Vin Baker

Vin Baker - Previous looks at Vin Baker mentioned how he was a student assistant at Texas Southern university, back in basketball after losing his home and his restaurant business to foreclosure. He has since left Texas Southern and returned to his high school, Old Saybrook in Connecticut, where he is the boy's basketball coach. This month's SLAM Magazine features a really long feature about Vin, reproduced here.

The reason Vin Baker is not playing is that he is now an assistant coach at Texas Southern University. So is Nick Van Exel.

- 8th pick: Vin Baker (Milwaukee)

- Vin Baker was still playing up to and including last season. The NBA fell by the wayside back in 2006 when he was released by the Timberwolves after the first six games of the season, but he's signed elsewhere twice since then, both last season. Baker signed with Liaoning in China last November, and then signed with Marinos in Venezuela this June.

Both times, he was released without playing a game due to being out of shape.

Baker's non-basketball life hasn't been going too well, either. In June 2007, the recovering alcoholic was arrested for drink driving after leaving a casino. (He later pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of reckless driving.) In February 2008, his seafood restaurant was foreclosed after racking up roughly $900,000 in unpaid loans. And in June 2008, his home was also foreclosed.

He hasn't been in the headlines for a while, and as they say, no news is good news. So it would be great if he's rectified his problems and straightened out his affairs. But given that the last time we heard from him was when he was deemed to be an unfit replacement for Horacio Llamas......well. That's worrisome.