I vaguely remember thinking that Vince Carter was washed back in the 2010-11 season when he got traded to the Suns. He had underperformed in Orlando and didn’t fare much better in Phoenix. Apparently the powers that be were in agreement with young, ignorant DTB (who hadn’t even adopted the moniker DownToBuck yet – he still went by his given name in all official communications); Phoenix waived Carter a year after that trade went down, and he signed with the Mavericks in the aftermath of their surprise championship.
So, I was thinking that Carter was toast all the way back in 2010. We are now in the year 2019 and he is probably more toast now than he was then, but he’s still more effective than a lot of NBA players I could name. If you had asked me back then what I thought Vince Carter would be doing in the year 2019, I would tell you that he’d toastier than the blackest, most toaster-abused piece of toast that has ever been conceived. And that he’d be doing TV analysis for the Mavericks while being 250 pounds of pure flab.
There are clearly some people over whom Father Time has no sway. Vince Carter is one of those people. Dirk Nowitzki is, sadly, not one of those people.