NBA legend Vince Carter recently announced his retirement, but there’s a bit of a chance we may see him on the court again before it’s all over.
During a conversation on the Winging It podcast, Carter was asked about the potential ‘Delete Eight’ games involving the teams not currently in the Orlando bubble. The 43-year old swingman said:
“I’ll be there. If it happens, I’m gonna go out there, work with the guys … I don’t know [if I would play]. I don’t know, it’s a question mark. But I’ve definitely will go out there and work out with the guys and just be a part of it. You know, I got to take advantage of that as long as I can. Because when it’s over, it’s over. So they’ve also extended me the opportunity to go out there, if it happens, to do whatever. And I just want to lend a hand.”
He supported the recent suggestion because, for young teams like his Atlanta Hawks, competition and repetition are both necessary for long-term success.
The wing added that the folks currently at Disney World will enter next season with more rhythm than those who were not invited. As it stands, some players will enter 2020-21 having not played in an NBA game since March.
Carter said that “unfortunately” he does not think that it will happen because there are many who did not want to participate:
“From what I hear, there’s some guys out of the eight teams outside of the teams that don’t want to play either, but I’m like, well, guess what? You would have been playing in summer league right now anyway.”
On the same episode of the podcast, the eight-time All-Star was also asked if he had seriously considered returning to the Raptors before retiring. He was a member of their organization from his rookie season in 1998 until his trade to the New Jersey Nets in December 2004.
“So during free agency, my phone line was open to whoever. And you know, that’s what we did with just seeing who was interested. There’s teams interested. An attempt was made on both sides but yeah, we just wasn’t able to make it happen. I know for a fact my agent had conversations with Toronto but unfortunately couldn’t make it happen.”
The Raptors were coming off their first championship in history. Carter said that interest from teams around the league was “surprisingly large” and that he heard from approximately eight teams.
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