There’s a long list of great power forwards of the 90s and 2000s, with obvious names like Kevin Garnett and Tim Duncan, and then other great forwards like Rasheed Wallace and Chris Webber, but another one who had the skills and talent to matchup with any of those guys was Vin Baker. His name doesn’t get brought up often, but he could play power forward and center while stretching the floor with his shooting range, and his rare ability to handle the ball at his size, even allowed him to play small forward effectively or just push the ball in transition on the break. He was touted by Sports Illustrated as “America’s Best Kept Secret” as a star at the University of Hartford where he was one the Nation’s top scorers. He was unknown to a lot of fans; but the Milwaukee Bucks made him a top 10 pick in the 1993 NBA draft. Over the next few years he would up his game each season while teaming with Glenn Robinson and Ray Allen, but after 4 years of no team success he was traded to the Seattle Supersonics and given the difficult task of replacing Shawn Kemp. He would team with guys like Gary Payton, Hersey Hawkins and Detlef Schrempf as the Sonics were one of the league’s top teams with one of it’s power forwards during the ’98 season. But once players returned from the lockout the following year, Vin Baker would never be the same as he spent the rest of his time Seattle seeing his role diminish until the once Franchise was traded away. But it was once he got to the Boston Celtics that his secret came out, as it was revealed that he had been struggling with an alcohol addiction for years; and this alcoholism confession explained his rapid decline. He was never able to beat his addiction during his playing years, but would turn his life around in 2010s. And it’s true that a lot of years of his career look pretty bad; but before he began battle with alcoholism, Vin Baker was one of the best in the league and only looked to be getting better.
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19 янв 2024
