As I woke up on the morning of June 24, 1998 and prepared for one of the final days of my junior year in high school, before my feet even hit the floor I had one thing on my mind: who would the Celtics draft that night? They had the tenth pick in the draft, and there were so many possibilities. In the minds of Celtics fans all over Massachusetts, we’d been robbed of Tim Duncan the year before, when the lottery didn’t go our way and the Celtics ended up with the 3rd and 6th picks instead of the 1st overall, taking Chauncey Billups and Ron Mercer. I turned on the radio and would hear a song from an up and coming new artist-Usher-as his new hit single “Nice and Slow” was rising up the charts, and had recently spent it’s first week atop the Billboard top 100. After it finished, the DJ’s came on, to talk about the news, sports, and weather.
The whole country was buzzing that year about the potential impeachment of president Bill Clinton, who had been caught with an intern. His impeachment would be complete by the end of that year. The biggest movie of perhaps my lifetime until that point, Titanic, was still in theaters and had just recently passed the billion dollar in sales mark. The European union was only a few years old, their central bank had just been established earlier that month, and the euro’s value would be established permanently later that year. In a few months, a muscle bound slugger named McGwire would break a decades old home run record, and a tech start up would be founded. Larry Page and Sergey Brin would call it “Google” and it would change the internet-and perhaps the world-as we know it. But for me, that morning, there was only one thing going on: the NBA draft. The DJ’s finally stopped talking news, and for a few short minutes I’d get to hear the latest speculation regarding the draft that night.
A great deal of the pre-draft buzz had centered around an athletic scorer out of UNC; Antawn Jamison, who had won the NCAA Player of the Year award the prior season, averaging 22.2 points and 10.5 rebounds per game. During that season, he’d had one game where he dropped 35 points on Duke, despite touching the ball for just 53 seconds. He was known for his flashy dunks, often off alley oop passes from lesser known teammate Vince Carter, who had also declared for this draft, and was projected by most to end up in Sacramento.
While Jamison had created a lot of buzz with his exciting plays and high scoring affairs, it was pretty much universally agreed that the number one pick-controlled by the Los Angeles Clippers-would be either a little known Nigerian center Michael Olowakandi, or a flashy point guard from Arizona, Mike Bibby. Neither were the locks that Duncan had been the year before, but in a sport dominated by the center position, Olowakandi was someone that had to be considered, along with the point guard who had lead his college team to the 97 NCAA championship in his freshman season.
As the radio finally got around to the sports reporter, he talked about the usual names that year. Bibby, Olowokandi, and Jamison all came up as expected top 5 picks. A player from Kansas widely considered the best all around prospect in the draft Paul Pierce was also mentioned, and there were rumblings about a talented European prospect Dirk Nowitzki, who nobody quite knew what to expect out of. I was excited about what would come that night, and as it turned out my excitement was justified, as the 1998 NBA draft would change the future for at least three NBA franchises.
The draft finally came that night, and I watched excitedly as exactly what everyone expected began the draft, with Olowakandi and Bibby coming off the board first, to the Clippers and Vancouver Grizzlies, respectively. Kansas big man Raef LaFrentz went next, followed by the pair from UNC; Jamison and Carter, who went to Toronto and Golden State respectively, and were immediately traded for one another.
Looking back, trades really defined the pick that Vince Carter was selected with even for years before it was made, as the pick had been traded by the Warriors to the Magic (along with Anfernee “Penny” Hardaway), for Chris Webber in 1993, then traded by the Magic to the Washington Bullets in the summer of 1994 along with Scott Skiles for a second round pick (that would later become Randy Livingston) and their 1998 first round pick (which would become Keon Clark), then traded BACK to the Warriors with Tom Gugliotta and two other picks, for Chris Webber in November of that same year, meaning before he was even drafted, Vince Carter would be involved in TWO trades for Chris Webber, and end up back in Golden State where he wouldn’t play a minute because he’d be traded away from Golden State AGAIN for an All Star caliber forward, to begin his career in Toronto, alongside his cousin Tracy McGrady, who had been selected directly out of high school the year before by the young Raptors team with the 9th overall pick.
Carter’s first season with the Raptors wouldn’t begin until early in 1999, as the NBA lockout took it’s course, but on February 5th, 1999 10 days after his 22nd birthday, Carter and the Raptors would open the season in Boston with an 11 point win over the Celtics. Carter would start that day alongside Kevin Willis, who had been acquired via trade from the Rockets just over 2 weeks before Carter was drafted. The fact that Carter played his first two and a half seasons with Willis wouldn’t really seem significant until about 2 decades later, when their names would again appear together, just in a much more exclusive group of players.
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| Carter really made a name for himself during the 2000 All Star Weekend Dunk Contest, where his athletic dunks won over fans. |
In New Jersey, Carter would team up with All Star point guard Jason Kidd and a young Richard Jefferson, and together the trio would lead the Nets to three consecutive playoff appearances. After nearly 5 full seasons with the Nets, Carter would again be traded, this time at the age of 32, to the Orlando Magic along with Ryan Anderson for Rafer Alston, Tony Battie, and Courtney Lee. During those years with the Nets Carter averaged 23.6 points, 5.8 rebounds, and 4.6 assists per game, and was selected as an All Star three times. His time in Orlando, would mark the next phase of his career, as he would never again be selected to another All Star team.
Over the next 5 seasons, Vince Carter would play for the Magic, the Phoenix Suns, and the Dallas Mavericks, playing 25+ minutes per game in every season except his final season in Dallas when he would play 24.4 minutes per game, and begin to find his place in the league as a role player, coming off the bench for the Mavericks over his final 2 and a half seasons there. His field goal attempts would go from roughly 10 a game in Toronto and New Jersey to 4-5 a game, and he’d begin to take a higher percentage of three point shots, as they’d comprise roughly 30% of his attempts-or about double what they did during his first ten years in the league.
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| Carter's career has evolved, from superstar to role player to the role he's taken on in recent years: mentor |
He’d played with and/or against the likes of Michael Jordan, Karl Malone, Magic Johnson, Tim Duncan, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett, and also seen hundreds, perhaps thousands of NBA players come and go. Stars, busts, and everything in between. He’d seen a whole new playing style take over the league, and adapted so his game better fit that mold. The wisdom he’d accumulated over his 16 seasons in the league was immeasurable. And so began the third phase of his memorable career, from Vince Carter the star, to Vince Carter the role player, to now, Vince Carter the mentor.
The evolution of both his game and outlook on his place in the league is evident in both his statistics, and transaction log, as his volume and production dipped, but so did the activity in his transaction log. He stopped being traded from team to team, or waived like he was in Phoenix. He developed a new value to his teams over the years, mentoring younger players. Over the next 5 seasons he made stops in Memphis, Sacramento, and Atlanta, doing almost the opposite of ring chasing, popping up on youthful rosters and helping guide young players as they make the transition into the league that he’d seen so many make since he made his own, before many of these new teammates were born.
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| One of the greatest dunks of Carter's career took place on Team USA, when he leapt over 7 footer Frederic Weis, of the French national team. |
We’ve all seen other players stubbornly insist on playing “their game”, quickly and in some cases abruptly playing themselves right out of the league (Carmelo Anthony comes to mind as a glaring and recent example of this). We’ve seen players chase rings, in an effort to add meaningless jewelry and bolster their resume, or earn one elusive championship. These methods of ending a career are far more common than what we’ve seen Vince Carter do, which was to adapt both his game and personality on the fly to fit what his teams needed, and the results speak for themselves. In 2015-16, Carter won the Twyrman-Stokes “Teammate of the Year” award, and will begin his record breaking 22nd season this year as a rotation player and mentor for the Atlanta Hawks. His farewell tour will be-among many other things-well deserved as an epic career comes to an end when the final active player drafted in the 90’s rides off into
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