Everyone Is Excited To See Vince Carter Become The Kings’ Grizzled Old Veteran


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The Sacramento Kings made a wonderful move on Thursday night when they agreed to a one-year contract with Vince Carter. The deal is for $8 million, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, which is a nice chunk of change for Carter and gives the young Kings one heck of a veteran presence in the locker room.

Actually, calling Carter a “veteran presence” within the organization sells short the fact that he is 40. While that’s not old in the grand scheme of things, in the NBA, that’s a generational difference. Plenty of people decided to try and illustrate this on Twitter, and it was fantastic.

Some, like Dwyane Wade, were just excited that they are going to get the opportunity to watch Carter continue his Hall of Fame career for another year…

…while others thought it was nuts that an NBA player in his 40s is signing such a lucrative deal, especially compared to what NFL players make.

Maybe the most underrated part of this is that it reunites Carter with Kings head coach David Joerger. The two crossed paths for a few years when Joerger was the head coach of the Grizzlies, and as it turns out, he really loved sharing a locker room with Carter.

But the best thing is that Carter is just going to stick around for another year. He’s been so great for so long, and while he has absolutely lost a step or two, he’s managed to reinvent himself as a savvy veteran who can occasionally contribute on the floor but does his best work as a mentor of young players.

Carter turns 41 on Jan. 26, 2018. The oldest person to ever play in an NBA game was Nat Hickey in 1948, who took the floor at 45 years and 363 days. The point I am trying to make is do not stop playing, Vince Carter.

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