Brooklyn Nets retire Vince Carter’s #15 jersey in a ceremony ever-so-true to the franchise

It was the Nets, in all their glory, even featuring Julius Erving. And it was perfect. What else would you expect from Vince Carter?

Vince Carter: New Jersey Net was much different than Vince Carter: Toronto Raptor.

So were his respective jersey retirements. At halftime of Saturday’s game against the Miami Heat, the Nets legend watched his #15 jersey ascend into the Barclays Center rafters. Unlike his ceremony earlier this season in Toronto, Carter did not turn to the heavens and release his emotions to the divine.

His eyes only watered during his pregame press conference, where Carter discussed his relationship with Julius Erving, a childhood idol who helped welcome him into the Basketball Hall of Fame…

Now, their jerseys will hang together, high above the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic.

Said Carter, not quite fighting back tears but gently placing them to the side: “I have a great appreciation for being honored and having your jersey retired, because not a lot of guys get an opportunity to do it. I don’t take it for granted. And for somebody as iconic as Dr. J, who was my hero, to call me and be like ‘Heck yeah, I’ll do it…’ I’m truly honored, Period. Like, you said yes, and now I get to go up besides you? God, it’s crazy.”

Saturday night laid bare the full past and present of the franchise — the New York Nets, the New Jersey Nets, the Brooklyn Nets — of which Carter and Erving are now an immortal part of.

In the present, the Nets are quite bad. The least important part of Saturday night was a convincing loss to the Miami Heat, dropping them to 14-32 and screaming “there’s always next year,” in game #46.

Even on Vince Carter’s special night, there were chants for the road team at Barclays Center, as there often are, especially when the NBA’s most transient franchise is going through a losing season.

Borrowing a phrase from one of my favorite blogs, all “the pathologies that condition Nets fandom” were ignited in me.

“We are fans of the team who blacked out the stands upon moving, a move that not incidentally obscured how few people attended games. We are fans who ask, with bated breath, how the crowd looked or sounded on any given night … We know that we are alone, then, but only we can say it.”

I anxiously watched the Nets score 17 points in Saturday’s first quarter, trying to read the expressions of Carter and Erving, who rarely appears at the Barclays Center, from 200 feet away, wondering if they were having fun despite the brick-fest before their eyes…

As halftime approached, I scanned the concourse for as many #15 jerseys as I could find. Any jerseys a real fan would have. I exhaled at one of those sweet reds, #27 for Johan Petro; that woman would surely make sufficient noise for Vince Carter, my ever-deserving hero.

That anxiety is inextricable from Nets fandom, but it’s only projection.

In his press conference, Carter described his tenure in New Jersey: “How do you sum it up? New life. It was new life.”

Hours later, as Ian Eagle emceed the halftime ceremony, he described Vinsanity as “revitalizing” the franchise in the wake of their post-Finals downturn…

Saturday night capped a week of celebration, not just for Carter and his innumerable achievements, but for the perfect marriage between he and the franchise. Brooklyn didn’t just raise his #15 into the rafters, but renewed their vows with the man who came into their life at the perfect time.

Those anxieties melted away, too. When Vince Carter directly thanked longtime Nets public relations man Gary Sussman in his ceremonial speech, he let the crowd finish Sussman’s immortal “VC THREEEEE” call.

Could the call and response have been louder? I guess, but I wasn’t going to scream from press row. (And the voices of Jimmy-Butler-jersey-wearing Heat fans didn’t matter either.)

Most importantly, Carter felt the love. He didn’t need to weep on the hardwood to reciprocate, not after the tremendously executed week from the Nets organization and fanbase. A documentary premiere, a visit to the top of the Empire State Building, endless videos and interviews, and a crowd that embraced him…

Carter returned the favor by taking us down memory lane with him former teammates. In attendance were Boštjan Nachbar, Nenad Krstić, Devin Harris, Bobby Simmons, Antoine Wright, and Jason Collins, and he addressed all of them. So was Lawrence Frank at his smiliest, as well as Tim Walsh, Rod Thorn, and Bruce Ratner.

Richard Jefferson and Jason Kidd couldn’t be at Barclays on Saturday due to work obligations, but both made their presences felt with video tributes. (Jefferson quipped, ‘why did I retire just to keep working?’ in his.)

Kidd may have been physically absent, but his spirit was felt throughout the night — throughout the weekend, really. The point guard who fully allowed the star of the show to shine received huge ovations every time he was shown on screen, but Carter, ever the selfless teammate, kept in the forefront.

Pregame, Chris Carrino asked VC how his Jersey stint helped solidify him as a Hall of Famer. His immediate response: “A lot of it goes to Jason Kidd.”

In his halftime speech, Carter expounded: “J-Kidd, when I got here, I wanted to do everything in my power to fit in. And you’re a guy who didn’t say much, but you led by example. You said to me — look, I’ll paraphrase it, there’s kids here. He said, ‘Look, we brought you here for a reason, so I’m going to need you to be you.’ I got the message. And when I got the message, it was go time.”

During an 82-game season that has nary the excitement of a single Kidd-to-Carter alley-oop, it was wonderful to indulge in some classic Nets basketball, even just by talking it. But then Julius Erving took center stage, and two of the very greatest basketball entertainers embraced each other.

Part of the halftime ceremony was a short video played on the Jumbotron and narrated by Dr J., all about the significance of Carter’s #15…

That would’ve been enough.

The Doctor has never fully embraced the Nets franchise in retirement, for myriad reasons. Recently, he attending a game in 2020 and was honored with a bobblehead, representing perhaps two steps forward, one step back. By next year, he was bemoaning the Nets “buying” their Clean Sweep superteam.

But none of that mattered when Erving grabbed the mic on Saturday night.

“I couldn’t believe it was 50 years that passed since I wore that uniform. 1974 was 50 years ago, wasn’t it? Then I was reminded again, it was 50 years ago with Billy Melchionni and I were teammates. Buck Williams and I were adversaries. He still remains today as the first person to hit me with an elbow, and I never got him back. Maybe tonight, Buck. Maybe tonight.”

Barclays let out a laugh. They were about to get much louder.

“At any rate, we’re here because we’re all part of the Nets family, and we will always be. We will always be part of the Nets family.”

It was enough to triple the heart-size of even the Grinchiest Nets fan. Of course, it was thanks to Vince Carter, who enjoyed playing for this, silly, absurd, transient, little-brother franchise as much as anybody who ever put on the jersey. Everybody’s favorite teammate had one more selfless act in him, simple as it may have been.

The New York/New Jersey/Brooklyn Nets are many things. But Vince Carter, even in retirement makes them lovable.

And for that, the Nets love him.