Carter to be one of Brooklyn's finest

Hall of Famer to have jersey retired in a building and city where he never played a home game

- BRUCE ARTHUR

Vince Carter played just five seasons in New Jersey, and was long gone by the time the Nets moved to Brooklyn in 2012.

Congratulations to Vince Carter, who is finally getting his jersey retired. It must mean a lot to the fan base, surely. He must have meant a lot to the franchise that had a pretty lousy history before and even after he was there. He must have left a mark.

Wait, hold on. We’re not talking about Toronto? Vince is getting his jersey retired by the Nets? The Brooklyn Nets? Located in Brooklyn, New York?

Vince, uh, never played for the Nets in Brooklyn. He was a New Jersey Net. They played in East Rutherford, where the arena staff always looked like they had been cast in a gritty, maybe heartfelt movie about a franchise at the crossroads of nowhere, stranded between a swamp and the highways and the Hackensack River. They were last in league merchandise sales when they tried to rename themselves as the Swamp Dragons, but the governor didn’t like the Meadowlands being called a swamp and the Nets voted against their own name change at the NBA board of governors.

Still, congrats. It does seems like a low bar, though, doesn’t it? Vince played just five seasons in New Jersey, versus seven as a Raptor. He sits third all-time in Nets field-goal attempts and points (behind Brook Lopez and Buck Williams), fourth in free-throw attempts (just ahead of Derrick Coleman, who once responded to a teammate missing practice after being spotted at a New York strip club by saying, “Whoop-de-damn-do”), seventh in assists (behind a guy named Darwin Cook) and eighth in minutes played, just behind Chris Morris, who once showed up to a Nets game with “Please” written on one sneaker and “trade me” written on the other.