This article is part of our Origin Stories series, an inside look at the backstories of the clubs, drivers, and people fueling the sport.

Zak Brown never grew up expecting to become one of the most powerful figures in Formula One.

He doesn’t come from a racing background, nor does he have a college degree. Motorsport wasn’t even his “first love.” It was baseball. At one point in his career, he was sleeping on an air mattress on the floor of a friend’s sister’s dining room in England, working for £75 a day.

Brown, born in Los Angeles, Calif., but considers himself British given how long he’s lived in the U.K., got his racing start thanks to winning during a Teen Week episode of one of the longest-running game shows on American television and some advice from Mario Andretti.

Now, Brown’s the CEO of McLaren Racing — and one of his teams leads the F1 constructors’ standings for the first time since 2014.

“I didn’t come from a racing background. I didn’t come from a privileged background. We weren’t poor, but by racing standards, we were poor,” Brown said to The Athletic. “And so I think I’ve been fortunate to get where I am because of a lot of help, a lot of luck, but also a lot of hard work. And I think what I’ve been fortunate to achieve can be replicated by others if you put in the time and effort and have the passion.”

“Wheel of Fortune” started as a daytime game show on NBC in 1975, created by Merv Griffin, who also designed “Jeopardy!”. Chuck Woolery and Susan Stafford were the original host duo before Pat Sajak and Vanna White joined in the early 1980s.

The now-evening game show is similar to the pencil-and-paper guessing game Hangman. Contestants spin a colorful wheel filled with possible prizes, like different cash amounts, and danger placards, such as “Lose A Turn” and “Bankrupt.” They then try to win by correctly guessing, letter-by-letter, what the answer is on the letterboard.

This iconic American show is where Brown began building his motorsports career.

He attended his first F1 race with his family in 1981 and became captivated by the cars, sound and speed. Although he “fell in love with racing,” he had no connections to the F1 world. “It seemed very unachievable,” he said, “and (I) didn’t even know how do you get in racing, where baseball is quite easy, because everybody plays it.”

His father continued to take him and his brother to local races, but baseball still gripped Brown’s attention until high school, when the sport became more serious. He couldn’t continue playing because he wasn’t attending school very frequently. He said, “You don’t get to stay on the baseball team if you don’t get good grades.”

Around this time, Brown finally had a racing connection: a friend’s family was involved in motorsports. But that world still did not seem attainable. He was still in love with America’s favorite pastime.

In 1984, the big game show came to town. Kids could apply and interview to compete on “Wheel of Fortune” for Teen Week. Brown recalls that around 50 to 75 students from each school came in for “a dummy hangman contest, do a little interview to see if they thought you can handle being on TV, et cetera.” From there, they whittled the number per high school to 15. The top 15 finalists from each high school then underwent more “testing and simulated games,” ending with a waiting period. “We’ll call you. Don’t call us, and we might not call you,” Brown recalls.

As a lifelong fan of the show, Brown eagerly navigated the process (and waiting game). The call came a week later — he had made it. “Wheel of Fortune” brought 20 kids back, taping a whole week of shows in a single day. But there was a twist: only 15 teens could be on the show.

“They need 15 people, but you can get disqualified if you talk to the audience or do something you shouldn’t,” Brown said. “So even though you now know you’re in the top 20 and you’re actually going to go to the recording, you don’t know if you were one of the 15 or one of the five subs.”

He was one of the 15 contestants and behaved — and he won the first two rounds. “The Smurfs and Wild Bill Hickok, who I had no idea who that was.”

For those familiar with today’s “Wheel of Fortune,” you know the contestants win money or sometimes a vacation. But when Brown played on Teen Week, they selected prizes. A carousel of sorts with prizes would spin, and the contestants were put on the spot to select their winnings.

“They show this big whiteboard, and everything’s listed in the order of cost, and they would knock out what you can’t afford,” Brown said. “And so, as most 13-year-olds, the first thing you do is look at the board and just go, what’s the most expensive thing I can afford? It had to be watches.”

The watches sat around in his house for some time, the intention being to sell them at some point. A motorsports career was so far from his mind that when Sajak asked on the show what he wanted to do, Brown referred back to his favorite sport.

“Baseball player.”

A few years went by, and the watches still hadn’t been sold.

Brown attended the Long Beach Grand Prix in 1987, and one of his friend’s families happened to know Andretti, who won the F1 world championship in 1978. He met Andretti that race weekend and asked him a question that shaped the next chapter of his life—“How do you get started in racing?”

Andretti’s answer was karting. Inside the race program, there happened to be an advertisement for a kart racing school. Brown went on to sell the watches he won on “Wheel of Fortune” at a pawn shop in Van Nuys, a neighborhood in Los Angeles, Calif. He used that money to pay for the kart racing school and loved it.

Brown began advancing and winning in karting, competing for almost five years in California before making the jump to Europe in 1991, though it was not a permanent move. In 1984, he competed in both British Formula Three and the Formula Opel-Lotus Benelux Series as well as North America’s Toyota Atlantic Series. The following year, he made his Indy Lights debut and launched his own company, Just Marketing Inc.

“When I was racing in Europe, ’91 through ’94, TWA Airlines was my big sponsor. I was kind of getting homesick, and I got a deal to race back in the States. So I went to TWA and said, ‘Hey, I’m out of here. I’m going to go race back in the States.’ And at that point, the sponsorship became very successful for them. So they said, ‘That’s a shame you’re leaving. But you must know all the guys and gals in pit lane. Can you place your sponsorship with someone?’”

Brown agreed and took a commission after placing the sponsorship. He realized, “Not only should I be chasing sponsorship for myself, but actually, it’s much easier to sell some of the more famous people out there.” Brown had spent years networking and building relationships, and he asked his contacts about expanding their sponsorships to various motorsports series, like IndyCar, NASCAR and F1.

“Because they trusted me and I had credibility, that I knew what I was doing from the racing side, people started going, actually, yeah, we don’t want to sponsor you, Zak, because you’re not famous enough. But if you can go get us in front of Jeff Gordon or Nigel Mansell, we’d be interested. And that’s how the business got started.”

His business grew along with his reputation to get sponsorship deals done. But he needed help. Brown hired his first employee and created the business’s name — Just Marketing Inc. Brown said he didn’t want his name on the company, and he wanted “a little bit of intrigue,” so he opted against including motorsports. To this day, he still calls Just Marketing “kind of a crazy name.”

Brown couldn’t keep pursuing a full-time racing career, though he still hops into a car from time to time and co-founded United Autosports with racing driver Richard Dean in 2009. However, Brown continued to thrive in the business industry as he grew his skills and knowledge of motorsports’ commercial and business worlds. JMI became one of the largest motorsport marketing agencies worldwide when Brown sold a majority of it in 2008. Seventy percent of the company went to Spire Capital and Credit Suisse.

Chime Communications bought JMI in 2013 and brought Brown in as Group CEO for three years, which he said was “about two years and 11 months longer than I would have liked.” The role focused on a variety of sports, but he loves baseball, hockey and racing.

“I was getting involved in sports that have no passion for me, and I’ve always been driven,” Brown continued. “My work ethic’s always been driven by fun and passion. And so when I was getting involved in other sports that don’t tick that box, I felt like I had a job.”

At the end of 2016, he had a choice — work for F1 or McLaren. He ultimately decided to go with the papaya family, joining in 2017 as its CEO at a time when McLaren was in the midfield (finishing sixth in 2016). He not only helped transform the brand of the F1 team but also took the company to a global level, the most recent chapter being the World Endurance Championship this year.

“It was always my favorite racing team, and I wanted to be not only on the commercial side of the business, which I loved, but I wanted to be on the competitive side of the business,” Brown said. “So that was something that McLaren could offer me, that Formula One as a sanctioning body couldn’t.”

The same characteristics F1 fans see today have been evident throughout each of Brown’s chapters. Passion has been at the core of his work ethic, and he does not shy away from showing excitement like he did at 13 years old while standing on the “Wheel of Fortune” stage.

But to think, the story of a prominent F1 leader started thanks to a multicolored wheel, a Hangman-esque game and watches he sold to a pawn shop.

The Athletic maintains full editorial independence. Partners have no control over or input into the reporting or editing process and do not review stories before publication.

Top photo: Clive Mason/Getty Images

NEW YORK — There was no singular way for members of the New York Liberty to turn the page after their historic Game 1 collapse to the Minnesota Lynx.

Star guard Sabrina Ionescu said she couldn’t just “flush” the result. Forward Leonie Fiebich watched the contest three full times in the 36 hours immediately after the overtime loss. Veteran guard Courtney Vandersloot described moving forward “as a process.”

Liberty coach Sandy Brondello was glad two days separated Game 1 and Game 2 so she had more time to watch film and reflect.  But just after 3 p.m. Sunday, a new game began. And with it, a new chapter in the series was written.

Though there were moments that felt eerily similar — New York, for instance, saw a 17-point lead shrink to only two with 3:21 remaining in the game — Sunday’s sequel featured a player who had a relatively minimal impact in the opener: Liberty wing Betnijah Laney-Hamilton. 

Laney-Hamilton played the fewest minutes (26) of any New York starter in Game 1. In the Liberty’s 80-66 Game 2 victory, she scored 20 points, tying her season high. Laney-Hamilton nailed a 3-pointer with 3:20 remaining, the biggest shot of the contest, which stretched the lead back to five.

Then, she grabbed a rebound on the ensuing possession as the Barclays Center-record 18,040 fans in attendance rejoiced. 

That Laney-Hamilton emerged as Sunday’s star is especially impressive considering Brondello’s prognosis of the wing Saturday. She played in only 28 games during the regular season, missing time from July 6 to Aug. 26 because of a knee procedure.

“She’s giving whatever she can,” Brondello said Saturday. “I think everyone sees that she’s trying. It’s not the same B that we’ve seen all season long, but it is what it is.”

She did more than just try. In addition to her offensive contributions, she spent time guarding Courtney Williams (who finished with only 15 points Sunday compared to 23 in Game 1) and Kayla McBride (who had a mere eight points after tallying 22 on Thursday). 

And yet, despite Laney-Hamilton’s boost, plus bounce-back games from Stewart (21 points, eight rebounds, and five assists) and Ionescu (15 points), there were still moments in which the two games seemed the same.  New York jumped out to a 10-point first quarter lead, but by the 6:52 mark of the period, it led by just six.

The Liberty led by 10 heading to halftime, but that was slashed to four points with just 90 seconds remaining in the frame. In the fourth quarter, New York’s lead grew as large as 11, but it shrunk, too. With just under four minutes left, the Liberty led by only two and those in attendance felt tension similar to the waning moments of Game 1.

This time, however, there would be no collapse. 

Stewart had three, of her finals-record seven, steals in the final five minutes. Jonquel Jones hit a timely layup with 3:57 left. Fiebich paused, took a deep breath and nailed a wide-open 3-pointer with 90 seconds left to extend New York’s cushion to nine points.

After doing so, with Minnesota having taken a timeout, Laney-Hamilton pumped her fist. So, too, did Ionescu. 

Collier had a modest game by her standards (16 points and eight rebounds), while a late 3-point attempt by Williams that rolled off the rim was a sign that Sunday afternoon would be different than Thursday night. 

Game 3 of the 1-1 series is Wednesday night. Tipoff is set for 8 p.m. ET. 

Laney-Hamilton becomes X-factor

Laney-Hamilton is less than three months removed from a procedure to remove two loose bodies from her right knee. She came off the bench during her ramp up to a full return and is still playing limited shifts in the postseason, with everyone acknowledging Laney-Hamilton isn’t going to be at 100 percent in this series.

But even at less than her best, the 2021 All-Star was still capable of being better. Laney-Hamilton had scored in double digits once in New York’s seven postseason games entering Sunday, and she was shooting 29.1 percent from the floor.

The Liberty needed more offense in Game 2 with Minnesota covering Fiebich more tightly after her five 3-pointers Thursday, and Laney-Hamilton came through. She was aggressive pulling up off of screens and made strong drives to the basket.

When New York’s movement on offense stalled, she took advantage of switches by posting up smaller defenders in the post.

Laney-Hamilton hit one of the biggest shots of the night, a corner 3-pointer off of a no-look, kick out pass from Ionescu to extend the Liberty’s lead to five points, 71-66, with 3:21 left in the game. Minnesota would never get within one possession after that.

Her 20 points tied a season-high; the last time she reached that total came before the Olympic break, and before her surgery.

In Game 1, Brondello couldn’t get Laney-Hamilton on the court down the stretch because of the way she was moving. On Sunday, it would have been impossible to justify keeping Laney-Hamilton off the floor.  — Sabreena Merchant, women’s basketball staff writer

Minnesota remains resilient in defeat

The Lynx once again found themselves trailing early against the Liberty, this time facing down a 17-point deficit in the second quarter (compared to 18 in Game 1).

But Minnesota steadfastly sticks to its system of ball movement, trusting that the defense will eventually break and that its pressure defense will cause the opposing offense to stagnate. It looked like the formula might work again, as the Lynx nearly erased the deficit yet again, pulling within two in the fourth quarter.

Although they weren’t able to break through, to have come so close to potentially taking a decisive 2-0 series lead bodes well for when the series switches to Minnesota.

Kayla McBride and Napheesa Collier highlighted their team’s resilience after Game 1 even though the 45 minutes featured a series of mistakes, and that commitment shined through again Sunday, despite the result.  — Merchant

Required reading

(Photo: Nathaniel S. Butler / Getty Images)

“‘Zo? Yeah, I got him. (Dikembe) Mutombo? Got him twice. Got the big dude in Indiana, (Rik) Smits. Got Dale Davis, too. Haven’t gotten (Patrick) Ewing yet.” Then, he paused and smiled.

“We play them on Tuesday.”
— Vince Carter, “Fresh Vince,” Sports Illustrated, Feb. 28, 2000

Even watching it live, with his own eyes, in person, it took Shareef Abdur-Rahim a minute to comprehend what he’d just witnessed.

“The thing is, you think of any, just, miraculous play, where you’ve never seen someone do that, make a play like that,” Abdur-Rahim said, 24 years later. “(Derek) Jeter diving. It was like one of those plays. I was on the bench, and it was so quick. He just did it, and you were like, ‘Man, did he really do that?’

“And then looking around, and seeing it again. Even when we went to the locker room, you didn’t get replays that fast. There wasn’t cell phones. It took time to see that again. You’ve never seen anyone do that, do that in a game, this quick, that fast, that reactive. You almost weren’t sure what you’d seen.”

This is what Vince Carter did, in a basketball game, where they kept score and called fouls and everything, to a man who played basketball for France named Frédéric Weis.

And that was the miracle of Vince Carter, through two-plus decades on the stage. His level of explosive greatness was so unapproachable that it made otherwise sane men question what they’d just seen, for what they’d just seen was impossible. It is why, though his teams rarely were serious contenders for championships during his NBA-record 22 seasons, Carter was an easy selection to this year’s incoming class for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, and will be inducted in Springfield, Mass., tonight.

Carter, though, often seemed uninterested in the machismo aspect of dunking that was so intoxicating to so many others in the game. (Famously, he liked being in his high school band, where he played saxophone and was a drum major.) The trappings of superstardom didn’t seem to appeal much to him, either. Part of that was just his demeanor; he rarely raised his voice on the court or called attention to himself off it.

“My junior year in high school, I averaged 25, 26 points a game, whatever it was,” Carter said Saturday, when I asked him about his career-long demeanor of not seeking the spotlight, despite his expansive physical gifts.

“We lost in the state finals,” he continued. “My senior year, I make the McDonald’s (All-American) Game, I averaged three to four points less. (People asked), ‘What’s wrong with Vince?’ My scoring went down, but my rebounding went up, my assists when up. My other teammates’ scoring went up. And we won the state championship.

“So I understood at a young age how important your guys you have on your team (are), and how important it is to empower them. As a superstar, and becoming a role player, I understood my role as a superstar: yes, they need me to score. But I need them. I could score 50 points, and we could lose by 30. So what?”

Still, few did big moments like Carter.

Abdur-Rahim, like Carter, was an Olympian in 2000, part of the prohibitively favored U.S. men’s team, which was playing a preliminary game against France in Sydney. Weis, France’s center, stood 7-foot-2. Carter, 6-6, didn’t seem to take that into account when he jumped over Weis, and dunked on his bean.

France went on to win the silver medal, while the U.S. team won gold. No matter. The French media dubbed Carter’s leap over Weis Le Dunk De La Mort — The Dunk of Death.

“I’d seen him since he was 15, 16 years old,” Abdur-Rahim said. “I thought, I’ve seen him do everything. In our McDonald’s All-American dunk contest, he did every single dunk that had been done in an NBA dunk contest — from the free throw line, between the legs. Seventeen years old. He did every single one of them. The part that amazed me was I thought I’d seen him do everything in a game where I’m like, oh, my goodness. It was so fast and it was something you’d never seen before.”

Carter always had those kinds of moves in his bag.

“We were in practice one day,” recalled Sam Mitchell, whose first head-coaching job in the NBA came in 2004, in Toronto.

“We were scrimmaging. Vince gets the rebound and takes off. He gets to half court and throws the ball up ahead. I said, ‘What the hell?’ The ball hits off of the backboard. He catches it and dunks it. I told everybody, go home. It was my second practice. What the f— did I just see? He throws it underhand. Next thing, I see the m—–f—– catch the ball and dunk. I said to everybody, ‘Get the f— out. I gotta go home and have a drink and process this s—.’”

There was, of course, Carter’s bravura performance at the 2000 NBA Dunk Contest, when he overpowered a weekend-long deluge in the Bay Area to electrify the crowd at Oracle Arena with a series of dunks that may have — may have — only been topped by Michael Jordan’s battle in Chicago with Dominique Wilkins in 1987. There was a 50-burger against the 76ers in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference semifinals. There was, much later in his career, a signature game-winning shot when he played for the Mavericks, in their first-round series against San Antonio in 2014.

“The best moment was when he was with the Suns” the year before, recalled former Mavericks majority governor Mark Cuban.

“We were playing them, I think it might have been our outdoors (preseason) game. He gave me the ‘come get me’ look. That summer I called his agent, and we made it happen. Vince is a legend. I’m proud of him.”

During the 1999 lockout, recalled Jerome Williams, a teammate of Carter’s in Toronto for three-plus seasons, the two played in New York City with future Raptor teammate Mark Jackson in a charity game, the Wheelchair Classic.

“It was crazy,” Williams said. “Seeing VC jump out the gym with power and grace on his dunks was mesmerizing. I truly believed he had Jesus Christ himself touch his legs to generate that much power. I knew he was destined for the Hall of Fame from that moment.”

Carter even held everyone’s attention when he wasn’t playing at all, setting off a firestorm when that Raptors-76ers series went to a Game 7. The game was scheduled for late Sunday afternoon. But Carter was determined to attend his graduation from North Carolina in Chapel Hill Sunday morning, when he received the degree in African-American Studies he’d earned the fall before. He got the degree, got on then-owner Larry Tanenbaum’s plane, and got to Wells Fargo Center five hours before tipoff. But Carter only shot 6 of 18 from the floor, missing the potential series-winner at the buzzer, setting off frenzied debate about whether he’d made the right decision.

Carter told me that summer that he’d do it all over again, the exact same way.

“And when I do think about it, I’m proud,” he said. “Proud of the way I was able to fight through it and just handle myself in the manner that some people wouldn’t. It was a special time for me, and I wasn’t gonna let anybody spoil it. And yes, it was spoiled by a missed shot. But you miss shots all the time. There’s gonna be times in your career when you’re gonna miss those shots again and again, and there’s gonna be times when you’re gonna make them, and you’re gonna be a hero. And nobody says nothing but ‘Hey, it was a great day.’”

There are many people who were responsible for basketball succeeding in Toronto after the birth of the expansion Raptors in 1995. There were those directly linked to the team, such as Isiah Thomas, Damon Stoudamire, Chris Bosh — and Carter’s cousin, Tracy McGrady, drafted by Toronto out of high school in 1997.

There were players from Toronto and from the nearby suburbs who helped the game gain traction in a city besotted by its beloved Maple Leafs, players such as Jamaal Magloire and Rick Fox and Leo Rautins. Steve Nash, who grew up in Victoria, British Columbia, had enormous influence nationwide, too, as he won back-to-back league MVP awards.

But Carter’s six-plus seasons in Toronto, after a draft-night trade with Golden State in 1998, made the Raptors appointment viewing. There would be quarters, sometimes halves, where Carter did more to fit in, to be a good teammate, than put his eye-popping skills on display. And then …Vinsanity would happen.

When the Grizzlies left Vancouver for Memphis in 2001, Carter and the Raptors had Canada all to themselves.

“When Charles Oakley joined the team (in 1998), there was one game,” recalled Walker Russell, an assistant coach for the Raptors early in Carter’s career. “He (Carter) was shooting jumpers, wasn’t hitting them, Finally, they called timeout. Oak said, ‘Man, ‘Take one more m—-f—– jump shot. One more. You take one more m—–f—— jump shot!’ Vince walked to the bench, didn’t know what to do.

“After the timeout, he went back in, they went back to playing. He went to the hole, dunked on two dudes. Came back, got another one. Boom. Dunk. Then, came back, got fouled, tried to do this other dunk. Turned the whole game around. The other team called timeout. Oak grabbed him and said, ‘See? Can’t nobody can guard your m—–f—— ass if you go to the hole!’ That’s when ‘Half Man, Half Amazing’ came into effect, that day.”

During his time with the Raptors, Carter won Rookie of the Year in 1999, made six of his eight All-Star teams, averaging 23.4 points and 5.2 rebounds.

“He had a six- or seven-year run in Toronto where, ultimately, Kobe became the guy” in the league, Abdur-Rahim said. “But he was right there as far as the best perimeter player in the league.”

But Carter wanted to make the game easier for others as much as he sought the spotlight.

Part of it was playing for Dean Smith at North Carolina. But, Michael Jordan played at Chapel Hill, and for Smith, too. Both had sick hops; both were grounded in Smith’s fundamentals. But where Jordan embraced the Alpha Male aspect of dominating through verticality, Carter seemed more reluctant to stand out, buying fully into the Carolina Way.

“It was one way,” Carter said on the “Knuckleheads” podcast in 2022 with Quentin Richardson and Darius Miles.

“We’re playing for the regular-season championship, ACC championship, deep in the (NCAA) tournament,” Carter said. “That’s just what it was. It was bigger than you, the individual, (was) what you had to understand. They always talk about the Carolina system, but you learn how to play the game. That’s what kept me around for 20-some years, honestly, learning how to play the game.”

With an assist from Tracy McGrady on one attempt, Carter put on one of the greatest dunk contest performances in the event’s history at the 2000 All-Star Game. (Andrew D. Bernstein / NBAE via Getty Images)

That would help explain why Carter does not dominate the NBA’s all-time leaders’ lists. Some of his highest marks in the stats reflect … attendance.

He’s third all-time in games played, at 1,541, trailing only Robert Parish (1,611) and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (1,560). He’s 15th all-time in minutes played (46,367). But he’s just 21st all-time in points scored, at 25,728. He only had five career triple-doubles, though he was a willing and quite good passer.

He was a very good shooter from deep during his career, but his best days as an offensive force were well before the NBA’s 3-point revolution, so he was far from a volume shooter; he took more than five per game in only three of his 22 seasons. His career PER of 18.63, according to basketball-reference.com, is only 136th-best in NBA history.

But, here’s the rub. Carter’s 18.63 is the same as Scottie Pippen’s. And no one would question Pippen’s place in the Hall.

Why? Because Pippen has six rings.

“A lot of people think he didn’t work because he was so gifted,” Russell said. “What they don’t know is that every night during the season, we’d be in the gym about 11:30 at night until about 1, 1:15. Every night. And he worked on everything: post ups, running hooks, right hand, left hand. That’s why he could do everything. I think the last part of his career, the last six years, he depended strictly on the fundamentals. Because he had all of that. Didn’t nobody know that. He’d be at the gym. And he liked to come at night, him and his little security guard, Peanut.”

Sean Marks, now the Brooklyn Nets’ general manager, had played against Carter in college, at Cal-Berkeley, in 1998. Taken in the second round of the ’98 draft by the Knicks, Marks went to Toronto along with Oakley in the trade with Toronto for Marcus Camby.

“He did stuff in practice that would be incredible,” Marks said. “It wasn’t just the dunks. It was how fluid he moved, how easily the game came to him. I mean, he worked at it. But the God-given talent. To this day, I don’t think I’ve seen anything like it. The stuff we were privy to in practice, games would stop, because it was so awe-inspiring.

“One practice, he and Tracy gave us a little demonstration of what they were going to do in the dunk contest. And we’d seen some things. And then, when these two (started), they were like kids in a candy store. What were they, 20 years old? You’d finish a two-hour practice, and these guys would put on a dunk show for the next 45 minutes. … It was like me playing on a Nerf hoop at home with my 5-year-old.”

Carter seemed to like the challenge of testing his limits, to see what was physically possible, as much as the games themselves.

“One time we were playing and I drew up a play for him at the end of a game,” Mitchell said. “And Vince did some crazy, stepback fadeaway shot, instead of just a 1-2, pullup jumper, go straight up. And afterward, I said, ‘Vince, what the hell? Why’d you take that shot?’ He said, ‘Coach, the 1-2 was too easy.’ The game was too easy for him.

“I think he got bored sometimes. I think by the time he got to his sixth year in the league, he knew that.”

Said Marks: “He genuinely loved being a showman. I think sometimes he enjoyed surprising himself. He was that good. He told us (before a game), ‘Today, I’m going to catch Dikembe.’ And he did it, it wasn’t in an arrogant sort of way. It was like, I want to see if I can do this. Like, let’s go to the park and see if I can pull off this move. But he was doing it in front of 20,000 people.”

“What ifs” followed Carter throughout his Toronto tenure. What if McGrady had stayed with his cousin, rather than going to Orlando to team with Grant Hill in 2000? What if Carter hadn’t become disillusioned with the Raptors’ ownership and front office by the time Toronto took Bosh in the ’03 draft? Who knows what could have been? Infamously, of course, Carter forced his way out of town in 2004 via a trade to the Nets that led to a decade of recriminations and hurt feelings, with Carter getting lustily booed every time he returned to Air Canada Centre.

“That was my first year being a head coach, being a young coach,” Mitchell recalled. “The team flew me down to Florida to see him. He said, ‘Coach, I hate this is happening to you. I have no issue with you. I’ll give you the opportunity. But my unhappiness is with the organization, and they know what it is.’

“He hated that I was getting caught in the middle of it. He said, ‘I will never ask you to compromise your beliefs for me.’ And he didn’t. He wasn’t a distraction. He didn’t disrespect me. He didn’t do anything. I hated it was like that, because one of the things that you loved about the job was you were getting to coach Vince Carter.”

Carter had occasional big moments in Jersey, and in Dallas. As ever, given his personal equilibrium, he willingly became a sixth man for the Mavericks and Grizzlies later in his career. He kept feeling good, so he kept playing, year after year, for Orlando and Phoenix and Sacramento and Atlanta. He only retired after the 2019-20 season because COVID-19 shut down the league’s non-playoff teams for nine months, including Carter’s Hawks, something from which a 43-year-old couldn’t bounce back.

But the body of work, and the work of Carter’s body, had already made his Springfield case open and shut. The bad times in Toronto have been overcome; the Raptors announced last month that they’ll be retiring Carter’s number 15 on Nov. 2.

“I loved playing the game,” Carter said Saturday. “It wasn’t about the numbers. I read all the time, ‘If he had just …’ I can’t imagine not playing 22 years, and looking at Year 17, and how miserable I probably would have been (not playing). Because I still had the love for the game. And it wasn’t about numbers. If they called me to come play for a team and sit for a championship, I’d chase one now. But it wasn’t about that. Because I still felt that I was going to put the work in at 42, 43 years old to go play. And it felt good to go on the court, and a 19- 21-, 25-year-old comes in there. And they’re like, ‘he’s old.’

“And I’d be like, let’s line it up. Let’s see if I still have it.”

(Illustration: Meech Robinson / The Athletic; Photos: Carmen Mandato / Getty; Sam Forencich / NBAE; Ned Dishman / NBAE via Getty Images)