Veteran swingman Vince Carter will enter his record-breaking 22nd NBA season, and second, with the Atlanta Hawks, agreeing to a one-year deal with the franchise on Monday. While he wants to play meaningful minutes with the team, Carter also wants to keep mentoring and impart wisdom to his young teammates.
Speaking to Ben Rohrbach of Yahoo Sports about his historic career, the former Rookie of the Year warned of the dangers of social media.
Article Continues BelowThere are a lot of things. For instance, social media wasn’t a thing when I started, so now it’s kind of making these kids aware. Let’s take Trae Young, for example. It’s hard to tell a kid about social media and being careful when he was a phenomenon his junior year of high school. … That’s what social media is now and has done for young kids, and it can make or break you at a younger age now. I think a lot of these kids have been seasoned and have a better feel with handling the media and handling themselves on and off the court because of what social media is now.
That’s really the biggest thing, and I think the awareness that, yes, you were a phenomenon in high school and a one-and-done phenomenon in college, but when you’re on the NBA stage, you’re at the highest stage with all of that social media pressure and the world is watching tenfold. That’s really the thing I try to shed light on. They can handle it the way they want to handle it, but I feel like I haven’t done my job if I don’t make them aware of it.
Carter, the fifth pick in the 1998 draft and eight-time All-Star, indeed did not have social media, like Instagram or Twitter, when he started playing professionally. However, as the longest-tenured player in the NBA right now, he has a wealth of experience to know what's best for young athletes today.
The 42-year-old Carter is expected to retired after the 2019-20 season, but before he calls it a career, he'll certainly do his best to impart as much knowledge as he can to the likes of Trae Young, John Collins, De'Andre Hunter, Cam Reddish and to the up-and-coming NBA stars in general.