Bucks alumni scheduled to attend Monday’s event include Vin Baker, Bob Dandridge, TJ Ford, Dick Garrett, Desmond Mason, Jon McGlocklin, Michael Redd and Fred Roberts. Select current Bucks players may also attend intermittently throughout the day along with Bucks executives and staff.
Vin Baker Rumors
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Vin Baker
Position: -
Born: 11/23/71
Height: 6-11 / 2.11
Weight:240 lbs. / 108.9 kg.
Earnings: $97,390,894 ($163,522,696*)
Born: 11/23/71
Height: 6-11 / 2.11
Weight:240 lbs. / 108.9 kg.
Earnings: $97,390,894 ($163,522,696*)
This weekend the 50-year-old Vin Baker will have some excited butterflies in his stomach as he walks out onto the court at Cox Pavilion in Las Vegas as the head coach of the Bucks’ summer league team. “It’s kind of a happy nervous energy – like, good butterflies,” he said with a laugh. With a satellite view, five games of coaching in the summer may not seem like a huge deal – but it is the first time Baker will be leading a team through a game, making rotation and timeout decisions and implementing game plans.
“It means a great deal,” Baker said. “To have the opportunity to be the head coach of the summer league, to continue to grow in my craft as an assistant coach and a coach period, it just means a lot to me that coach ‘Bud’ trusts to really give me the opportunity to coach this young team. It’s an opportunity for me, it’s an opportunity for the players and I’m just looking forward to doing what the Bucks do, teaching them our culture, teaching them our plays, teaching them how we play. I’m just really grateful for the opportunity.”
“I’d like to think I’m prepared for this summer – I’m not necessarily talking about wins or losses – but I’m certainly prepared to coach the team,” Baker told the Journal Sentinel. “The last four years since coach has been here I’ve been learning the X’s and O’s, the offenses, the defenses, all the nuances of the new NBA. I’m kind of looking forward to standing up on the sidelines and seeing how it looks from standing up as opposed to sitting behind the bench.”
After the game, Holiday said he’s received quite a bit of advice from his family and friends, as you might imagine. “Everybody. My brothers, my wife, my parents. I think during the game, though, most of the time it’s probably (assistant) Vin Baker,” Holiday said. “Vin Baker is always in my ear, continually telling me to be aggressive, continually telling me to pick up full court and make it hard on Chris Paul and Book and continually telling me I’m the greatest.
His bond with members of the organization is undeniable. He spent two months last offseason working with Antetokounmpo in Greece, where their relationship deepened with the Bucks’ star in his home country. “One night we were we were talking and we had never had this conversation. And Giannis said to me, we were at dinner, and he said ‘Coach, like your story’s amazing. Like, I cannot believe it … it’s hard for me to even fathom what you’ve been through. “He was in awe that I had made it back from what I had gone through and I didn’t even realize he knew the extent of it.”
