Vince Carter had a habit of creating moments forever frozen in time

UNCASVILLE, Conn. — It all started in Toronto.

Well, not entirely. Before Toronto, there was Mainland High School in his hometown of Daytona Beach, Florida, where Vince Carter’s reputation as a one-of-a-kind athletic talent had spread far enough and early enough that during his senior season in 1994-95, Nick Anderson and Dennis Scott — fixtures on the Orlando Magic, the best young team in the NBA at the time — drove to Daytona Beach to see what all the fuss was about.

For all the fame his high-flying rim attacks eventually brought him, the record-breaking length of Carter’s NBA career — 22 seasons, spanning four decades — means he’s still got at least one foot planted in an earlier era when stardom could still creep up on a young phenom. 

He went to high school before social media — or any corner of the Internet — would take a talent like his and turn him into a content farm. Carter didn’t leave home early to play for a big-name prep school with a cross-country national schedule that would make most pro teams shudder. He went to school in his hometown and played in the school band and on the volleyball team (spoiler: the six-foot-six leaper was very, very good).

As a result, Carter’s legend — the early stages of it anyway — was a word-of-mouth thing, prompting two young NBA players to take an hour-long trip up I-4 to see what the buzz was about firsthand and lay eyes on this local sensation who was on his way to leading Mainland to its first state championship in 56 years, and rumoured to occasionally dunk over parked cars. 

It made an impression on Carter.

“I remember that day like it was yesterday,” Carter, 47, said on Saturday, during his Hall of Fame induction celebration. “It opened my eyes to what I really wanted, and I wanted to be a professional basketball player. I wanted that opportunity. And to see pro players in that hot little Mainland High School gym, with one (working) fan, I had never envisioned something like that. I was hoping to finish college and maybe get an NBA tryout. I just didn’t know. We’re talking different times.”

On Sunday, Carter’s journey through basketball will reach its ultimate destination when he is formally inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts. The final honour after a career that spanned 1,541 games (third all-time), totalled 25,728 points (21st all-time) and saw him getting buckets in the NBA until he was 43 years old — his playing days ending only when the pandemic shut the league down for six months at the end of the 2019-20 season.

He was both a white-hot star in need of his own security and an aging veteran, acting as a calming voice for young teams. He never chased championships — his best opportunity coming as a seasoned starter on a 59-win Magic team that lost in the Eastern Conference Finals in 2010. He played 10 more seasons but was never a full-time starter again, and only once made it past the first round of the playoffs.

He kept playing because he wanted to and kept joining teams where he still had a chance to get on the floor. If that meant retiring without a championship, so be it.

“I just loved playing basketball,” he said.

All the while, Carter says his years with the Toronto Raptors prepared him for both stardom and life as a role player. When he was on the rise in Toronto, he could look around the circular dressing room at what was then the Air Canada Centre and see a crew of veterans in Charles Oakley, Dee Brown and Antonio Davis who had first-hand stories of how their former superstar teammates Michael Jordan, Larry Bird or Reggie Miller had handled similar challenges. And then, when it was Carter’s turn to be the grown-up in the room later in his career, he knew how to act.

“When I got a chance to play with Dwight Howard (in Orlando) or Dirk (Nowitzki) in Dallas, the first thing I said to them was, ‘I want to make the game easier for you,’” Carter said.

It's a career that is unique for its length and unusual for its impact. As the Raptors' first NBA star, Carter is credited for sparking the imagination of young basketball players across the country, more than a few of which made it to the NBA, and credit "Vinsanity" for lighting their path.

“When (13-year NBA veteran and Canadian Tristan Thompson) told me, ‘You’re my Michael Jordan’, I was like, 'Whoa, slow down. What are we doing here?' And he's like, ‘No, I'm serious’. Then you're hearing Kelly Olynyk saying it, Cory Joseph and the list goes on. It's like, ‘I never thought about that’,” Carter said.

Carter’s career is also rare in that he arrives at the Hall of Fame lacking some of the other credentials players of his stature typically accumulate, championships or Finals appearances, for example. Though he does have an Olympic gold medal as he led Team USA all the way in 2000 — a run that was highlighted by arguably the greatest in-game dunk ever, when he hurdled seven-foot French centre Frederic Weis.

If Carter had one quality above all others, it was the ability to create moments frozen in time, his showing at the 2000 NBA dunk contest perhaps foremost among them.

He prepared for the competition for years as an almost obsessive fan. During high school, he pored over VHS tapes of previous contests until they lost their replay quality, practicing how he would smile when presented with the trophy by late NBA commissioner David Stern. But then, in the moment, he just let it rip, choosing to fly by the seat of his shorts.

“I looked in the stands, I was on another level as far as excitement, in hype, for the moment. And I felt like the routine I had (prepared) wasn’t going to win, and I took a chance,” he said, referencing his iconic "arm-in-the-rim" dunk, as an improvised spur-of-the-moment choice.  “And we’re here talking today talking about the good, because it could have been bad, but I felt confident.”

And while Carter will be forever associated with the Raptors, who acquired him as the fifth-overall pick in the 1998 NBA draft — winning rookie of the year and bursting to stardom while lifting a wobbly franchise, and taking a nation of basketball fans on a ride that wasn’t likely equalled until Toronto won the NBA title in 2019 — Toronto was only part of his basketball story.

When Carter gets his iconic No. 15 retired and lifted to the rafters at Scotiabank Arena, it will be a tribute to six seasons with the Raptors, five All-Star appearances and athletic feats with a basketball that remain unduplicated.

But Carter’s career extended 14 more seasons. Before finishing his career as the rare post-superstar journeyman, Carter played some of his best basketball after leaving Toronto in a cloud of controversy, hurt feelings and meager returns following a franchise-shaking 2004 trade to the (then) New Jersey Nets. He went on to be a three-time All-Star and averaged 23.2 points, 5.6 rebounds and 4.6 assists with the Nets. They’re going to retire his jersey too.

New Jersey offered him a partnership he didn’t have the luxury of in Toronto as he formed a high-flying relationship with fellow Hall of Famer and point guard Jason Kidd, who ranks second all-time in assists, many of them on lobs to Carter.

“I remember, my first month in New Jersey (after he was traded in November 2004), and fans, seeing me play and it was a different style, and the one thing that always baffled me was (Toronto fans) would be like, 'How come he didn’t do that for us?'” Carter told me. “And I never understood that because I was like, ‘Rhat’s Jason frigging Kidd', let’s start there. In Toronto it was, the style of play was, get the ball, get a bucket, make it happen. In New Jersey, if J-Kidd got the rebound, it was just run. You mean, all I have to do now is put the ball in the basket? I can do that.”

He did it with a flair and style few could match. His ability to defy gravity underscoring all of it. Carter said that when he first arrived in New Jersey, Kidd would throw alley-oops higher and higher to see what his limits were. “He was calibrating,” said Carter.

The verdict? Throw it high, and let Vince figure it out.

Most of the time he did. From Mainland High School to downtown Toronto and beyond, Carter could always put on a show.