#55 - Vince Carter is Aaron

We are doing it! Woooooo! Fuck yeah, ‘Vinsanity’ himself is the miracle baby… himself? … Aaron! Vince Carter is Aaron. I guess that’s in the title and you knew that. Oh, you knew it, alright! Seriously, you’re doing a list comparing ESPN’s top 74 all time NBA players and the characters from ABC’s sci-fi/action/thriller ‘Lost’ and you get to #55 Vince Carter and you’re not saying he’s the fucking baby birthed on THE island whose name is Aaron? PFFFFFTTT, OF COURSE YOU DO! It’s a no-brainer. Light work. 

‘Half Man, Half Amazing’ played for-fucking-ever. He actually was playing this season that was cut short by a damn PANDEMIC. I’m literally looking up right now if he did announce his retirement. Ok, so he has said this is the end, but who knows. Seriously. He’s been pro hooping it since the year 19 … yeah, that’s how fucking long ago this fucking guy started pro hooping. The year started with a 19! 1998, damn it. 1998? Playstation 1 was like a new thing. It wasn’t even Playstation 1 or One or PSX or any of that- it was just Sony Playstation because it was brand new. And as of now, Sony is legit pushing back from releasing Playstation 5. FIVE! Or what is says on the system is PS5, which looks a lot like PISS. So, if you’re cool like me, you call it Playstation Piss. That’s me and my cool clique. I have seen some other cool kids call it Piss-station, which is alright. I mean I don’t think it’s ‘uncool’ or ‘not cool’ to do that, but you know where my allegiance lies. 1998? Jeez, I think that was the end of my Freshman year in high school and the beginning of my Sophomore year in high school, so I was full on obsessed with this one girl Elisa in my English class and I was also real into this girl Erin who I had been into in 7th and 8th grade already and then there was this girl Alexis who I was also totally into and completely intimidated by. I mean they all intimidated me, then and now no doubt. And then Sophomore year, I think I was really into this girl Kate, although that might’ve been Junior year. Hmmmm, either way, I was using mIRC, ICQ, and playing Quake online as much as I could. 

DUNKS! Ok, so Vince Carter was the first real superstar out of the Toronto Raptors (should’ve been the Toronto T-Rex) and his impact to the league was immediate with Vince winning the Rookie of the Year award and much much much more importantly winning the fucking 2000 SLAM DUNK contest. Our collective obsession with the NBA SLAM DUNK contest was really at an all-time high back then. It’s still a big deal now, but the 90s were of an era where it felt like each year something completely new was going to happen. Specifically, that ‘93-’97 stretch. Harold Miner won a pair of dunk contests where it felt like he was doing never before seen stuff, Isaiah Rider’s through the legs dunk felt like human evolution on live television, a fucking white man … let me repeat … a WHITE MAN named Brent Barry did the famed dunk from the freethrow line ala Michael Jordan (and others! I know! But we all know it as the Michael Jordan dunk from the freethrow line, ok!) while wearing a damn zipup track jacket as a WHITE man would do, and then Kobe Bryant fucking lit it up in his dunk contest, which is one of the most underrated or just so good we should always be talking about it dunk contest performances. AND THEN… the dunk contest didn’t happen for 2 years… AND THEN… Vince Carter blew the fucking doors and roof and asses and assholes out of that fucking contest. It was electric- 360 windmills and a through the legs alley oop one and it all had a mix of the flashiness, creativity of what we’d been getting PLUS the Dominique Wilkins-famed power. 

What I’m saying is- Vince coming into the league and being the highlight of the league right out of the gate with Rookie of the Year award and maybe the best dunk contest ever award is the same as Aaron getting BIRTHED in the JUNGLE on THE island. Right? Boom! First episode of Lost, plane crash and chaos on the beach and a fucking PREGNANT woman. Woman doesn’t need to be capitalized, I mean it’s the PREGNANT part that is the alarming part. If it was PREGNANT MAN, a little bit more surprising, right? And yeah, the Chekhov’s pregnancy was the ticking timebomb for Lost, which delivered (right?) as Claire had to give birth without the help of everyone’s fav island doctor and instead had everyone’s fav runaway thief in low rising jeans Kate as her doula. That dunk contest was a cinematic birth of superstardom and from that moment onward- all eyes were on Vince and Aaron, respectively. 

Vince would go on to play for 22 years in the NBA. He’s basically still in the NBA. Aaron? Aaron is alive at the end of Lost. A brand new baby somehow survives every single island shenanigan on THE island from kidnappings from The Others all the time to pregnant women supposedly die pre-child birth on THE island all the time anyway to gun fights to kidnappings from Danielle Rousseau to kidnappings from creepy forced father figure Charlie to having the tiniest mother of all-time Claire who just straight up leaves Aaron on top of some leaves to be discovered by Sawyer et al to gun fire around the baby like all the time to a helicopter ride to a boat ride to a lot of different things. Vince survived the league, Aaron survived Lost.

But man, people were never too fond of keeping either of them for a long period of time, right? Vince played for EIGHT teams. That’s crazy. Aaron was being passed around like every second too! His biological dad didn’t want him at all, his mom Claire was going to give him up for adoption, people kept kidnapping Aaron on THE island but wouldn’t keep him, his mom straight-up just leaves him to be found in the jungle as mentioned, Kate takes the kid and raises him for a few years, Jack who turns out to be the uncle of the kid gives up being the father figure, Kate sometimes dumps Aaron off at Cassidy’s to hang out with his spiritual sister Clementine, and, in the end, Kate fucking leaves Aaron alone in a motel room to go tell Aaron’s grandmother aka Claire’s mom that her grandson is in the next room and she can take care of him while Kate goes on the suicide mission of finding crazy Claire on THE island. Holy shit, right?! Raptors, Nets, Magic, Suns, Mavericks, Grizzlies, Kings, Hawks! I think, I know Vince and Aaron have some shit to share about permanency being a PROBLEM in their lives. Ok.

Also, Vince looks like a baby when he’s clean shaven. It’s like just all skin on him, like more skin on a head than usual. And Aaron looks like a full grown man basically from birth. He’s the biggest, chubbiest, skin-covered baby and his mom is like 85 pounds at best. There are genuinely some scenes where Claire is carrying Aaron and it looks like she’s carrying a naked human her complete size. It’s insane. So, Vince is a big man who looks like a baby and Aaron is a big baby who looks like a man. 

Fuck styles? Oof, you were dreading this, but you were also living for this! Vince seems like a happy ass dude, he’s durable, obvious longevity, and is a freak athlete, so I think he’d be great as a consensual lover. Whether you want highlight reel stuff or you want to prove it all night, I think Vince has got you. As for the baby Aaron? You sick fuck! You sick sick twisted reader! WHY ARE YOU MAKING ME DO THIS?! Fine! Well, I mean dude is gonna have SEVERE mommy issues and no one knows how that will manifest, but that will be for sure something to watch out for. Also, the dude can sleep. Honestly, he’s asleep throughout most of the show. They make a joke early on that Aaron can sleep through anything as a way to explain why you don’t hear the kid crying all the time as a newborn, but then later when they’re off the island and Kate is playing mom and Aaron is like 3 or something- HE’S STILL ALWAYS ASLEEP. Kid is just constantly napping. One long nap. Aaron’s more dog than person. Just passing out in his bed, his high chair, on the couch, in the car, on a motel bed while his mom leaves the room. I don’t know if he’ll ever grow out of that, but if he is ever going to have sex with someone they are going to need some serious uppers to keep him awake for it. Probably going to have to be standing too. Soon as his body is even slightly angled- out. Passed the fuck out.