"It's like pick your poison."

[CeltsSteve@xxxxxxx]

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Vin Light, Up In Green
 Baker Ready To Show Home Fans Career On Rebound

October 6, 2002 
By JEFF GOLDBERG, Courant Staff Writer 

WALTHAM, Mass. -- Officially, Vin Baker became a Celtic July 22, when he was 
traded to Boston from Seattle. But as far as Baker is concerned, he didn't 
really become a Celtic until Thursday.

"I walked into the practice facility and I smelled cigar smoke," Baker said. 
"I was like, `Wow, I thought, this was a no-smoking building.' It kind of 
gave me some chills, seeing the legendary Red Auerbach."

Baker ranks meeting the franchise patriarch as his No.1 moment - so far - as 
a Celtic. 

No.2, he says, comes this Thursday, when Baker and the Celtics face Donyell 
Marshall and the Chicago Bulls in an exhibition at Mohegan Sun Arena. That's 
the night Baker will really know his five difficult years in the Northwest 
are over, and that he's finally home.

With all respect to Paul Pierce and Antoine Walker, the focus in Montville 
will be on the kid from Old Saybrook.

"Oh, man, I expect there to be about 1,500 hundred people there," said Baker, 
who plays his first Celtics exhibition Tuesday in New York. "It should be a 
lot of fun. I've actually never seen [the arena] so it should be fun to go 
there. What a way to start off my Celtics career, playing at Mohegan Sun in 
front of the Connecticut fans."

For many of those fans who either saw Baker in high school, or at the 
University of Hartford in the early 1990s, they shouldn't expect the kind of 
numbers that made Baker an All-Star in Milwaukee. 

What Baker, 6 feet 11, promises is they'll see a player determined to shed 
his recent reputation as an overweight underachiever, while trying to help 
the Celtics get back to the Eastern Conference finals.

"The game is a little bit different when they saw me in Milwaukee," said 
Baker, who was acquired by the Celtics along with guard Shammond Williams for 
guards Kenny Anderson and Joe Forte and center Vitaly Potapenko. "I was a guy 
getting 23-24 points a game. I'm on a winning team now, and my role is going 
to be different. I'm going to work just as hard as I did in the days they saw 
me at Hartford and in Milwaukee. The numbers might not be the same, but the 
effort and willingness to work hard and be better is always going to be 
there."

The Celtics discovered quickly this summer that Baker, who had weighed as 
much as 280 pounds, was determined to bury his recent past. Baker, still 
living in a hotel in Waltham, was a constant presence at the team's practice 
facility, working his way back to an ideal weight of 255.

In Baker, the Celtics have found a low-post presence not seen since the final 
days of Robert Parish and Kevin McHale, when Baker would watch the Celtics 
while attending Hartford.

"Since I've been here, he's is the best low-post big man that we've had," 
said Celtics coach Jim O'Brien, who joined the team in 1997.

Unlike last season, when they often lived and died with three-point shooting, 
the Celtics can now force opponents into difficult decisions on 
double-teaming Pierce and Walker.

"We've put in some things to throw it down to him on the block," assistant 
coach Lester Conner said. "Normally we're a perimeter-oriented team, and we 
still are. But now have a weapon on the block. It's like pick your poison. 
Are you going to double Vin, and leave Antoine and Paul? Or are you going to 
let your guy go one-on-one with Vin? So teams have some thinking to do." 

While Baker seeks redemption for five lost seasons, he joins an entire team 
that fed off doubts about its ability. The Celtics boiled years of 
frustration into a run to the conference finals last season, and Baker can 
relate.

"Those guys felt they had something to prove last year, and I feel the same 
way," Baker said. "I think with that marriage, hopefully it will make for a 
great season." 

Baker hasn't averaged more than 20 points in a season since 1996-97, his last 
in Milwaukee. And while opportunities should present themselves in Boston, 
Baker is content to contribute any way the Celtics see fit.

"I think if you come in with a false sense of `I want to be an All-Star, I 
want to average 20 points a game,' I don't think that's what's going to 
define whether I'm back this year," Baker said.

"I think some people might want to put that tag on me, but if we go back to 
the conference finals, and I work hard every day, that's going to be the 
title that says `I'm back.'" 

CeltsSteve