After 22 seasons in the NBA, basketball legend Vince Carter surpassed Dirk Nowitzki, Kevin Garnett, Kevin Willis, and Robert Parish to become the league’s All-Time leader in seasons played.
With a career spanning from 1998-2020, he became the only player in basketball history whose professional-playing tenure lasted four decades, pre-dating many popular and widely known modern inventions like Wikipedia, Bluetooth, social media, the iPhone, and Facebook.
As one fan kindly pointed out on Instagram, he was also the last active player to appear on the Nintendo 64’s “NBA Jam 2000”.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CG4s9DahHhI
Just a quick comparison of the differences between NBA Jam 2000 and the modern NBA 2K games will tell you all you need to know about the longevity of Carter’s career. It’s truly mind-boggling.
Carter played for eight different franchises before the end of his final season this past March. Some of his achievements include 8 All-Star appearances, 2 All-NBA selections, and the 1998-1999 Rookie Of The Year.
His official retirement announcement came on June 25th, just months removed from his “final shot” in which he fittingly sank a 3-pointer in the closing seconds of the game.
“Making my last shot helped the situation. I think if I didn’t make my last shot, it’d have been a little different. It’d have felt a little different. I’d have been itching to, at least get back and just play one minute and just make one shot — I don’t care what it would be: free throw, layup, I don’t care,” Carter said on the “Winging It with Vince Carter” podcast . “As a player playing your last game — whether you know it or not — you always want to say, ‘well, at least I made the last shot of my career.’ And I can actually say that, so I’m happy.”
The 6-6 swingman averaged 16.7 points, 4.3 rebounds, and 3.1 assists on 43.5% shooting for his career.
