Vince Carter, who was recently enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame this past October, spent five years playing for the Nets during his historic 22-season career. In this relatively-short time frame, he set the franchise record with 2,070 points during the 2006-07 NBA campaign.
This is one of the reasons why the Brooklyn organization has decided to retire the icon’s No. 15 jersey on January 25 during a halftime ceremony against the Miami Heat. As part of the celebrations, the Empire State Building will be lit in red, while and blue, which are the team’s former colors.
Also, the team announced this Thursday that Vince’s No. 15 jersey will be rotating on the landmarks’ spire in his honor. Carter will be the seventh player to have his number retired by the franchise, and the first since his former teammate Jason Kidd was commemorated.
Empire State Building to be lit in Nets' old colors and Vince Carter's No. 15 when jersey retired https://t.co/WgkAfuC6RN
— MySA (@mySA) January 16, 2025
During his Hall-of-Fame induction, the 47-year-old had plenty to celebrate after a historic-22 seasons in the big stage. During the ceremony in October, Vince celebrated the fact that he is the only athlete to ever compete in the NBA during four different decades.
In this time frame, he started out by conquering the 1999 Rookie of the Year award, received eight All-Star selections, a couple of All-NBA team appearances, and dropped over 25,000 points.
One of his most memorable moments come during the 2000 Slam Dunk Contest, which is considered by many to be the most important exhibition in this event’s history. The Raptors legend revealed some time later than he came up with his iconic dunk as he was flying through the air, and didn’t even think he was good enough to win.
Years later the former NBA star recognized that he would watch the slam contest religiously throughout his youth, and remembered being full of adrenaline that special night. “I tried that, worked on it so many times and could barely make that dunk in practice,” said the retired superstar. “But my adrenaline was so, so high to where I said, ‘You know what? I think I can pull it off.’ That’s just what it was.”
