Lloyd Pierce has gotta just be giving Vince Carter minutes for the laughs, right? There’s no way that VC, however large his legacy is, can actually be contributing to winning basketball right now. Last season, he was a pretty good shooter; this season, he’s not a pretty good shooter, as his 34% from the field and 29% from three would indicate. DownToBuck doesn’t care about defense, but you gotta assume that Carter’s defense is non-existent at this point because of his slow old-man legs.
Looking at the Hawks’ roster, most of their young players are getting adequate minutes, which means that Pierce can screw around with whatever minutes remain to be filled in the rotation. Is entertaining the fans with fifteen minutes of VC taking away shots from other players more important than expanding Ty Wallace’s role? Probably. If you’re the Hawks, you need to win just enough to keep Trae Young from snapping and murdering the entire locker room. Losing because you gave VC too many minutes isn’t the worst thing for them right now.
And, of course, the alternative to playing VC is having to play Evan Turner. Everybody would agree than the situation as it stands is preferable to giving any minutes to Turner at all.