Vinsanity. Air Canada. Half-man, half-amazing.

There was a time when Vince Carter's only limitations on a fast break were those imposed by the laws of physics -- and even those didn't matter all that much. On Monday night against the Warriors, Carter, now 40 years old and a member of the Sacramento Kings, once again found himself in that familiar position -- ahead of the pack with nothing but an empty basket in front of him, the road crowd swelling with anticipation. Kings coach Dave Joerger wanted him to go between-the-legs. Second-year guard Buddy Hield wanted him to throw down a windmill.

But after running through his options, Carter came to one prevailing conclusion: Just don't miss.

"At first I said windmill, then I said reverse 360," a smiling Carter said after the game. "Then I said, 'nah just make it, because you don't want to be on Not Top 10.' I can see it now, they're gonna show, 'oh this is when he did make this dunk, and this is when he didn't, 20 years later.' So I was like, 'you know what, just make it and live to see another day.'"

So Carter raised up, reached back and threw it down. For a moment, the Warriors' home crowd forgot that the dunk cut the lead to a single point. They forgot that they paid good money to see a game in which neither Stephen Curry nor Kevin Durant played. Instead they were brought to the edge of their seats -- out of them, in some cases -- watching one of the best dunkers in basketball history thrill them one more time.

Oh yeah, have I mentioned the Kings actually won the game? They beat the Warriors on their home court, 110-106 in unquestionably the team's biggest win of the season. But after the game, that seemed secondary to the broad smiles and unbridled giddiness caused by Carter's dunk.

"I thought he was gonna go between his legs, to be honest," Joerger said. "I was like, 'do it man, do it!' Look, we all want to see it. Just do it!"

"I saw an athletic 40-year-old man," rookie Frank Mason III said. "I was really happy for him, to see him break out a dunk, you know. It's been a while."

"Man, Buddy [Hield] was like, 'I thought he was gonna windmill it,'" rookie point guard De'Aaron Fox said. "It was great though. It was great seeing Vince get up. We've seen it a few times."

One of those times was surely during the 2000 dunk contest, when Carter opened the world's eyes to a previously undiscovered frontier of dunking a basketball. Fox probably doesn't remember watching it live since he was a little over two years old when it happened (Fox was born in 1997, the year before Carter entered the NBA), but he's definitely seen the video. He even gave the oldest active NBA player a little razzing over the summer, calling Carter's groundbreaking dunks "easy" in a radio interview.

That's why it was so perfect that Carter had his moment on Monday at Oracle Arena -- the same setting where he caused Kenny Smith to scream "Let's go home!" after his first dunk, a reverse 360 the likes of which we had never seen.

Nearly 20 years later on Monday night, the effect of Carter's dunk on his young teammates was almost tangible. They had ear-to-ear grins following the slam, and mimicked the post-dunk "crank it up" celebration that Carter made famous in his days with the Nets. Even Zach Randolph, not exactly a young buck himself, got in on the action.

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"They were cracking up. They had me laughing," Carter said of his teammates. "I said, 'Hey guys, we've still got a game going on here against the Golden State Warriors. Relax.' "

It's one thing to create a memory for fans and teammates, but Carter's dunk might also have helped the Kings win the game. When asked at what point the momentum turned in the Sacramento's favor, Warriors coach Steve Kerr pointed to the "late third quarter."

When did Carter throw down his dunk? With 42 seconds left in the third quarter.

Carter finished with four points, three rebounds, two assists and two steals in his 17 minutes, and was a plus-8 for the game. Joerger said that Carter's minutes playing power forward opened the floor for both Willie Cauley-Stein, who had 19 points, eight rebounds and six assists, and Bogdan Bogdanovic, who hit the game-winner on a drive with 12.6 seconds left.

The performance epitomized Carter's transition from a high-flying athlete with a questionable attitude to a consummate pro, a role player whom the Kings willingly overpaid with a one-year, $8 million deal because they knew the lessons he would teach their young core and the example he would set would be well worth the price tag.

So when Carter dunks, it's not just a dunk. It gives all of us -- fans, teammates, even opposing players -- a brief reminder of a time when we couldn't turn on the nightly highlight show without seeing Carter do something we'd never seen before.

And we savor every single one of Carter's dunks, because we never know when it might be his last.

"I know the groundwork that was built many years ago," Carter said. "It just makes me feel good that people still enjoy seeing it."