Vince Carter is a hot candidate for induction into the NBA Hall of Fame this year

On Sunday, the nominations of 14 candidates for induction into the NBA Basketball Hall of Fame were announced. Among the players, the most serious candidates are Chauncey Billups, Walter Davis and especially Vince Carter. The latter was left out last year. But from this year’s nomination he is the biggest favorite to enter this elite society.

Vince Carter has played 22 seasons in the NBA

Vince Carter is the only basketball player in NBA history to have played in 4 decades. He split his playing career between 1998-2020. Even his 22 seasons in the NBA is a record. Last year, however, Dirk Nowitzki, Pau Gasol, Tony Parker and Dwyane Wade were preferred to him.

Each of these players were drafted after Carter, who was the 5th pick in the 1998 draft. As in the case of Paul Pierce and Chris Bosh, they even entered the Hall of Fame in Springfield as early as 2021.

It’s not that he was overlooked for so long, but it was due to the fact that he actually played for so long. Although he may be matched by Lebron James next season. However, he still listened to pre-retirement questions like why is he still playing. He’s just lowering his career scoring average unnecessarily. The answer was simple: Carter loved the game called basketball.

His last 6 seasons in the NBA had rapidly lowered his 20.2 points per game scoring average after the 2013-14 season to 16.7 by the time he retired in June 2020. He became the top rookie in 1998-99. And in his first 9 seasons, he participated in the All-star game eight times, delivering one of the best performances at the 2000 Slam Dunk Tournament, an annual competition for the most efficient dunk to the basket.

At the time of his departure, he was ranked 3rd in games played (1,541) and 20th in points scored (25,728). He also has an Olympic gold medal in his collection from the 2000 Sydney Games, where he also recorded a memorable “death dunk”.

Other favourites to enter are Chauncey Billups and Walter Davis

Chauncey Billups has averaged 15.2 points and 5.4 assists per game during his 17-year NBA career. In 2004, he was awarded the Finals MVP and led the Detroit Pistons to the title as the team’s best player. He also possessed very accurate free throw shooting, his 89.4 percent success rate is the 6th highest in NBA history. He is currently the head coach of Portland.

Wlater Davis is the all-time leading scorer in the history of the Phoenix Suns, for whom he played from 1977-1988. He is also the owner of an Olympic gold medal from the 1976 Montreal games. In his very first season in the NBA, he averaged 24.2 points per game and was voted Rookie of the Year. He played over 1,000 games in the NBA and fell just short of the 20,000 point mark.

Source: NBA