“I Kinda Got Chills”: Vince Carter Discusses the Last Basket He Took Before Retiring From the NBA

The NBA community knows of Vince Carter as the only player to have played in the league for 22 seasons. Over this span of four decades, Carter has achieved many milestones. However, there are some moments in his career that are more memorable than others. Recently, he talked about some of them.

Vince Carter and his Vin-sane moments

When Vince Carter finally announced that he would be retiring, it shook the entire NBA community. After all, Carter has been a part of the league from 1998, till date! Carter played when Michael Jordan was in the league, in the Kobe Bryant era, and against LeBron James too! The 43-year-old eight time All-Star had a pretty amazing career.

Recently, Carter was on a call with TNT’s Ernie Johnson. On the call, the duo discussed several things. However, what caught our eye was the mention of his last game. The Atlanta Hawks shooting guard told Ernie,

“I kinda got chills because now I think reality start to set in like you know what? This might be the last one. This might be my last time playing this game. And you know, I was like, we don’t know. It’s just I’m a realist. I’m like this is a real situation. Take advantage of this moment we got in there.”

Talking about how he took his last shot, Carter continued,

“As I’m taking the ball out, I’m like okay, just keep it normal. Just shoot, don’t either aim it, just let it fly, let it fly. And half way in I was like, this is gonna go in, and when it went in, it was like a relief.”

Further, talking about the famous All-Star dunk contest of 2000, Carter revealed that none of his dunks went as planned. This comes as a surprise because if one watches the videos from that night, the entire arena erupted every time Vince took a shot.

He said,

“It was  oooh-ahhh for a lot of people but it didn’t feel right. It didn’t have the ‘wowing’ factor. That’s not what I was looking for. I just didn’t have that feel so I just scrapped that dunk.

“The dunks that I originally had planned, I was like this was not going to win. So I scrapped it right there on the spot. I’m just trying to pull things that I’ve done from times past that I felt would win or present the wow factor.”

Vince also said that his mother would tape the dunk contests for him when he was a youngster, so he could watch and study them later.

In the 22 season he spent in the league, Vince Carter won the hearts of veterans and rookies alike. So, when he announced his retirement, many were obviously heartbroken. The community will remember Vinsanity as the player who played in the league the longest, without drowning into the crowd.