Vince Carter, the league's oldest player, will be coming back next season
There will be one more year of “Half-Man, Half-Amazing.” Where it will happen, though, remains to be determined.
In his final diary entry for The Undefeated, Vince Carter, 41, wrote that he will be returning for a 21st season, though he is “90 percent sure that’s it” following the 2018-19 campaign. Carter is currently the oldest player in the league, and his announcement comes on the heels of fellow 1998 NBA draftee, Dirk Nowitzki, saying he will likewise come back for his 21st campaign.
Carter has spent this season with Sacramento, where he has averaged 5.3 points on 17.6 minutes for the Kings heading into their season finale. It’s the seventh NBA team he has played for, and there’s a chance he could finish his career with an eighth organization: He will be a free agent this offseason.
“Is Sacramento a possibility?” Carter wrote. “Or how am I looking at free agency? I don’t know. I stay in my lane. I know how it will work and I know teams are going to do what they do, go through the draft, make their trades and cuts and whatnot. Then it’s my time. I just have to wait. I get it.”
Carter also acknowledged it’s been a tough year for him: The Kings (26-55) are very much in the early stages of rebuilding mode, and recently Carter undercut Patrick McCaw, causing McCaw to fall awkwardly and injure his spine. Carter addressed the incident in his diary as well: “Obviously, we were on the road, so I couldn’t go into the hospital to check on him personally. But I was just very, very, very happy that he recovered and he was able to walk up out of the hospital…I’ve read his comments. It made me feel better, obviously. But there is nothing like me reaching out to him, which I will do.
Carter can certainly serve as a role model for a young team — that’s a major reason why the Kings brought him in this season — but also still has enough to be a rotation player on a team with playoff aspirations as well. Just last year, Carter averaged 24.6 minutes in 73 games for the Memphis Grizzlies, who took San Antonio to six games in the opening round of the playoffs. For all of his individual accolades (eight-time All Star, two-time All-NBA, Rookie of the Year), Carter has never won a title.
