God and Starbucks

by Vin Baker

  “Vinnie, how are you?” he said, giving me a big hug.

  “I’m fine, Howard. Thank you for inviting me.”

  “Of course, of course. Come in. Relax. You’re probably hungry, right?”

  “Um, sure,” I said, which was not true. Already I was completely off my game.

  For the better part of two hours we watched a football game, had some food, and made sports-related small talk. There was no mention of the water bottle, no mention of my conversation with Wally, or of anything else related to my problem, and the Sonics’ problem with me. Finally, Howard said he was tired and going to get ready for bed. He thanked me for coming, said he really enjoyed the evening, and showed me to the door. I was completely disoriented and confused. Had I dodged a bullet? Was Howard actually playing with me? Did he take some perverse pleasure in watching me squirm?

  As we walked to the door, Howard suddenly stopped, as if something had crossed his mind.

  “Come in here for a second, Vinnie,” he said, gesturing toward a door that led to his office. I followed him in and we both sat down. Howard rubbed his chin, looked around the room for a moment, and then slowly began to speak.

  Uh-oh . . . here it comes.

  “You know, Vinnie,” he began, “we all have issues. I have issues. My children have issues. You know what we do? We help them work through it in a positive manner. We make sure they know we love them, and that we’re there to support them.”

  He paused, looked at me. “You see what I’m saying, Vinnie?”

  “I think so, Howard.”

  “Good, good. You’re going to be fine, too. And we’re going to support you. I want you to know that.”

  “Thank you, sir. I appreciate that.”

  We got up, walked out of Howard’s office, and shook hands at the front door, and I got back into my car and drove away, mystified by everything about the evening. First thing I did when I got home was pour another drink and sit in front of the TV, and try to figure out what had just happened. There is no question in my mind that Howard is a person who believes in the fundamental goodness of his fellow man, and who embraces the notion that everyone deserves a second (or third, or even fourth) chance. Howard and I had a rapport that is unusual for an owner and player. I liked him, and I think he liked me.

  Business matters likely played at least some role in the Sonics’ delicate handling of my situation. As long as I was still wearing a Seattle uniform and performing at least modestly on the court, I was worth something. The Sonics had invested $87 million in me, and while it was clear by now that they had overpaid, there was still a chance to recoup something on the investment. The Sonics could have gone after my contract based on my being unfit to play, but instead, they took the high road. They urged me to clean up while attempting to shop my services to another team.

  Practically speaking, it made sense. I was averaging close to 17 points per game, and thanks to an assortment of diet pills, I had shed much of the excess weight that I’d carried over the summer. I had the appearance of an athlete, one who might still have a few good years left.

  They could have blown me up, no question about it. They had every right to do it. But business and compassion got in the way. Howard liked me. He still likes me, but our relationship today is much deeper. He likes me enough now—maybe “love” would be a more appropriate word—to call me on my bullshit, and to demand more in return for his favors. Back then I think he just found it hard to believe that my problem was as severe as it was.

  I got a call from Wally a few weeks before the All-Star Break. He left a message on my voice mail, asking me to call him back, which basically had me crapping my pants. I was certain that the Sonics had changed their minds and were going to hammer me about my drinking. Instead, when I called Wally back, he was friendly and encouraging.

  “Listen, Vin,” he said. “You need a big one out there tonight.”

  “I’ll do my best, Wally.”

  “No, you don’t understand,” he added. “Rosters for the All-Star Game are closing soon. If you play well tonight, I’ve got a chance to get you on the team.”

  This was stunning to me. Wally had become something of a cheerleader. I’d been playing all right, but not at the level of an all-star. It just goes to show you how quickly the narrative can change, and how easily it can be manipulated.

  “Thank you, Wally,” I said. “I’m ready.”

  Oddly enough, I was at peace. My dirty little secret had been discovered, and to my great relief my employer had decided not to make it public. At that point the goal for all of us was simple: get through the season without screwing up too badly.

  The Sonics finished the regular season with a mediocre 45–37 record, almost identical to the previous season. We did manage to make the playoffs but were eliminated in the first round by the San Antonio Spurs. I felt relief when the season came to an end. I was drinking hard by that point, having escalated from Bacardi Limón to Bacardi 151. I wasn’t hiding liquor in my water bottle anymore—that was too risky—so I opted for a more potent beverage, the effects of which would last longer when ingested as part of my pregame routine. Every morning began with a champagne breakfast. Not the glamorous kind, either. I’m talking about waking with a hangover and immediately dulling the effects by drinking straight from a bottle of champagne. By noon I’d usually polished off the whole thing. A few hours before game time, I’d start on the 151, mixed with Coke or Sprite.

  I have a vivid memory from the San Antonio playoff series. I was lined up on the foul lane while someone was shooting a free throw. Tim Duncan, the Spurs’ center, was next to me, and as he leaned in to get ready to box me out for the rebound, I could see him pull back and shake his head vigorously, as if something had startled him. Then he gave me a look of utter disbelief. He must have smelled the liquor coming off my body. Tim is the consummate professional, one of the greatest frontcourt players in the history of the NBA. I’m sure he couldn’t imagine playing at anything less than full strength.

  He said nothing, of course. That’s just the way Tim is. But he knew. And I knew. And it hurt.

  We had a team meeting after the season, as well as individual exit meetings—these are standard operating procedure for most NBA teams. I didn’t even bother to attend. Instead I just took off for Vegas with some buddies. When Howard found out that I had skipped out on the meetings, he was pretty upset. I had completely worn out my welcome in Seattle. I was a shell of the player the Sonics had acquired five years earlier. I was perpetually banged up because I wasn’t physically prepared for the rigors of NBA competition. I wanted out of Seattle, and the Sonics were only too happy to accommodate that desire.

  In early June I got calls from both my agent and the Sonics’ front office letting me know that several teams were interested in acquiring my services, including the Boston Celtics. Now, I was a New England kid, so naturally I had grown up a Celtics fan. I’d gone to school in Hartford; I had been a camper at Kevin McHale’s basketball camp on Cape Cod. When I was at Hartford people used to compare me to Reggie Lewis, who had played at Northeastern (another North Atlantic Conference school) before starring for the Celtics. The idea of coming back home and playing in Boston Garden was almost enough to make me think that it was possible to resurrect my career. But trade talk is common in professional sports. Rumors are part of the landscape, and as often as not they are merely seeds planted by front office executives to generate interest and speculation. A couple of years earlier I had come close to being traded to the New York Knicks, which also would have been a thrill. I was from New England, but southern Connecticut is awfully close to New York, so I’d followed the Knicks a lot as a kid as well. My hope, feeble though it may have been, was that by moving closer to home, I’d have not only a fresh start but also the support of friends and family.

  When the Celtics called and said they wanted to meet with me about a possible trade, I was excited. I drove up to Boston and met with coach Jim O’Brien and general manager Chris Wal
lace. It was a shockingly pleasant and informal meeting. Basically, Jim and Chris had three questions. The first question was, “Do you want to play for the Celtics?” That was easy. Of course I did, for a multitude of reasons.

  “I would love nothing more than to become a member of the Boston Celtics,” I said.

  Secondly, they wanted to know if I still loved basketball, and still wanted to play. Apparently they had gotten the impression that my diminished output was related to a lack of motivation.

  “Yes,” I said. “I want to keep playing. I need a fresh start.”

  Finally, they wanted to know why the Sonics were willing to let me go. This was the toughest question, for it implied a certain level of displeasure on the part of my employer.

  I feigned ignorance.

  “I really don’t know what they’re thinking. I just know that at some point in everyone’s career, you kind of run the course as far as where you are as a player and where you are with that team.”

  I thought that was a good answer.

  “We’ve heard about your drinking,” Chris said. “Is it true?”

  Busted!

  I sat there for a moment, trying to fight back the anxiety rising in my throat. I folded my hands in my lap, surreptitiously wiping away the clamminess. I shook my head, as much for dramatic effect as anything else. I wanted this trade in the worst way. I wanted out of Seattle. I wanted to come home. Most of all, I wanted to keep the remaining $50 million on my contract, which the Celtics would have to absorb if the trade went through. Once again, I looked my bosses straight in the eye, and I lied.

  “I do not have a drinking problem,” I said. “I like to have a drink once in a while, just like everyone else, but nothing out of the ordinary.”

  Jim said he had heard stories from coaches and players who said they had smelled alcohol on me during games and practices. I didn’t miss a beat. I’d been down this road before and knew exactly how to deflect accusations. You see, here’s the thing about confronting an addict: It’s almost more uncomfortable and difficult for the person who is doing the confronting than it is for the addict himself. The addict is accustomed to lying, hurting, deceiving. It barely registers as wrongful behavior. But the accuser is not accustomed to these things, so he feels terrible about the confrontation. He wants to believe that the rumors are untrue. The Celtics wanted to believe that they were acquiring the Vin Baker of 1998. They wanted me to tell them that everything was okay.

  And that’s what I did.

  “There have been a few times when I’ve stayed out too late and maybe smelled a little at practice the next morning.” I paused and smiled. “You guys know the NBA life. Sometimes we live a little too hard. But I promise you—I do not have a drinking problem.”

  Not long after that, the meeting ended. We all shook hands and I got back into my car and drove home. For the next month talks between the two teams continued. Finally, in July, the Sonics and Celtics completed a five-player deal in which I went to the Celtics along with the guard Shammond Williams, in exchange for Kenny Anderson, a talented but volatile point guard, the center Vitaly Potapenko, and the guard Joseph Forte. The primary players in the deal were Kenny and me, even though we were both considered damaged goods. On the day the trade was announced, the Sonics’ coach, Nate McMillan, sounded more relieved to be rid of me than he was excited about acquiring Kenny.

  “I believe the marriage between Vin Baker and the Sonics really had problems,” Nate said. “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.”

  Harsh as those words may have been, they merely hinted at the extent to which my relationship with the Sonics had disintegrated. But this was the company line, and I was happy to adhere to it.

  In New England, naturally, the narrative was far less bleak. The focus was on rebirth and redemption, and the fact that I was coming home. Acquiring a four-time all-star who had grown up in Old Saybrook and played college ball in Hartford . . . well, that had to be a good thing for the Boston Celtics, right?

  12

  Celtics Intervention

  A paradox of my life at that time was that the more deeply I sunk into the muck of addiction, the harder I tried to compensate with public acts of kindness and generosity. I gave away money and support to various charitable causes. I wanted to be a good person; more important, I wanted others to think I was a good person.

  Even as the drinking and lying escalated, I searched for some evidence that a piece of the preacher’s kid remained. I could cheat on my girlfriends, ignore the children I had fathered (in all ways other than financial), lie to my coaches and teammates. No amount of alcohol could deaden the pain of self-loathing, but if I did something good, something undeniably benevolent, it offered a respite from the awfulness of my daily life. It could be something as simple as signing an autograph or posing for a picture with a fan. It could be paying for a dinner with a bunch of friends, or buying cars for family members and girlfriends, or toys for my kids. Each small act of generosity, no matter how hollow, made me feel a little better about myself.

  In the summer of 2002, before I joined the Celtics, I spent a lot of time at home in New England. I was drunk pretty much 24/7, but I still made at least a halfhearted effort to present the image of a native son grateful to be returning home. My charitable foundation got involved in a number of events, the most publicized of which was a softball tournament at an athletic complex in Branford, Connecticut. There were teams from all over the state, and it basically felt like a giant party: games being played on multiple fields, live music, food vendors, plenty of beer on tap. All the proceeds went to charity, so I felt pretty good walking around the grounds that day, seeing so many people having fun, and hearing compliments about the good work that I was doing, and how nice it was to have me back in New England.

  “Thank you,” I’d say. “It’s good to be home.”

  Then I’d walk to my car, grab a bottle of Bacardi 151, take a couple of hits while ducking behind the wheel, and return to the fields.

  In the middle of the afternoon, while I walked through a hospitality tent, I heard someone talking loudly. His voice was animated, his speech riddled with profanity. This was a family-friendly event, so the language caught me off guard. Also, I did not recognize the voice. I looked around the tent and eventually spotted the source of the commotion. Our eyes locked, and he began calling me out.

  “Vin Baker! I gotta talk to you.”

  Rather than walk away, which would have been the prudent thing to do, I slowly moved across the grass to the other side of the tent, where the man was waiting. As I got closer, his voice escalated and his movements became more exaggerated. No one knows a drunk quite as well as another drunk, and I recognized him immediately as a member of the brotherhood, which only made me angrier. The guy was an embarrassment. Was I like this? I had to wonder. But I also wanted him off the grounds as quickly as possible.

  “What’s up, man?” I asked. “You having a good time?”

  He stumbled, spilled his drink, and waved a hand at me sarcastically.

  “Don’t come over here bullshitting,” he said. “You’re with the Celtics now.”

  This took me aback. Drunks are by nature volatile and unpredictable, if not downright impenetrable, but this guy hit a nerve.

  “Look, bro,” I said. “This is not the time or the space for this, okay. You’re out of line. So why don’t you just go on home.”

  He stiffened and opened his mouth in a look of exasperation.

  “What the fuck, dude? It’s a free country. I can say what I want to say. You want to be a Celtic, you’d better be ready to play for a change.”

  I took two steps toward him, until we were separated by only a few inches. He was a head shorter than me, drunk, and putting on a public display of stupidity. Protocol dictated that I walk away, but I was ready to knock the guy out; I just wanted him to shut the hell up.
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  I could feel my hands balling into fists as I tried to control my rage, and at that very moment, just as I reached the point of no return, the man disappeared from my view. He was swept away in a heartbeat by what felt like a wave of humanity. I saw him on the ground, struggling for his life as three of my buddies wrestled him into submission. If you’ve ever gotten into a confrontation with a drunk, you know that they are unfamiliar with the phrase “discretion is the better part of valor.” The drunk quite literally feels no pain, and so this poor guy fought on, trying with every ounce of his being to overpower three relatively large and fit young men. They tackled him and he wiggled away. They tackled him again, and he kicked them and bit at them and threw punches as if his life depended on it. The fight eventually moved outside the tent, where a massive crowd gathered, including lots of families and people from my local church. It might have been funny if it hadn’t been so horrifying. The guy simply would not surrender, and his persistence—along with a few well-directed kicks and punches—only served to further enrage my buddies. All of a sudden, someone jumped into the pile and covered the drunk with his own body, to protect him from further damage.

  That person was my father.

  “Stop it!” he yelled. “Enough!”

  And just like that, the brawl came to an end. Like a pack of dogs in retreat before the alpha, my buddies moved away quickly, while my father helped the drunk to his feet. He dusted the man off, asked if he was okay, and then told him to get the hell out of there.

  Not long afterward, there was the threat of a lawsuit. I wrote a check and the whole thing went away quietly, without anyone from the Celtics or the media finding out.

  The Celtics were on me from day one, as they should have been. I went to a couple of preseason workouts in Boston—nothing formal—just to show that I was with the program and eager to start a new life. These workouts were held before the official start of training camp and were thus optional. I wanted to demonstrate seriousness and professionalism—except that I was drunk when I showed up at the training facility. Not falling-down, puking-on-my-shoes drunk, but just inebriated in the way that was a part of my daily life. A maintenance level of intoxication. In Boston, I started drinking more. The Celtics got a whiff of my behavior—literally; I reeked of alcohol every time I started to sweat—and called my friend Jay, who worked for my foundation and also served as a personal adviser on a number of matters. Calling my friend instead of my agent was actually a reasonably smart and compassionate way to go about the process of early intervention.