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Re: Baker article
At 09:20 PM 8/2/02 +0200, hironaka@nomade.fr wrote:
The big thing that jumps out is Baker saying he will be
one of the top four power forwards in the East. I wonder
if he is lobbying not to play center, or if the coaching
staff has actually told him he will start next to Tony
Battie.
Y'know, you've gotta love it. If he said he enjoyed working out outside
this summer under the blue sky at his Connecticut home, someone would start
to scream about what did he have against the Cs practice facility and did
that mean he was going to refuse to work out there or when the sky was gray?
I know, I know, Joe. You're not as guilty of that sort of thing as most.
But I've got to admit that I've been waiting for a variation on this
response from someone since I saw the comment.
FWIW, my guess is that he and Tony will play together as sort of C/PF twin
towers a fair amount as they're both players that would do better with
another big body around and it's a lineup that we could do some nice things
with.
The second thing is his coachability/maturity. THANK GOD
Red Auerbach isn't still the C's coach or Baker would be
tearing after every motivational ploy or attempt at
criticism.
Don't be ridiculous. Red and Tom Heinsohn have both been repeatedly
explained how Red used to scream and yell at Tommy to make points that
didn't always directly involve him because he knew Tommie could handle the
criticism that Red had to make, while some other players couldn't. Red was
a master psychologist and understood better than most that one size does
not fit all.
He sounds like an innocent 8 year old. Its
strange to hear all these stories about him leaving
practice to cry.
You can't know how much it pains me and I hate to say this, but I wonder
how much of this stuff had as much to do with the author of the article as
the subject.
Obie is a good coach for him, but even he still strikes
me as fairly no-nonsense, arched-eyebrows-if-a-player-
acts-like-a-baby type of coach.
Which can be good for him. O'B's also a very very stable personality and as
I pointed out in another post, if Vin really does ride this much of an
emotional roller coaster, that stability can be better for him than even
superficially supportive emotionalism.
Atleast he's no Pitino. I can easily picture Pitino doing
what Nate McMillan did. Baker wouldn't have lasted a week
under Pitino.
Yup!
One rule Obie needs to enforce is "no trash talking" in
practice. The way Antoine and Paul Pierce talk it up,
they'll need to each carry mops to wipe Vinnie's tears
from flooding and warping the parquet. The team should
get cue cards saying "I'm proud of you, Vinnie" each time
they are tempted to talk trash.
Not at all. First, if Vinnie's made it this far, he's more than used to
trash talking. Second, if it does bother him, better his teammates who
really care and have a vested interest in his doing well help him develop a
thicker skin than the next wiseass on the other team in the post asking
about his mother's sideline.
As for the fans, I think/hope they'll lay off Baker if he
can average 8 board while shooting 50%. Its the captains
who will carry the brunt of fan expectations and
criticism. And luckily they both have thick skins.
Yeah, but this isn't realistic in Boston. We aren't Philly, where they
boo'd Santa, but I've seen the half time shows get boo'd at the Fleece.
*shrug* Even Bird got some boos. This is the weakest point IMO. The trash
talking and overemotionalism I think are non-issues, but it seems pretty
clear that the fan reaction genuinely did get to him. And there's just no
way he's not going to hear some boos here. Jesus would get boo'd for taking
so many days to rise form the dead rather than hustling right back out
there <ducks while looking nervously around for lightening to strike>
Just as pitchers prefer a certain battery mate, I think
the Globe should only allow Shira Springer to cover Baker
for the next four years.
*shudder*
Kim