Baker had a very successful professional basketball career that spanned 13 seasons, four of them with the Bucks after they drafted him in the first round in 1993. His fame and fortune went away by 2006, and it was all because of alcoholism — but that’s not the Baker of today. “I will be seven years sober on April 17,” Baker said. Back in control of his life — and back in Milwaukee.
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Vin Baker
Position: None
Born: 11/23/71
Height: 6-11 / 2.11
Weight:240 lbs. / 108.9 kg.
Born: 11/23/71
Height: 6-11 / 2.11
Weight:240 lbs. / 108.9 kg.
Baker is currently an assistant coach for the Bucks. “I’m having a great time. I’m having a blast. It’s another opportunity for me. That’s how I look at it — to share my story, to share my basketball information and knowledge and I’m having a blast doing it,” Baker said.
Baker is willing to tell his story of redemption, in hopes of helping others dealing with addiction. “Doesn’t happen like that for everyone and that’s why I want to be a beacon of light to help those people who don’t have that support group around them and don’t have this miraculous story of falling and then getting up only to return to the city that he once played in,” said Baker. “Every story doesn’t go like that. I think the community is the most important to me — fans that can identify with me as the player and certainly fans that, people that can identify with my struggles and to come back here and have it culminate in an opportunity to coach and to share my story is just amazing.”
Gery Woelfel: With assistant coach Frank Johnson having been fired, Vin Baker is now the principal coach working with Jabari Parker.
Chris Webber told The Dan Patrick Show on Friday that he tried to go after Vin Baker – but blamed the whole thing on Gary Payton for hyping him up just a bit too much during the game. He almost made it in, he said. “I did get close to him and if we caught each other, we would have fought. But someone would have broken it up after three seconds, so it wouldn’t have been a fight. But a couple of weeks later we went out and we hung out, so it was nothing. But that’s Gary Payton on the team it just pumps everyone up and makes it an issue.
In Kidd’s first two seasons as the Bucks coach, he told reporters he intentionally kept his players’ minutes down in order to help them have prolonged careers. Not this year. Kidd has played Antetokounmpo 40 or more minutes on 11 occasions, including three games of more than 42 minutes. And that’s just fine with Antetokounmpo who, like Middleton, could become only the second Bucks player to lead the league in minutes per game for a season, the other being Vin Baker, who averaged a league-high 40.9 minutes during the 1994-1995 season. “Me and Jason Kidd get into arguments every day,’’ Antetokounmpo said, who averaged 35.6 minutes last season. “I tell him, ‘You got to play me more. You got to play me the whole 48 minutes.’ He says, ‘No.’ ’’
