Vince’s Flight Path To NBA Draft

It’s hard to imagine that ten years of electrifying basketball have passed since Vince Carter, one of this generation’s greatest stars of the hardwood, was another blue-chip hopeful, looking to fulfill his lifelong dream of playing in the NBA. During the spring and summer of 1998, before an illustrious career that would see him become an All-Star, slam-dunk champion, Olympic Gold Medalist and Rookie-of-the-Year, Carter was making the first steps before night of the 1998 NBA Draft that would launch his NBA career.

As he sat on a stationary bike rehabbing his surgically repaired right ankle at the Nets practice facility, Carter spoke with a certain joyfulness when recounting the events leading up to the draft that would catapult his NBA career.

Carter had a major choice to make at the end of the his junior year at North Carolina after leading the Tar Heels to their second consecutive Final Four appearance. If he stayed at North Carolina, he would be a front runner for the National Player of the Year during his senior season and would have a shot at winning the national championship that had eluded him in previous seasons. Forgoing his senior season would give him the chance to don an NBA uniform and fulfill his lifelong dream.

Carter chose the latter, jumpstarting an NBA career in which he would eventually become an eight-time All-Star.

“The decision to leave school was tough for me because I wanted to weigh my options and figure out whether it was the right thing to do or not,” Carter said. “I looked at it as if I wasn’t going to be drafted high, then I was definitely going to go back to school.”

Carter sought the help of legendary North Carolina coach Dean Smith to help him make the decision on entering the draft. Carter says that Smith and Bill Guthridge, who coached Carter during his final season at Carolina, reached out to their contacts in the NBA to gauge where he would go in the draft.

“Coach Smith didn’t persuade me one way or another in my decision, he just provided all the information he could and then let me make my own decision,” Carter said. “From there, I took the information home and my family and I discussed it and made a decision.”

After gaining assurance from Smith and Guthridge that he would be taken in the top ten in the draft Carter announced that he would enter the 1998 NBA Draft, making him eligible to work out for teams that were looking to select him early in the first round.

It didn’t take long for teams in the lottery to come knocking on Carter’s door, as workouts with eight teams were set up to help determine if they would select him with their pick. Carter felt that he performed well in his workouts with Denver, Golden State, Sacramento and Dallas, but his performance with the team that would eventually trade for his services on draft night left a lot to be desired.

“Toronto was probably my worst workout of all,” Carter said. “My flight was late, they cancelled my room, and then my bags got lost. I was supposed to work out the next day, but since my bags hadn’t shown up I didn’t have any shoes or anything to work out in.”

Despite what he considered a so-so workout, Toronto told Carter that they would select him if he was available with the fourth pick. Through constant communication with each of the teams that he worked out for, Carter also had the feeling that Golden State was interested in selecting him with the fifth pick. If he dropped to Dallas, who had the sixth pick, or Sacramento, who had the seventh selection, he also had assurances that he would not slip any further in the draft. Whether or not he had done enough to impress the people in Denver, who had the third pick, was still in the air.

“Whether or not Denver was going to take me was a little iffy, and they ended up taking Raef LaFrentz with the pick,” Carter said. “They said they liked me, but I guess not enough.”

The day before the draft Carter even had a last minute workout with the Vancouver Grizzlies, who were selecting second, but nothing materialized from it.

With workouts for eight different teams under his belt and a litany of advice from former North Carolina players and coaches, Carter still had no idea who was going to select him leading up to the draft. The uncertainty did not bother Carter, because he knew that he was going to have the opportunity to live out his dream as an NBA player. What was in store for him on draft night, however, would prove to include more excitement and twists than he could have ever imagined.

Written by Matt Tumbleson, NJ Nets