Atlanta Hawks: So Long Vince Carter… Maybe

A goodbye to Atlanta Hawks forward Vince Carter.

In the final seconds of the Atlanta Hawks’ 136-131 OT loss to the Knicks, Vince Carter jogged up the court, took a pass from Trae Young and stepped into a 26-footer, draining it. It was his 2,290th career three-point make, the sixth-most in NBA history. It was also his last. Probably.

The face-off between the Hawks and Knicks started as your routine NBA game between two non-contending teams but ended much, much differently. About 15 minutes after tip, news started to come out that Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert had tested positive for COVID-19, the first professional athlete to do so.

Around the start of the fourth quarter, the NBA suddenly announced that all scheduled league games would be suspended, leaving the Hawks, Knicks and just a few other teams as the last to play.

In all the whirlwind of the suspension and the Gobert news and the speculation that followed that, the Hawks were still playing, and Vince Carter was still playing.

The name “Vince Carter” and the phrase “still playing” have been used together frequently as the 43-year-old keeps trucking through his NBA career. The 5th overall pick of the 1998 NBA Draft found stardom with the Raptors and Nets, making eight straight All-Star games from 2000-2007.

As his stats slowly declined in the late 2000s into the early 2010s, Carter was delegated to a smaller role. After bouncing around the Magic and Suns, VC was primarily a bench player for the first time in his career with the 2011-2012 Dallas Mavericks.

He started 947 games before the 2012 season began, and has started just 36 games since. Yet, VC kept playing. As is role turned from All-Star to starter to the sixth man to role player, Vinsanity remained.

He spent three years in Dallas, then three years in Memphis, who were both in the playoff hunt throughout. Then, he did something different. In the era of ring-chasing veterans, Carter signed with the Sacramento Kings who won just 32 games the season prior.

“I didn’t want to sit and collect a check and ride a wave of some championship team,” Carter bluntly said after signing. He spent a year in Sac-Town, averaging 17.7 minutes per game and the least amount of points in his career.

The next summer, he did the same thing. The league’s oldest active player signed a veteran minimum deal with the Atlanta Hawks in August 2018, putting off his broadcasting career at least one more season.

After appearing in 76 games for the Hawks and serving as a key mentor both on and off the court to the Hawks’ very young locker room, Vince was a free agent again. Despite weighing his options and holding out until nearly every other free agent had signed, he re-upped with the Hawks, officially declaring it his final season.

While it wasn’t comparable to Kobe Bryant‘s or Derek Jeter’s farewell tour in years past, Vince was given a nice goodbye in his final game in each opposing arena, receiving an ovation every time he checked in.

On the court, his play has dropped from his first year in Atlanta, and he’had a lesser role as well. Off the court, he’s still a great glue guy and a constant veteran presence for a Hawks team that’s had a lack of older players.

He’s shooting just above 30 percent from three, under 36 percent from the field, but it’s hard to criticize Vince too much. He’s a future Hall-of-Famer and gives more effort defensively as a 43-year-old than some of the Hawks in their early twenties.

Carter is arguably not a top-ten player on arguably the worst team in the league, and yet, he keeps playing. Just like he always has.

The Hawks had 15 games left to go after the Knicks match, and while the NBA seems to be determined to resume the season in some way, the realist in me thinks it’s over, at least for the non-playoff teams.

Vince’s career that spanned 22 seasons, eight teams and over 1,500 games may have suddenly come to an end.

It didn’t end with a windmill dunk or an uber-athletic layup like the ones he was known for early in his career. It was a catch-and-shoot three, the final period on a career that saw Vince constantly evolve to stay relevant in the league and keep playing.

After the Knicks game, Vince fought back tears in his presser. “The Game’s been good” he managed.

Vince will no doubt be around the game in the future. His ‘Winging It’ podcast he’s done in his last two seasons with The Ringer is a nice preview of his future in broadcasting.

He will be missed on the court, however, both as a Hawk and an NBA player in general. The game may have been good to him, but he’s been just as good to the game.

So goodbye, Vince Carter (probably).