NBA Playoff Memories: Vince Carter's Old-Man Strength

The Dallas Mavericks were the best team in the NBA this past season. I'm not doing math here. My contention is not that the Mavs came within a DeJaun Blair reflex-kick of beating the Spurs, and the Spurs won the title, so by the transitive property, etc., I don't have some paradigm-shifting statistic in my back pocket. The Dallas Mavericks were the best team; Hard Eight is the best P.T. Anderson movie; and Anything Flamin' Hot is the best 99 cent bodega food. These are verities.

To think you need evidence in order to be right about something inconsequential is the mewling pedant's impulse. Do you have an opinion on a sports' matter? Is it about how Washington's football team shouldn't change its name? Okay, great: It's probably correct, then. Or close enough to correct that no one has any right to get huffy with you about it. If we watch sports primarily to feel—and if we don't, why aren't we doing that?—then what makes us feel most is what's best. The glee, bemusement, and sickish sensation that seizes you during tight fourth quarters are the only metrics you truly need. Know this, and don't let anyone fuck with it. It will make you a better fan, or a less annoying one, at least, because you won't waste precious psychic energy on hall of fame pyramid construction or bar-room debates that go nowhere.

Vince Carter is senescence in motion, a guy who once went by Air Canada, but stays close to the ground these days. It's safer there; he's less likely to pull a hammy. He has become more remarkable with age. Perhaps this is simply because there wasn't much to say about him during his prime other than "Oh, shit!" but in Dallas, he has become someone to ponder, settling into late-career yeoman-dom, hitting open threes effortlessly and tracking down rebounds with more effort than it seems like his body is pleased about. He is mystical and ordinary. He possesses vitality no one would confuse with youth. It's a thrumming thing, not an ebullient shriek. He is the kind of old that is stronger than youth for having survived it.

So naturally, in Game Three of the Mavs-Spurs series, the 16-year vet caught the ball in the corner with 1.7 seconds remaining and threw a pump fake at Manu Ginobili, because he knew he had time. As the Argentinian flew past, Carter leaned back slightly and drained a three as the buzzer sounded. He struck a restrained "Of Course I Did" pose as his teammates mobbed him.

In the press conference afterward, a reporter asked him about the "shot that [he] took in that playoff series against the Sixers," one that was markedly similar to the one he had just made. Carter graciously interrupted the question, with a trace of bitterness in his voice that suggested he was 98 percent over it: "2001. May 20th. Game Seven. Yeah, I remember." He had clanked it off the back iron. "I thought about that as we were coming out of the timeout. I was like 'If you get the ball, hey, let's make this one.' In my mind, I was ready for it. I had already made the shot before the play happened."

Basketball players suffer the indignity of age-inflation. 30 is 55, and 37 is Yahweh's doorstep. Carter is not actually old, but he is old for his job. He wears this false elderliness well. He is a comforting presence on the court—old in the way I would like to be some day. I want to be less angry, but not un-angry. I want to be desperate, still, just not on the surface anymore. I want to think about how I screwed up before and feel like I won't again. I want to use what I have left and be satisfied with it.

The 2013-14 Mavs could have been a graveyard, given that they were composed chiefly of players who were—in some combination—deteriorating, maligned, underachieving, and punchline-ish. Instead, they won a lot of games in a stacked conference and did so with inventiveness and panache. Carter's game-winner didn't rescue them from anything because they were never going to win a title, and they were already the best team. Instead, he provided a fitting prelude to a death we all knew was coming. What is old age, really, besides that?