Vince Carter is playing his final regular-season game in Toronto tonight, the place the 42-year-old called home for his first seven seasons in the league.
The Raptors selected Carter with the fifth pick in the 1998 NBA Draft out the University of North Carolina, selecting him before the likes of Dirk Nowitzki and Paul Pierce.
Carter burst onto the scene as a human highlight reel, in a lockout-shortened 50-game season. His impressive dunks quickly made him a household name. His dunks defied the laws of physics and often left you picking your jaw up off the parquet floor.
Remind you of another UNC prodigy?
The comparisons of Vince Carter to Michael Jordan began in college and gained even more steam once ‘Vinsanity’ made his mark on the NBA stage.
In addition to Toronto and Carter’s current stomping grounds in Atlanta, he made pit-stops in New Jersey, Orlando, Phoenix, Dallas, Memphis, and Sacramento. The sure-fire first-ballot Hall-of-Famer was also a member of the 2000 Olympic Gold Medal-winning team, where Carter dunked all over 7-foot-2 Frederic Weis of France.
The UNC product has a very accomplished NBA career: He’s won the Rookie of the Year Award, was selected to eight consecutive All-Star Games, and will be eight games shy of 1,500 games played, and is 20th all-time on the NBA scoring list.
Here are some of his highlights.
Here are his best dunks year-by-year.
