Vince Carter needed more time. It had been only a few hours since the news hit, but tears were now streaming down his face. Warm-ups felt like some horrible out-of-body experience, common for a trauma. But now there was the tribute on the video board and the moment of silence in a basketball arena, and tears flowed, all the way through the national anthem.

“I wasn’t ready for it,” he said. “Last time I cried was family passing. But he was family.”

Kobe Bryant was one of those rare athletes who transcended sports. So his stunning death in a helicopter crash, which also took the lives of his 13-year-old daughter and seven others, predictably hit many hard Sunday. But Carter and Bryant shared a unique relationship, one that alternated between competition and respect, during the 26 years they knew each other.

They met as teammates on a 1994 AAU team in Paterson, N.J., and their relationship continued later for 18 seasons in the NBA — they bumped heads 31 times, using each other as motivation, both negative and positive — and more recently morphed into a relationship more like two hated rivals going bass fishing together and swapping old stories in retirement.

They last swapped words and hugs in December, when the Hawks played in Brooklyn. They had plans to speak again soon. Now Bryant and his daughter are gone, and everything about this ending is so wrong. The news broke just after 2 p.m. following the Hawks’ brief game-day video session, as Carter was preparing to play an otherwise meaningless game on his 43rd birthday in his final season. He sat stunned in the locker room, traumatized.

“I was like, ‘I hear you.’ But I was trying to process it. Coach played a little video,” Carter said. “That’s when it hit. I’m like, ‘What the fuck is going on?’ It was an emotional moment. My friend is no longer here. And his daughter was with him …”

His voice trailed off.

We were standing alone in a corridor at State Farm Arena, outside an interview room where he had just shared memories of Bryant. Carter was still in shock. The schedule mandated he had a game to play. He did the best he could.

After the anthem, he wiped away tears, crossed his heart twice, then pointed up to the heavens and blew a kiss. This wasn’t the norm.

He entered the game for Kevin Huerter with 3:35 left in the first quarter. A minute later, Carter did something he hadn’t done all season — throwing down an alley-oop pass from Brandon Goodwin. Nine seconds later, Carter blocked a shot.

Bryant turned pro straight out of high school. But he almost went to North Carolina because he wanted to challenge himself by going against Carter every day in practice. Carter similarly used Bryant as both his foil and his measuring stick.

“His drive. His mentality. His will to win,” Carter said when asked what about Bryant inspired him. “I enjoyed battling him, even when I hated him.”

Their best battle came in 2000 when Carter played for Toronto. Bryant finished with 40 points and seven rebounds, Carter with 31 and 12, in a Los Angeles Lakers win. Trae Young was 2 years old.

“I know a couple of players who’d played against him, and this hit us in a special way,” Carter said. “But it was interesting to see the effect it had on some of the guys who were barely born when he was in the NBA. He’s a hero to a lot of them.”

Bryant was a hero to Young, who wore Bryant’s No. 8 jersey for the opening tip before switching to No. 11 after two perfectly orchestrated infractions to start the game: an eight-second half-court violation by the Hawks; a 24-second violation by Washington. Eight. Twenty-four. The NBA does a wonderful job honoring its icons.

Bryant and his daughter, Gianna, attended two Hawks games this season: one in Los Angeles against the Lakers and more recently at Brooklyn. Her favorite player: Young.

Bryant was from Philadelphia. Carter was from Daytona Beach, Fla. But they grew up together in basketball. They shared a similar drive and love for the game. They both had daughters and wanted to dedicate their post-career lives to their families.

In 2016, Bryant’s final season, they met for the final time on the court when Carter played for Memphis. After the game, Carter asked his contemporary if he truly was ready for retirement.

“He said, ‘I’ll be OK,’” Carter said. “Move forward to New Jersey (Dec. 21) when we had a conversation after the game. I said, ‘How is it?’ He said he’s the happiest that he’s been and getting the opportunity to see his kids grow up, helping his daughter figure out the game. Then he asked me if I was ready. I said, ‘I’m back and forth with it all the time.’ He said, ‘You’ll enjoy it. It’s peaceful.’ He said we’ll connect soon and we’ll talk about it and the steps he went through. The last thing we talked about was we were going to do whatever we could do to the best of our ability to talk about our daughters.”

That’s what makes this so devastating. Bryant, who was wound tight and wasn’t always the most beloved person, had found happiness, Carter said. That night in Brooklyn, Carter recalled a conversation: “He said, ‘I’m at peace. I’m at my happiest.’ All of these championships he’s won, the MVPs, the 81 (points in one game), he was at his happiest in his retirement. It made me feel good, looking forward to retirement.”

Bryant’s final words to Carter as a player in 2016: “I’m still trying to bust your ass.”

His final thoughts in Brooklyn: “He gave me a hug. ‘Love you, brother. See you soon.’”

When they played together on that AAU team, Carter was 16 years old. Bryant was 15. Rip Hamilton and Tim Thomas also were there.

“Our AAU team was unfair,” Carter said.

He saw something different in Bryant: “In one of our tournaments, he gets in late but demanded the attention. You could see it. He already wanted to be the best.”

Bryant also saw something different in Carter when the latter finished off a bad pass with a dunk. Bryant recalled to the Los Angeles Daily News last year: “I thought I threw it way too high, and he just went up and got it and had to lean back so his chest didn’t hit the rim. I wondered what they feed these kids down in Florida, man. I see nothing like this in Philly.”

They loved each other. They hated each other. Their in-game conversations: not loving. Post-game: better.

“All throughout our career, you’ll see a couple of pictures where we’re talking and smiling. Then you’ll see a couple of pictures where we’re right here (nose-to-nose), finger-pointing,” Carter said. “It’s just how the game was played. You had to bring it. He wanted the challenge, and he wanted to out-duel you, and if you weren’t prepared for it, you would get embarrassed.”

Carter misses that. He misses his AAU team, his hated rival, his friend, his family. Bryant was all of that to him. Carter will miss Bryant in retirement. They’ll never have that next talk.

(Photo: Frederick Breedon / Getty Images)