Two weeks ago, I attended a Clips-Nets game two days after Vince Carter tweaked his back in Utah. Knowing Vince would play, knowing the Clips would stick Quentin Ross (aka, "Bruce Bowen 2.0") on him, knowing that Vince would probably struggle, I almost felt like starting a "When will Vince pull and Exit Stage Right during the game?" pool in my section. He came out firing (the back looked fine, by the way) before realizing that Ross would be hounding him all game. Eventually, he stopped going within 20 feet of the basket.
So I'm sitting there waiting for him to start stretching, wincing and doing all the other stuff that Vince does when he wants the crowd to know that he's thinking about packing it in for the night. At the end of the first half, he had one point. Midway through the third, he had 3 points and the Nets were down by 20. Then there was a 2-on-1 with Kidd when Vince stepped on someone's foot, landed a little awkwardly, waved to his bench as the whistle was blown, then kept right on jogging ... right into the runway and into the locker room. We never saw him again. Even better, we knew right away that he wasn't coming back. I just hope I get a chance to tell this story on "SportsCentury And Beyond: Vince Carter" some day.
In New Jersey Kenyon Martin and Richard Jefferson used to have a pretty serious running competition over who got more rebounds each night. I always thought this spoke a little higher of Jefferson, who gives up several inches and about 20 pounds on Kmart. In any event, I wonder how well Vince is going over at Exit 16W.
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