by Vin Baker
They’re setting me up to fail. I can’t go a whole year without drinking, and they know it. Why should I even bother?
The NBA and the Boston Celtics rightly had me on a short leash, but any leash is only as strong as the person holding it. Three times that summer I met with two of the NBA’s drug counselors. The first couple of times we met, once in Las Vegas and once in Miami, they just wanted to know how I was doing and to make sure I understood the parameters of my probation. The third time we met, at a hotel in Boston, the conversation turned suddenly dark and strange.
“I’m doing great,” I said, in what by now had become a comfortable refrain. “I’m sober, and I’m ready to play ball. I don’t know what any of this means long term, but I feel like I’m in a better space than I’ve been in for the last six or seven years.”
They nodded, smiled. “That’s great, Vin. We’re happy for you. Now here’s what we’re going to do next.”
There was a long pause.
“You give each of us fifty grand, and we’ll let you know when the tests are coming up. That way they won’t be so . . . random.”
Were they serious? They wanted me to bribe them in exchange for proprietary information about the league’s drug testing protocol?
I looked at them, tried to gauge their intent. “You’re kidding, right?” I’ll be honest: as an alcoholic—and, by extension, a master of deceit—my first instinct was to leap at their offer, illicit as it might have been.
For a hundred grand I can beat the testing and drink as much as I want? And I’ll get to keep my $1.4 million? Sign me up!
They said nothing, just shook their heads calmly.
“I need to think about this,” I said. And that’s the way we left it. I called one of my advisers, a man named Steve Singletary, an attorney in Chicago, and told him what had happened. Fortunately, Steve’s moral compass was functioning well, and he quickly talked some sense into me. “We’re not paying anybody a dime,” he said. “You can do this on your own—the right way.”
For the next couple of weeks I continued to work the program: preseason workouts, meetings, daily visits to the lab for drug and alcohol testing. This was a big part of my day, driving forty minutes each way to pee in a cup. But I was into it; I was motivated. In the eyes of the league, the most important part of compliance is a clean test. For an athlete trying to recover from a drug or alcohol violation, that’s 99 percent of the battle. With each clean test, my confidence increased.
Then, one day, I got a call from Steve.
“Man, I’ve got some bad news for you.”
I couldn’t imagine what he was talking about. I was totally clean.
“What is it, Steve?”
“They’re taking your $1.4 million.”
I was stunned. “On what basis?”
Steve sighed. “They’re saying you haven’t stayed in touch with your counselors.”
There was some truth to this. Following the meeting in Boston, and the solicitation of a bribe, I stayed clear of the two counselors. No money changed hands, and I figured that was the end of it. It honestly never occurred to me that by turning them down—by simply trying to play according to the rules—I’d made some sort of tactical error. Maybe they really expected me to pay them; maybe they were hoping I’d agree and then they could report me for attempted bribery. Either way, I’d been set up, and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. What was I going to say? To whom would I report the solicitation? I was a drunk and a liar. Who would believe me? It was one of those moments in life where you see the train coming down the tracks, and there is nothing you can do to stop it. You either get out of the way or you get run over.
I was not strong enough to withstand the collision. The anger over being duped, and of forfeiting $1.4 million that I should not have lost, ate me up inside. After five months of sobriety—easily the longest such period of my adult life—I started feeling sorry for myself again, and pretty soon I felt the pull of alcohol. Ironically, I was actually fit and playing reasonably well, so much so that I sensed an almost unreasonable standard of hope and expectation on the part of the Celtics.
One day in practice Coach O’Brien set up a game of one-on-one between me and Antoine Walker. This was not common in NBA camps. Antoine was the Celtics’ biggest star, having been in Boston his entire career after playing at the University of Kentucky. A six-foot-eight power forward, he was an impressively consistent and versatile player, averaging better than 20 points, eight rebounds, and four assists per game during his seven years in Boston. In contrast, I had been the picture of inconsistency. Why any of the coaches would want me to play a game of ones with Antoine just a couple of weeks into the preseason struck me as a mystery, and a slightly cruel one at that. Most teams avoid this type of exercise specifically because it can lead to hurt feelings and resentment, not to mention injuries. You don’t get to the NBA without being hypercompetitive, and there is nothing that brings out this competitiveness quite like a game of one-on-one.
On a team overflowing with big personalities, Antoine was one of the biggest, in ways both positive and negative. His response, at first, was to wave a hand dismissively and tell Coach O’Brien, “Nah, I don’t do ones, man. No way.” But Jim pulled him aside and they talked for a few minutes, and the next thing you know the ball was rolled out and Antoine and I went at it. This had great potential to backfire. Antoine and I were not buddies who would simply bump against each other a little and take some outside jump shots until the game was settled. He was an established star on the Celtics and I was a former star trying to rebuild my career. And we played the same position. I’m sure Antoine thought he was a substantially better player than I was at that time; I thought he was somewhat overrated. So we played, didn’t even keep score, just beat each other up and traded baskets for a while, until both of us were drenched with sweat. Then we shook hands and finished practice.
Under the circumstances, I felt like I had acquitted myself reasonably well, but that didn’t lessen the shock a few days later when I got a call from Danny Ainge, the former Celtics star who recently had been hired as director of basketball operations. Danny would eventually become known for making bold personnel moves, and this was one of the first.
“We’re moving Antoine,” he told me.
Stunned almost to the point of speechlessness, I finally managed to spit out a single word.
“Why?”
The answer had less to do with any perceived deficiencies in Antoine’s game than confidence in my ability to successfully reboot my career in Boston. Like, immediately.
“We just think you’re ready,” Danny explained. And that was that. Nine days before the start of the season, on October 21, 2003, the Celtics sent Antoine Walker—a player who had led the team in rebounds and assists, and was second in scoring the previous year—to the Dallas Mavericks as part of a five-player trade. This did not please most Celtics fans, or the media, which was skeptical that a guy fresh out of rehab could step in and replace a proven commodity like Antoine Walker. I questioned it myself. Sure, I was still relatively young and only a few seasons removed from being an all-star, and I was fitter than I’d been in years, but I knew in my heart that I had a long way to go, and that my grip on sobriety was tenuous at best.
From a purely basketball standpoint (at least on paper), it was a sound move by Ainge. The Celtics got Raef LaFrentz, technically a center but really a stretch power forward, along with a future first-round draft pick. Adding Raef would allow me to move into the post. But rather than feeling excitement over the possibilities created by this trade, I felt nothing so much as pressure. Instead of playing in Antoine’s shadow, I’d be one of the focal points of the Celtics’ offense, which scared the crap out of me. What if I failed? The Celtics had been a playoff team the previous year, and expectations were now even higher. If we didn’t meet those expectations, I’d be held responsible. Not me alone, of course, but I saw it that that way. Almost as soon as the trade went through, I f
elt a surge of anxiety that never really went away.
Actually, the first anxiety attack occurred before Antoine even left, but after I had received word that the Celtics were shopping him. I knew the trade was imminent. One night before a preseason game in New Jersey, I found myself sitting alone in my hotel room, staring at an open minibar, contemplating the wondrous effects of that magic elixir known as alcohol.
Wouldn’t take much, that’s for sure. Been sober for five months—probably only need one or two of those little bottles to set me right, help me get in the proper frame of mind.
As luck would have it, there was a tiny bottle of Bacardi. I plucked it from the shelf, rolled it around in my hand for what must have been ten or fifteen minutes. Just sat there looking at it, fondling it, imagining how the contents would taste. For months I hadn’t even desired a drink; now the craving was overwhelming. I closed my eyes and squeezed the bottle tight, tried to break it in the palm of my hand. I blinked back tears. And then, for some reason, I tossed the bottle into my gym bag.
Not now. Maybe later. At the arena.
I did not drink that night, but the seed of self-doubt had been planted. I carried that little bottle around with me for the next few days in a deliberate dance of temptation, although eventually I tossed it in the garbage. Roughly one week later Antoine was gone and the regular season was about to start, and I knew that I’d be getting significant minutes in his place. I had already rationalized self-medication as merely a means to an end: drinking would once again allow me to face the pressure of basketball. But I needed a less transparent means of achieving that goal. I remembered hearing once that many types of mouthwash contain alcohol. I started doing some research. It was true, of course: there is alcohol in mouthwash.
Crazy as it sounds, I figured I could get enough alcohol into my system by drinking mouthwash, without suffering the unwanted side effect of smelling like a distillery. That’s how I wound up standing in the bathroom of my home in Boston, just an hour or so before practice, choking down about a half bottle of Listerine. It was one of the small bottles, maybe sixteen ounces, so I drank probably eight ounces of 50 proof—enough to give me a solid buzz, but not before causing my stomach to roar in protest. I leaned over the sink, prepared to vomit, but somehow managed to fight off the urge.
Easy . . . Easy . . .
After a minute or two, the nausea passed, replaced by a warm glow, the likes of which I hadn’t felt in months. I felt no remorse, no sadness, no shame. Mainly I just felt . . . relief.
A predictable escalation followed, although not in the way you might expect. I restricted my alcohol intake to Listerine, and naturally the amount required to get the job done increased dramatically. Before long I was drinking a full 1.5-liter bottle (or more) every day. My drinking was weird and pathetic and exercised in complete solitude. Sobriety seemed to be overrated, as I was playing better than I had in a couple of years—averaging more than 15 points and seven rebounds per game through the first two months. Coach O’Brien was so impressed and optimistic that he even said I was starting to look like an all-star again, and began mentioning that honor as a possibility. To me, this was validation.
See what happens when you drink, Vin? The game is so much easier.
Inevitably, I began failing some of the random tests. Contractually, I was permitted three strikes. The first two would results in suspensions, while a third would give the Celtics leverage to terminate my contract. There was a relatively quiet one-game suspension after the first positive test. News of the second positive came down while we were in Miami for a game against the Heat. At shootaround that morning I got a call from Danny Ainge, who had made the trip with the team.
“Let’s go to a movie this afternoon,” he said.
“A movie?”
“Yeah, just relax, then we can talk afterward.”
“Okay, Danny. Whatever you say.”
Danny is a compassionate guy and wanted to try to help me. There were two dirty tests now, he said. Maybe it was time to think about an exit strategy. I appreciated his sensitivity, but did nothing to change. In January the Celtics suspended me for ten games; there was another failed test, and in February my contract was terminated. I cleared waivers, but rather than try to catch on with another team, I decided to go back home and sit out the remainder of the season. My drinking had not yet escalated to its previous level, so I tried to convince myself that if I just took some time off and got back in shape and let some of the dust settle, I could start over again the following season.
My relapse this time had been highly public. I was now one of the more infamous drunks in the annals of basketball, if not all of professional sports. And yet, somehow, the NBA did not close its doors to me completely. Shortly after I got home I received a phone call from Larry Brown, who was at the time the head coach of the Detroit Pistons. Larry had also been the Olympic coach in 2000, the year I played for the US team. Larry is one of the game’s most revered and nomadic coaches. He never stays in one place for long, but anyone who has had the opportunity to play for him knows that he has a great basketball mind. More important, he has a big heart. He legitimately cares about his players, both on and off the court. Coach Brown called several times, encouraging me to stay strong and to not give up on life or basketball.
Then I got a call from Pat Riley, who had just stepped down as coach of the Miami Heat, but who remained the team’s general manager. Pat sent me a laminated poem of encouragement and inspiration, which totally blew me away. Like Coach Brown, he apparently looked past all the transgressions and squandered opportunities, and reached out to me at one of my lowest points. Then came calls from the Knicks, and from other teams, all offering me a chance to play again. Here I was, a relapsed alcoholic, on the verge of washing out of the league, and I had somehow become one of the most sought-after free agents on the market. (Not only that, but thanks to the NBA Players Association, I was able to salvage roughly half the value of what I was owed on my contract from the Celtics, which amounted to nearly $18 million.)
I was grateful, but I was also perplexed. It was like the whole world was willing to forgive me, and to enable me, simply because I was a basketball player, because I had a gift.
In April I was reinstated by the NBA, and what followed, inexplicably, was a bidding war for my services. I was still drinking Listerine every day, and I hadn’t even been to rehab following my dismissal from the Celtics. I had a serious problem, and everyone knew it, and yet there I was, in Miami with my agent, negotiating with Pat Riley about joining the Heat for the remainder of the season. I was almost ready to accept the offer when the Knicks came at me again—hard. I had a great talk with Isaiah Thomas, who at the time was the team’s president of basketball operations, and decided that I’d be better off playing in the Northeast, closer to home. And there was something incredibly appealing about playing in New York, at Madison Square Garden. That I was thoroughly unprepared for any of this was almost beside the point. I accepted the deal and sneaked out of the hotel without even telling the Heat or Pat Riley that I had chosen a different suitor.
A few hours later I was in Philadelphia, where the Knicks were playing the 76ers. This was March 12, 2004; I hadn’t played a game in nearly two months. I was out of shape and struggling badly with my addiction. In fact, the first thing I did when I got to shootaround that afternoon—I went straight from the airport to the arena—was to suck down two or three little bottles of Listerine, which I always kept in my travel bag. I remember standing at my locker, listening to the sound of leather thumping against wood as the Knicks practiced just a few yards away. I drank quickly and urgently. Then I sat down and slowly put on my new practice uniform. I was anxious and scared; there was no way I was going to try to play sober.
That night I took a seat on the bench and waited to see whether I’d get a chance to play. When Tim Thomas got in foul trouble in the first half, I knew what was coming. Lenny Wilkens, the Knicks’ coach, paced back and forth in front of the benc
h. Suddenly he stopped and looked at me.
“You play power forward, right?”
“Ummm. . . . yeah, Coach. I play power forward.”
“All right, get in there.”
I had two points and two rebounds in fourteen minutes of playing time. Didn’t do anything special, but didn’t embarrass myself, either. For a while I was part of the regular rotation, getting twenty minutes or more per game and playing pretty well, especially given that I was knocking back roughly one and a half large bottles of Listerine every day. By the time the playoffs rolled around, though, my time had diminished considerably. We got swept by the Nets in the first round, and I played only nine minutes in each of the first two games. In the final game, I played twenty-four minutes and had 12 points and six rebounds. A solid game. In fact, when I fouled out, as I was walking to the bench, I got a standing ovation from the Garden crowd. It caught me by surprise and provoked a flood of emotion, so much that by the time I got to the bench, tears were streaming down my cheeks.
Tim Thomas, with whom I had gotten close, stopped me as I tried to sit down.
“Man, don’t let them see you like this,” he said. “Be strong.”
He didn’t get it. He thought I was just upset about losing or fouling out. Instead, I was upset that I hadn’t played more in the series, and that I hadn’t stayed sober to prove what I could do. I’d been dumped by the Celtics and given a new lease on life, and still I was medicating with alcohol. And despite all of that, God saw fit to give me a standing ovation in Madison Square Garden.
It was so much more than I deserved.
14
Losing Everything