At 42 years old, eight-time All-Star Vince Carter has agreed to a one-year contract to return to the Atlanta Hawks for his final NBA season, league sources told ESPN.
Carter will play an NBA-record 22nd season, where he will spend a second straight year mentoring one of the NBA’s youngest rosters, which includes seven players under 23 years old.
Carter will pass Dirk Nowitzki, Kevin Garnett, Kevin Willis and Robert Parish, all of whom played 21 NBA seasons.
If he plays in a game in 2020, Carter will be the first player in NBA history to appear in a game in four different decades, according to Elias Sports Bureau research.
Carter is one of the most popular players of his generation, once a dynamic above-the-rim performer who electrified the league in his prime with Toronto and New Jersey. He has averaged 17 points in 1,481 regular-season games, and he won an Olympic gold medal and NBA dunk contest in 2000. Carter also won the NBA’s Rookie of the Year award in 1999.
Carter averaged 7.4 points in 17 minutes a game for the Hawks in 2018-19, which included him playing 76 regular-season games.