While all eyes in the basketball world might currently be trained on a potential start date for either this season’s post-season or the beginning of 2020-21, Vince Carter says he’s all but moved on.
With the NBA season suspended in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, along with the rest of the sports world, the former Raptors icon played what could very well be the final game of his 22-year career on March 11 — the day the Association’s suspension took effect. And while it remains to be seen whether any portion of the regular season will still be played if the 2019-20 campaign is resumed, Carter said he’s at peace with how his career wrapped up if it doesn’t.
“In my mind, I’m approaching it as the season’s over,” he told co-host Annie Finberg on the duo’s podcast, Winging It, for The Ringer. The 43-year-old said last year that the 2019-20 campaign would be his last in the NBA.
If that is the case, then Carter will have gone out in the same manner in which he played the majority of his lengthy career: with a flourish.
In the final moments of that likely finale, a 136-131 loss to the Knicks, Carter closed things out with a memorable final display, checking in and draining a three in the closing seconds of overtime:
With the NBA season suspended until further notice, Vince Carter checks in and drains the in the final seconds of OT.
(: @ATLHawks)pic.twitter.com/bCuAQfMRqo
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) March 12, 2020
He detailed to Finberg how that surreal game played out, from learning about Rudy Gobert’s positive test result mid-game to checking in for that (likely) career-clinching bucket.
“Right before we start the third quarter, coach walks up to me and was like, ‘You heard about Rudy Gobert?’ I was like, ‘No I was shooting so how would I?'” Carter recalled. “And he kind of tells us, next thing you know the whispers start happening on the bench — soon as I heard that, I was like, ‘They definitely stopping the season right now.'”
“…I didn’t really think about it potentially being my last game or anything like that until our great friend Dewayne Dedmon threw it out there. He was like, ‘Man, this might be your last one — they could possibly stop play, or end the season right here.’
“I was just like, ‘That would be crazy,’ and that kind of was it. And then all of a sudden you start hearing chants, because I guess it kind of hit everybody else. … And DeAndre’ Bembry jokes, he’s like pushing me on the court, I’m like, ‘Nah chill, like I’m good,’ and then it seems like right after that moment they started to chant again. And it got louder and louder. … I kind of made eye contact with coach, and he was like, ‘Yeah.’ And right then, it’s like a chill just hit me.”
While his teammates were clamouring for a dunk, Carter joked he’d been sitting on the bench far too long to attempt a jam. He broke down what he was thinking as he took that final three during those last moments on the court, potentially the last ever for one of NBA history’s finest.
“Everybody was happy to see it go in, I was just happy I was able to get the ball there. It’s just mind over matter at that point,” he said with a laugh. “…If you think of a game-winning shot, you think sometimes you want to shoot the ball and you want to be perfect — you want to have the perfect form, the perfect arc, perfect follow-through, the whole nine. I’ve always been a guy that’s like, ‘I believe.’ I’ve trusted in all the work, and I had been shooting the ball well, in my opinion, all year. But when it came down to a shot that I needed to make, it was like second nature, and I’ve done it before.
“So, Trae (Young) throws the ball, I take my one-two step and just shoot it like I’ve been playing the whole game. It’s giving me chills right now, actually. … It was fun. I was glad that it went in, so it’s just something I’ll always remember.”
There’s been no indication up to this point whether or not the 2019-20 regular season will in fact resume, though the timing of any potential return has most thinking the league would likely opt to move directly into the post-season — a resumption that wouldn’t include Carter’s Atlanta Hawks, who rank second-last in the East.
Either way, he said, he’s fine with how things ended.
“If that was the last game, that was the last shot, I made my last shot, and I’m cool with it,” Carter said. “I feel good about my career and how things ended. If not, and the season continues, it continues.”
The Daytona Beach, Fla., native said the prospect of getting more time with his kids and sharing his love of basketball with them remains a key bonus of walking away from the NBA — “My little fella, I shoot the basketball all day anyway in the yard with him. I’m on the phone with my daughter, we talk basketball, we talk about life and all that stuff.” — and added his love of golf has made it easier to move on from the game he’s played his entire life.
“I have something that I enjoy, I have something that challenges me. Even with all this going on, I can go out there on the course and work on that, and still be in competition mode with myself and just getting better.
“So I think that helped kind of stepping away from the game, or walking away from the game, whichever one happens right now. That helps the transition.”
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