Vince Carter probably doesn’t have a whole lot of life left in his NBA career. But on Monday night, the 40-year-old—who is the oldest active NBA player—proved that he’s not ready to call it quits just yet.
Carter was inserted into the Grizzlies’ starting lineup for their game against the Bucks after Memphis announced that Chandler Parsons will likely miss the remainder of the 2016-17 NBA season with a knee injury. And he responded by making history. Carter hit six three-pointers during the game, which makes him the first 40-year-old player to ever record that many threes in a single contest:
He also finished the game with 24 points, which makes him just the sixth NBA player 40 or older to score more than 20 points in a contest. He joined the likes of Michael Jordan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Karl Malone on the list of other players who have done it:
And Carter got to 24 points without missing a shot during the game. He was 8-for-8 from the field for Memphis and made two free throws, which makes him the oldest NBA player to ever score 20 while sinking all of his field goal attempts and free throws.
Oh, and as if that wasn’t enough, he also threw down a dunk just to remind everyone that he can still do that, too:
After the game ended, Carter’s teammates and his head coach David Fizdale were surprised by his performance. Fizdale said Carter "never ceases to amaze me." But Carter sounded pretty ho-hum about the whole thing and was just glad to get a start under his belt.
"Hey, better late than never," he said, before talking about how he didn’t discover he was starting until right before the game started. "I didn’t realize it until [Parsons] said something to me. I’d rather not know. Just let me play."
Carter likely won’t be playing much longer. But for one night, he looked like the Vince Carter we have all known and loved for so many years now.
