Vin Butcher, Vin Baker...

["hironaka@xxxxxxxxx"<hironaka@xxxxxxxxx>]

Its troubling to see Vin Baker's numbers seemingly trend 
back down this month.

I felt Baker was making headway by the end of December, 
averaging 5.6 points. Since then he's scoring 4.7 points 
in more minutes (20.8 this month).

As a sidebar, Vin Baker is actually shooting .610 (25-41) 
from the field in January (50% for the season).

But it used to be his teammates would look to help try to 
get going, and cheer him whenever he did well. Now he's 
getting bypassed a bit, even though he's hardly greedy 
about kicking passes back out.

Obie's doing a good job of massaging his feelings, making 
sure the papers print quotes like how Baker 
played "great, great" defense against Milwaukee.

To state the obvious, if Vin Baker really was playing 
great defense, he'd be averaging 32-35 mpg in Walker's 
absence (instead of 17.3).

As long as he's a Celtic, I'm going to have to root for 
Vin Baker to do well. He'll be around for awhile.

But if I were the owners, I'd privately hint to Chris 
Wallace that if he can move Vin Baker for even trash (as 
long as the contracts expire sooner)it would not be held 
against him. Otherwise any GM would (with good reason) 
fear that admitting his mistake would cost him his job. 
Either way, the owners have the right to evaluate every 
employee's contract this summer. In the meantime, Chris 
Wallace should bring Baker's name up in trade inquiries 
(its worth a try) in the same way we turned around and 
dumped Travis Knight (we basically renounced Rick Fox, 
Wesley etc. to get him). 

Vin Baker's still a lot better than what teams like the 
Knicks and Orlando have at center. He can fit into the 
styles of certain halfcourt teams, and Boston will take 
nearly as bad contracts in return. Sometimes its a GMs 
job to cut losses, not just try to hit homeruns.




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