Maceo Baston

Maceo Baston
Player information
Full name	Maceo Demond Baston
birthday	May 29, 1976
place of birth	Corsicana (TX), USA
size	208 cm
position	Power forward
college	Michigan
NBA draft	1998 , 58th Pick Chicago Bulls
Clubs as active
1994–1998 Michigan Wolverines ( NCAA ) 1998–2000 Quad City Thunder ( CBA ) 2000–2001 SC Montecatini Terme 2001–2003 Joventut de Badalona 2003 Toronto Raptors 2003–2006 Maccabi Tel Aviv 2006–2007 Indiana Pacers 2007–2008 Toronto Raptors 2008– 2009 Indiana Pacers 2010 BK Budiwelnyk Kiev 2010 Blu: sens Monbus 2010–2011 Bnei hascharon 00000 00000 00000

Maceo Demond Baston (born May 29, 1976 in Corsicana , Texas ) is a retired American basketball player . After studying in his home country, Baston initially failed to make the leap into the NBA , the highest endowed professional league , but came to Europe via the Minor League CBA , where he won a European triple crown with the Israeli series champion Maccabi Tel Aviv in 2004 and 2005 . Then Baston was employed for three seasons in the NBA before he had to end his active career in 2011 after short comeback attempts in Europe.

Career

Baston went to study at the University of Michigan , where he played for the Wolverines college team from 1994 to 1998 in the NCAA's Big Ten Conference . While they were eliminated early in three participations in the national NCAA finals tournament , they won the National Invitation Tournament in 1997 and the Big Ten championship tournament a year later. However, these results were canceled because the management of the basketball team had violated the rules of the NCAA and the players had received financial donations from third parties. In the entry draft of the highest endowed professional league NBA in 1998, Baston's teammate Robert Traylor was selected in sixth position and exchanged for the young German hopeful Dirk Nowitzki in a history-making "trade" . Baston himself was only selected in the second round in 58th and last position by the Chicago Bulls.

With the then NBA champion Bulls, Baston could not earn a place in the season squad in 1998 and therefore began his professional career in the minor league CBA with the then CBA champion Thunder from the Quad Cities on the western border of Illinois . Although Baston was voted "Defensive Player of the Year" of the CBA 1999/2000, the Milwaukee Bucks also decided in the summer of 2000 to not commit to the season squad. So Baston finally moved to Europe for the 2000/01 season and played in the Italian Lega Basket Serie A for BingoSNAI from Montecatini Terme . After finishing fifth in the regular season of the previous year, the previous year's climber now reached twelfth place after the main round and did not receive a new license after the end of the season for economic reasons.

For the following season 2001/02 Baston was obliged by the Catalan club Joventut from Badalona , for whom he played in the Spanish ACB league. The team improved in the 2001/02 season to ninth place, but again missed the play-offs for the championship title. Baston was named “Jugador Más Espectacular” ( German  most spectacular player ) of the season by the Spanish magazine “Gigantes del Basket” and at the beginning of the following season, after two such awards in the preseason, for the third time “Player of the Week” because of his effectiveness appointed in the ACB league. In February 2003, however, he broke his contract and moved to the NBA, where the Toronto Raptors took him under contract until the end of the season. However, he came here in 16 missions only on an average playing time of less than ten minutes per game.

After Baston's contract in Toronto had expired at the end of the season, he returned to FIBA Europe for the 2003/04 season and signed a contract with the Israeli series champion Maccabi from Tel Aviv . In the following three seasons, the team was able to successfully defend their titles in the national championship and in the national cup competition. In the Final Four tournament in front of their own audience, they also won the title in the highest-ranking European club competition ULEB Euroleague 2003/04 , when in the final Skipper Bologna was dismantled with the highest point difference in a ULEB Euroleague final game 118-74 and won a triple crown . This success could be repeated in the following season, when they defeated the Spanish club TAU Cerámica in the final in Moscow . In the ULEB Euroleague 2005/06 Baston was named Player of the Month in March 2006 of the Euroleague and while trying to get the triple a third time, Maccabi lost in the 2006 final in Prague against PBK CSKA Moscow . In October 2005, Maccabi had another historic success when they became the first European team to defeat an NBA team with Baston's former team Toronto Raptors in their own hall in a preseason game.

After missing the third triple in a row, Baston returned to the NBA in 2006 and signed a contract with the Indiana Pacers. With the Pacers he was in the NBA 2006/07 in 47 games for use when the Pacers missed the play-offs. He achieved this with the Toronto Raptors, who had signed him again for the NBA 2007/08 , and played there his first and only play-off game, having previously only played in 15 regular season games. However, the Raptors were eliminated after just one win in the first play-off round. After the end of the season he came back to the Indiana Pacers, along with Roy Hibbert , among others , for whom he had another 27 NBA appearances in the 2008/09 NBA . However, the Pacers missed the play-offs again. As with his first, short stay in the 2002/03 season, Baston remained only a supplementary player in all three seasons and came in his few missions on an average time of less than ten minutes per game. Before the start of the 2009/10 season, Baston finally got no new contract with the Pacers.

After Baston was associated with KK Partizan Belgrade in the 2009/10 season , he signed a contract with BK Budiwelnyk from Kiev in the Basketball Superliga Ukraine in March 2010 . Here, however, there was only one use for this club. At the beginning of the 2010/11 season Baston had two appearances for Blu: sens Monbus from Santiago de Compostela in the second Spanish league LEB Adecco Oro . But here, too, he terminated the contract prematurely, then Baston returned again to the Israeli Ligat ha'Al and had another seven missions for Bnei HaScharon from Herzlia , before he ended this engagement in January 2011 and with it his active career. Baston returned to his homeland and opened a cupcake shop with his wife and friends near his place of study in Royal Oak, Michigan on the outskirts of Detroit .

Web links

Commons : Maceo Baston  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Maceo Baston - player profile on basketball-reference.com
• BASTON, MACEO - Statistics on the websites of the ULEB (English)
• ACB.COM: Maceo Baston - player profile on the websites of the League ACB ( Spanish )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Legabasket: Maceo Baston. Lega Basket Serie A , accessed June 24, 2014 (Italian, player profile). 
2. ↑ The Euroleague History Archive - Tel Aviv 2004: Maccabi breaks all records! ULEB , accessed May 24, 2014 . 
3. ^ The Euroleague History Archive - Moscow 2005: Maccabi wins back-to-back crowns. ULEB , accessed June 24, 2014 . 
4. ^ Frank Lawlor: Euroleague.net interview: Maceo Baston, Maccabi. ULEB , April 3, 2006, accessed June 24, 2014 (English, interview). 
5. ^ The Euroleague History Archive - Prague 2006: CSKA wins again after 35 years. ULEB , archived from the original on January 8, 2015 ; accessed on June 24, 2014 . 
6. ↑ Associated Press : Raptors first in NBA to lose to Maccabi in 27 years. ESPN , October 16, 2005, accessed June 24, 2014 . 
7. ↑ FEB.es: BASTON, MACEO DEMOND. Federación Española de Baloncesto , accessed June 24, 2014 (Spanish, player profile). 
8. ↑ EFE : El pívot Maceo Baston se desvincula del Obradoiro. Liga ACB , October 14, 2010, accessed June 24, 2014 (Spanish). 
9. ^ Scott Agness: Baston Finds a Sweet Life After Basketball. NBA , November 8, 2012, accessed June 24, 2014 (Indiana Pacers).