"In My Mind, Retired Vince Is Here" - Vince Carter Pretty Much Shut Down Any Prayer Of A 23rd NBA Season
Well this sucks. Even if this was the most likely scenario, part of me was hoping that due to the hiatus and all the coronavirus shit that maybe Vince Carter would say screw it and come back for one more year. Especially if next season doesn't start up again until Christmas. It's not like the Hawks are making the playoffs so he would have more than enough time to recover and give it another go. I understand him finally hanging it up, I mean the dude played 22 years in the league. That's absurd. He's the only player in NBA history to play in four separate decades. I'd say he's earned his retirement and then some.
But here's the thing. The league's hiatus robbed him and really all of us of some pretty cool moments. Like how the Hawks were slated to head up to TOR one last time on April 10th. I'm also sure he most likely doesn't give a shit but he's also right on KG's heal for 21st all time in scoring. He needs like 340ish points to move up one more spot. To put that in perspective he had 298 in 60 appearances this year.
Advertisement
Seeing as how he pretty much has a broadcasting spot waiting for him, I think it goes without saying that whether it's with TNT or whoever, the second that network has a Raptors home game, Vince needs to be on the call. Shit, he should be allowed to call the first home game of the year no matter what channel the game is on. That moment is going to be pretty damn awesome. Remember when he came back as a member of the Grizzlies?
Now that they no longer hold a grudge towards Vince for how he left, I imagine it's going to be 10x better whenever it happens. The big question is, does he get his jersey retired? Remember, the Raptors are one of three teams with zero retired numbers. That would be pretty cool (with Chris Bosh not far behind).
It's truly an end of an era, there are stoolies reading this blog right now that have never lived with Vince Carter not being in the NBA. Shit, it's been like 66% of my life. To be honest I don't really remember the NBA without him. A first ballot HOF career and one of the best players of his generation. Sucks it had to end the way it did