby (Vancouver Grizzlies), Raef LaFrentz (Denver Nuggets) and Jamison (Golden State Warriors)--went before he did.

Golden State even paid Toronto to switch picks to make sure it got Jamison, which won’t be one of the Warriors’ fonder memories for the next 10 years or however long Carter is tearing ‘em up.

And then things started happening. . . .

Carter became the runaway rookie of the year. The Raptors, so recently forsaken by their first general manager, Isiah Thomas, and their first two No. 1 picks, Damon Stoudamire and Marcus Camby, had their best finish, going 23-27.

Who knew Carter was only warming up?

The Age of Vinsanity

Coming out of North Carolina, Carter was a lot like Stackhouse, gifted physically but only a fair shooter and ballhandler.

The difference was that Carter was still improving at everything he wasn’t good at, like you know who.

By this January, Carter was off to an even faster start and expecting an Olympic selection to confirm it. This unaccountably went up in league/committee politics. Carter took it like a punch in the belly, turned in two low-energy games and cut off all questions about it.

Then he went back to happening.

He dropped 47 on Ray Allen, the Milwaukee guard who’d gotten his Olympic slot. On All-Star weekend, Carter’s chest-over-the-rim jams reinvigorated the long-stagnant dunk competition, wowing his fellow players along with everyone else.

“You don’t see the kind of things he did,” John Starks said, “except in a video game.”

O’Neal, caught by TNT cameras going bug-eyed at Carter’s dunks, was later named co-MVP of the game, but said the high point of his weekend was “Vince, of course.”

Julius Erving, himself, said he was “probably more spectacular with two of those dunks than anyone who has ever dunked a basketball.”

Now Carter’s a star and playing that way. Since recovering from his Olympic snub in early January, he has averaged 27.9 points. His three-point shooting has improved from 29% as a rookie to 41% and is still getting better. He shot 42% from the arc in February and is 11 for 18 in March.

Fame is a challenge--in January he told Toronto writers he wasn’t having as much fun anymore--but he’s not running away from it. He has an 18-person support staff, a personal publicist, marketing experts, etc., and spiritual/tangible help from his mother and confidant, Michelle Carter-Robinson, a teacher. Mom isn’t shy about protecting her son, insisting no one-on-one interviews are granted unless someone accompanies Vince.

Like his basketball career, his commercial one is only warming up. NBC just discovered him and is trying to make up for lost time. If he can get out of his Puma deal, now in arbitration, he’ll set off the biggest sneaker war in years.

Makes a young man just turned 23 want to rub his eyes, doesn’t it?

“It’s strange sometimes,” an effusive Carter said during All-Star weekend. “. . . I watch the TNT commercials that I did and sometimes I see myself and I’m just like, ‘Golly! That’s me there!’

“It’s amazing. It’s amazing. It’s not a burden. It’s tough sometimes because you get so many requests and you’d love to do ‘em all ‘cause they all sound good but you can’t.

“I was nobody. Exactly! Five minutes ago, I was just a little nobody skinny kid, who everybody knew could jump, from Daytona Beach. And now, I’m getting the opportunity to start in the NBA All-Star game. Can’t beat it.”

On one hand, he has the game, the ambition and the determination. On the other, he’ll need it all. At the All-Star media session, an Argentine radio guy showed up with a toy horn and kept trying to get Carter, who once played in his high school marching band, to toot it. Carter kept demurring.

The Raptors are now a lock to make the playoffs for the first time, but if they go out after one round, everyone will start asking if Carter makes his teammates better. Just as they once did with Jordan.

But Carter has learned to disregard all the nonsense, so whatever he turns out to be, it looks as though it’ll be a joy to behold.

Don’t give up on that Olympic team, young phenom. Invitees drop off all the time and it could happen again, if David Stern has to personally trip one down the stairs.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Heir Time

Comparing the first two NBA seasons of Michael Jordan and Vince Carter, both former players under Dean Smith at the University on North Carolina:

Jordan

Year: 84-85

G: 82

RPG: 4.4

APG: 5.9

PPG: 28.2

Year: 85-86

G: 18*

RPG: 3.6