Bill "SG" Simmons Bemoans The Baker Trade

[Kai_Brunnen_G@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Right on Brother Bill.....

A no-Vin situation for the Celts
    By Bill Simmons
    Page 2 columnist


Remember the final scene in "Thelma and Louise," when the girls decide they would
    rather kill themselves than surrender to police? Louise steps on the gas pedal just as
    police officer Harvey Keitel realizes what they're doing, the car zooms toward a cliff,
    and poor Harvey sprints towards them in slow motion, holding up his hand, screaming
    "Noooooo!!!!!!!" 

    Well, that's me right now. My beloved Celtics are heading for the cliff. They just traded
    for Vin Baker. 

    (Me running in slow motion.) 

    (Me holding my hand up.) 

    (Me screaming.) 

    ("Noooooo!!!!!!!") 

    Vin Baker? Vin Baker? 

    Vin Baker? 

    Forget about the fact that he conspired with Derrick
    Coleman to destroy my fantasy team last spring. If
    the NBA ever handed out the Jim McIlvaine Award for
    "Most Untradeable Contract In The League," Baker
    would have at least two trophies in his living room
    right now. Seattle acquired him from Milwaukee five
    years ago, coddled one good season from him and
    then watched his weight soar and his stats plummet in the lockout-shortened 1999
    season. Then, the Sonics gambled and signed him to a mammoth seven-year, $86
    million deal and watched him turn into a "VH1: Behind the Music" special. 

    From 1995 to 1998, Baker averaged 19.5 points and 9.5 rebounds a game. During the
    subsequent four-year span, those numbers dropped to a little more than 14 points and
    6.5 rebounds. Yikes. He also gained an estimated 25-30 pounds, denied rumors that
    he was having problems with drinking and depression, feuded with teammates and
    coaches, went from Option A to Option D in the Sonics offense. ... I mean, even
    Michael Ovitz didn't fall this fast. 

    Sonics coach Nate McMillan summed it up best: "I believe the marriage between Vin
    Baker and the Sonics really had problems. He had lost his confidence out on the floor
    and just couldn't get it back. We couldn't take another chance on bringing Vin back
    and having him not want to be here.'' Now there's a quote you probably won't be
    seeing in the Celtics media guide this fall. 

    From the e-mails I received from Sonics fans over the past week, Baker was
    apparently plagued by some indefinable, benign form of basketball cancer. One reader
    writes, Wishing you and all Celtic fans the best of luck with Baker. I really do hope he
    does turn it around, I'm just tired of watching him try to do it on the Sonics payroll.
    Another offered, Sports Guy, are you ready to feel Seattle's pain? You won't find a
    nicer, more stand-up type of guy than Vin. You can't dislike him. You want him to
    succeed, not just for the sake of the team. You'll feel bad because you feel
    disappointed in him. For four years. 

    In other words, he's the worst kind of modern athlete: The Overpaid, Underachieving
    Good Guy. You want to dislike him, but you can't ... even as he's submarining your
    favorite team. 

    And the Sonics knew it. If you were talking shop with anyone in the Seattle front office
    over the past two years, you were just as likely to hear "Any interest in Vin?" as "How
    are things going?" Eventually most NBA teams regarded the Sonics like that guy from
    your fantasy league who calls to say hello, makes small talk for five minutes, then
    offers you Jason Varitek and Shane Halter for Alex Rodriguez. 

    Yet when Seattle called Boston to offer Baker for a
    package including Kenny Anderson and Vitaly
    Potapenko, not only did the Boston braintrust fail to
    hang up, they said "Give us a few days to think
    about it," then they actually held meetings about it. 

    Wait a second... meetings? For Vin Baker???? 

    Let's see, he's 30 years old, with four years and $56
    million remaining on his contract ... struggled
    adjusting to the pressure of playing in Seattle (that
    wasn't a typo) ... can't stay in shape ... more likely to
    say "Pass the flapjacks" than "Pass me the ball" ...
    struggles moving around on defense (and remember,
    defense carried the Celtics last season) ... doesn't
    enjoy rebounding all that much ... hasn't shown he
    can accept being the third option in an offense,
    especially one geared around two shooters (see: '97
    Bucks) ... has been in a Michael Keaton-esque career free fall for the past four
    seasons ... needs a bellhop to check all his baggage ... acquiring him ties up nearly
    two-thirds of the payroll in just three players (Baker, Antoine Walker and Paul Pierce)
    ... if he fails miserably, it could destroy the chemistry of a team that came within two
    victories of the NBA Finals last season ... other than that, it's pretty enticing! Let's get
    this done! 

    Within 10 days, the deal was hammered out. The giddy, borderline-euphoric Sonics
    received an enormous cap boost -- Anderson's $9.2 million salary gets wiped off after
    the season, and Potapenko's contract costs about $8 million a year less than Baker's
    deal -- enabling them to pursue a marquee free agent like Jason Kidd next summer.
    They also dumped someone who had worn out their fans and clearly needed a change
    of scenery ... and they avoided giving up draft picks or absorbing a killer contract to
    make the deal happen. As my editor KJ (a lifelong Sonics fan) said Monday, "It's too
    good to be true." Everyone in Seattle feels that way. 

    As for the Celtics ... I mean ... what can you say? They were sitting pretty last
    summer with two All-Stars, three first-rounders and Anderson's contract coming off
    the books after the 2003 season. Seems like a million years ago. Looking back, they
    picked the wrong guys in the 2001 draft (Joe Johnson over Richard Jefferson, Joe
    Forte over Tony Parker), made one crucial mistake (using Denver's 2001 first-rounder
    to take Kedrick Brown at No. 11, instead of rolling the pick over to the following
    season), and took one defensible gamble (giving up Johnson and a 2002 first-rounder
    for Tony Delk and Rodney Rogers last February, even though Rogers was headed for
    free agency and Boston owner Paul Gaston steadfastly refused from day one to
    exceed the luxury tax to re-sign him). 

    Somehow they nearly snuck into the NBA Finals,
    benefitting more from the ghastly Eastern Conference
    than anything. Now the third- and fourth-best players
    from that team (Rogers and Anderson) are gone. Now
    they don't have a true point guard. Now they can't
    possibly add another impact player for another four
    years. And now their immediate future is tied inexorably
    to Baker, a low-post player who could struggle blending
    into their freewheeling offense. 

    Questions remain. Is it possible to play Walker, Baker and
    Tony Battie at the same time? Will the grumpy Boston
    fans turn on Baker if he struggles early? Will he
    complain/sulk/pout/bitch/moan/gripe/power-sulk if he isn't
    getting enough touches offensively? Can he survive without
    a heady point guard getting him the ball in the right spots? Will he ever get himself in
    shape? Can the Celtics keep him away from all the renowned bakeries in the North
    End? And what does my skin smell like when it's burning? We might find out the
    answers to every one of these questions during Season No. 1 of the Baker
    Experiment. 

    So why in God's name would they make this trade? Apparently Boston's front office
    believed this was its best chance to add the elusive "Third Scorer" to the fold; unable
    to replace create cap space with so much money invested in Pierce and Walker, the
    Celts used Kenny's salary to bring back an established player while they could. They
    were also hoping that Baker (a Connecticut native) would get hooked up to the
    Juvenation Machine by playing closer to home, and playing with two fierce
    competitors (Pierce and Walker) would motivate him, and that he would thrive down
    low against weaker Eastern Conference foes, and maybe he would even emerge as
    the "Comeback Player of the Year." To be fair, all of these things aren't out of the
    realm of possibility. That's the great thing about sports: You never know. 

    And believe me, I'll be rooting for him. Not that I have a choice, but I'll be rooting for
    him. Sports teams are like family members ... even when you're watching them
    re-enact outtakes from SNL's "Bad Idea Jeans" commercial, you still have that
    fundamental need to support them and say things like, "I think this fourth marriage
    could be the one that works out" and "Hey, seven DWI's in the last eight years isn't
    that bad, right?" What else can you say? Family is family. And sports teams are
    family. Even when they keep screwing up. 

    Still, I can't shake the feeling that this Baker trade was borderline lunacy. When
    you're tying up your salary cap for the next four years and threatening the chemistry
    of a likable team that came within two wins of the NBA Finals, shouldn't you weasel
    away at least one first-rounder in the deal? Why assume all the risk? They could have
    waited until February to make the trade -- when Anderson's value would have only
    increased, and Baker's might have even decreased -- or they could have allowed
    Anderson's contract to run out and used their free-agent exemption for a reasonable
    replacement. Instead, they willingly accepted Baker with no strings attached, the
    Overpaid, Underachieving Good Guy, the guy who warms your heart even as he's
    breaking it. This isn't a gamble, it's a shot in the dark. 

    As a sports fan, few things are worse than that feeling of helplessness -- those
    precious few seconds as you watch your team head toward that cliff, when you can't
    stop them, when common sense has apparently been thrown out the window, when
    nothing will ever be the same. Sports aren't like real life, where you can make
    mistakes, deal with the repercussions and make the best of an unfavorable situation
    (well, unless you're in Haiti). 

    In the age of salary caps and guaranteed contracts, you
    can't misfire and say, "Well, we'll get 'em next time."
    One or two wrong moves can have a negative,
    domino-like effect over the next few years, especially in
    the NBA, where cap-clogging contracts have destroyed
    countless teams. Just like that, the window closes. For
    years. 

    And nobody knows this game than Boston fans, where the
    post-Bird Celtics were saddled by clunker contracts to
    Dee Brown, Dana Barros, Dino Radja, Xavier McDaniel,
    Dominique Wilkins, Anderson, Walter McCarty,
    Potapenko ... the only deadbeats missing were Michael
    Jackson and Mariah Carey. For nearly a decade, we were
    in Basketball Hell. Instead of wondering if we might make
    the playoffs again, we were wondering things like, "If
    so-and-so suffered an unfortunate hunting accident, would
    his contract come off the cap?" and "Can we hire Jeff
    Gillooly and Shawn Eckardt as team trainers?" 

    Now we're back. Just when we though the Bad Contract Train had pulled out of South
    Station, just when we thought things had finally turned around for the Celtics, just
    when we thought we were free and clear ... here comes Vin Baker. Two hundred and
    sixty pounds, four years, $56 million. The ultimate roll of the dice. And unless I'm
    crazy, we're headed right toward a cliff. 

    ("Noooooo!!!!!!!") 

    Bill Simmons writes columns for Page 2 and ESPN The Magazine. Over the next five
    weeks, his Page 2 column will only run on Tuesdays ... the old schedule will return in
    mid-August. 




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