Roughly 4,000 players have set foot on a court in an NBA game. Vince Carter
became the 22nd of those players to amass 25,000 career points when, in a manner
befitting his career, he threw down a two-handed dunk with 0.5 seconds remaining
in a 124-108 loss to the Toronto Raptors.
“I’m thankful for every one of the 247 teammates that I’ve had,” Carter said
afterward, about an hour before the clock struck midnight and Thanksgiving
officially began. “I’m aware of that stat.”
The youngest two of those 247 conspired to help him take the final steps to the
milestone. Carter checked into the game with two and a half minutes remaining
and the Toronto Raptors assured of a win. Rookie Trae Young laid the objective
out for fellow rookie Kevin Huerter.
“We’ve gotta get Vince six points,” Young said.
Young also let Carter know that the ball was coming his way. Vince Carter, half
man, half amazing, was about to become a high-volume scorer once again just as
he was in his heyday, when Young and Huerter were still toddling around in
diapers.
“I hadn’t heard that in a while,” Carter said with a laugh, “so it was like –
aww, man – it was a little uncomfortable.”
Young started firing every conceivable pass to Carter, including one that Vince
sank for a three with 1:42 remaining. Then in the final minute off another pass
from Young, Carter set up to attempt three-point shot and was fouled in the act
of shooting. However, Carter ever-so-slightly toed the line to earn just two
free throws, both of which he made.
With five seconds left, Carter missed a baseline jump shot. Huerter grabbed the
offensive rebound with a chance to give Vince one more chance.
“I thought he was going to be out by the three-point line,” Huerter said, “so I
was ready to catch and fire. I threw it at his ankle, so thank God he had good
hands and he went up and dunked it.”
Assisted by two 20-year-olds who hadn’t been born yet when he was drafted into
the league, Carter now had 25,001 career NBA points.
“He got up there, too,” Huerter added. “It wasn’t a Vince Carter 41 (years old
dunk), it was a Vince Carter 23 (years old) type dunk.”
To hear Carter’s side of it, perhaps the look deceived the accumulation of
years.
“When you hit your 40s and you’re playing professional sports, everything hurts
all the time so you just get used to it,” Carter said. “If you saw me in the
morning sometime walking in, you would probably be like, ‘Bro, you’re never
going to be able to play’, but at night, it’s just the adrenaline rush of being
able to play.”
The younger Hawks clearly appreciated the history that was made. Huerter called
his pass the biggest assist of his career by a long margin. Taurean Prince left
the locker room with a pair of Carter’s autographed shoes and his biggest smile
of the season. Jeremy Lin got the game’s scoresheet signed by Carter.
They all wanted a souvenir from a historic event.
“All the guys tried to take everything I own in my locker, so all my backup
pairs of shoes are gone now,” Carter quipped.
All season long, Carter has been the veteran voice in the locker room, the
person who knew the answer when those younger players had a question. Young and
the other rookies have had lots of them. They know that Carter has been in their
shoes, sometimes with eerie similarity. Like Young, Carter was drafted with the
fifth overall pick of the draft, then traded on the same night for someone who
was chosen before him.
“For me, I’ve learned so much asking him questions on how to handle certain
situations, how to grow as a rookie in this league, how to battle through
adversity, even how to handle losing,” Young said. “It’s been a blessing having
a guy like him to play with.”
But Carter, when he was in the same situation 20 years ago, was actually in a
totally different set of circumstances: the 1998 NBA lockout. There were no
official NBA team activities. Carter couldn’t talk to any coaches or staff
members of the Raptors, the team that acquired his rights on draft night. He
also wasn’t allowed in any of the team’s training facilities. To keep his game
fresh for when the NBA snapped back to action, Carter returned to Chapel Hill,
North Carolina to get counsel from his college coach.
So tonight, among the countless people that he thanked on reaching 25,000
points, Carter was particularly appreciative of his college coach, University of
North Carolina legend Dean Smith. During that lockout, Smith tailored his lesson
plan for Carter accordingly, knowing that Carter was bound for the NBA and not
the NCAA.
“When you’re in college, you work on what you’re working on as far as what he
wants within the confines of our offense,” Carter said. “But sitting there
working out with him and preparing for the NBA and hearing the things that he
was saying, you’d look at Coach Smith like, ‘We’re working on individual moves
here, NBA moves!’ It was just great, and the knowledge that he prepared me for
in that short stint of a semester was paramount for me.”
When the lockout ended in January 1999, Carter did find an NBA veteran ready to
provide him with advice, much in the way that he now guides Young and Huerter.
“Charles Oakley, on the second day, put his arm around me and said, ‘I’m going
to teach you the ropes. You’re going to learn how to be a player.’ ”
That iteration of the Toronto Raptors with Carter and Oakley started the season
with 6 wins and 12 losses. This year’s Hawks team trails even that humble pace
by a few games. Fresh faces like Young and Huerter are learning the tricks of a
highly-skilled, highly competitive trade, and they have to grapple with those
lessons with thousands of spectators sitting within a few hundred feet of their
workspace.
“That’s why I’m here,” Carter said. “To encourage through the tough times.”
Now in his 21st NBA season, Carter doesn’t dunk as often as he used to. The ones
that he does thrown down are usually punctuated with his signature celebration.
On this night, though, he squeezed the ball for a few moments and dropped it. In
forgoing the ‘Crank It Up’, Carter momentarily lived up to his moderate age.
“I forgot,” he said afterward. “I totally forgot.”
Player: Vince Carter
Player: Kevin Huerter
Player: Trae Young
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