If you've followed the arc of Vince Carter's memorable rise and dive, you've seen the Toronto Raptors all-star go from one of the most celebrated icons in sports to one of the most maligned. He's gone from golden rookie to damaged goods, from the undisputed hero of the highlight reel to, in the recent opinion of the all-seeing gurus at ESPN, the world's most overrated athlete.

It's been a hard ride for the man they call Vinsanity, one on which he's been surpassed as a player by a distant cousin, dwarfed as a shoe endorser by a high-school phenom and dissed as uninterested in excellence by former teammates. And if most of the sheen hadn't come off his celebrity in the two injury-riddled years that led up to last night, when he played host to his third annual charity all-star game at the Air Canada Centre, he dealt his battered image yet another blow in the moments before showtime.

Carter showed up wearing braces. (He's had the orthodontics for a week, he said, and they won't be coming off for another year). After a couple of seasons being picked apart, even one of the things about him that seemed undeniably perfect ? that pearly blast of a smile that sold cereal and cell phones ? isn't without its flaws after all.

It says something, then, that you can't call Carter toothless in this city without hearing a loud retort from his legions of loyalists. If you needed a measure of his enduring popularity, you needed only to catch a couple of minutes of last night's action.

It was an evening short on marquee names ? Shawn Marion of the Phoenix Suns was the only all-star not named Carter in attendance. And the resultant product was like it always is at these things: an endless procession of uncontested layups and dunks, void of defence, high in turnovers.

But for all of Carter's woes, for all of the triviality of last night's event, the place was sold out for the third straight summer. Nearly 20,000 fans found their way to a meaningless hoops exhibition when the Argos were drawing a measly 15,000 for a regular-season CFL game down the street at SkyDome.