Vince Carter has lots of respect for Tom Brady.
While Carter has a few years on Brady professionally, Brady’s six championships trump Vince’s lack of any. Despite their age, however, the two still are going strong in the latter portion of their careers.
Carter happened to be visiting the Boston area with the Atlanta Hawks the same weekend the New England Patriots host the Tennessee Titans for Wild Card Weekend. And he had plenty of praise for Brady’s longevity while in town.
“He’s been doing it forever,” Carter told MassLive.com’s Matt Vautour. “When you’re doing it, you realize how long you’ve been doing it, but sometimes you don’t realize. … It’s not hard to keep track of Tom Brady and what he’s doing. We go through it, and we do it because we love it. He’s playing because he loves it and he can. Same thing for me. Not because I have to. Because I want to. I have the utmost respect for guys like that.”
As a fellow 42-year-old athlete, Carter knows what makes Brady tick so late in his career.
“For somebody to do it for that long, who has made a lot of money, it’s not about money. It’s about the love of the game,” Carter said. “He can still play and compete at a high level against guys who could be your kid. That’s what it’s all about. It’s doing what you love. We’ve been doing it for a very long time, and we’re fortunate enough that we’re healthy enough to continue doing what we love for a very long time.”
Hopefully for Carter, he’ll win at least one championship before he retires. But with the Hawks currently sitting at the bottom of the Eastern Conference, it doesn’t appear that will happen for quite some time. (Unless Atlanta manages to scoop up Andre Drummond, however.)
