Ronnie Baker

Ronald Baker
Player information
Nickname	Ronnie
birthday	July 28, 1969
place of birth	Montserrat, United Kingdom
size	175 cm
position	Point guard
Club information
society	Essex Leopards
league	EBL Division One
Jersey number	4th
Clubs as active
1985–1990 Brixton TopCats 1990–1992 Worthing Bears 1992 Brixton TopCats 1992–1993 London Towers 1993–1994 Guildford Kings 1994–1996 Leopards 1996 Crystal Palace 1996–1997 London Leopards 1997–2000 Manchester Giants 2000–2004 London Towers 2004–2006 Brighton Bears 2006–2008 Milton Keynes Lions 2008–2010 London Leopards 2010–2011 Essex Pirates 2011–2013 Eastside Eagles Since 2013 Essex Leopards 00000 00000 0
National team 1
1988-2006	England	125
1 Status: 2006

Ronald "Ronnie" Baker (born July 28, 1969 in Montserrat , Lesser Antilles ) is an English basketball player . With 539 appearances in the British Basketball League (BBL), he is almost on a par with BBL record player Peter Scantlebury and has completed over 100 appearances for the English national team. In 2006 he won the bronze medal at the 2006 Commonwealth Games as captain of the national team .

Career

Baker began his basketball career with the TopCats from Brixton , for which he played until 1990. After he had already been under contract for a short time at the beginning of the closed professional league BBL at Crystal Palace in 1987 without having played a game, he got a contract with the BBL club Bears from Worthing in 1990 . After two years he went back to Brixton before he got a contract with the Towers from London in the 1992/93 season. After the end of the season he moved to the cup winners Kings from Guildford , which had been the BBL's most successful franchise at the beginning of the BBL . Just a year later he returned to London and joined the new Leopards franchise, who had acquired the Kings license and who had succeeded them in the BBL. At the beginning of the 1996/97 season he did not give a brief stint of two games at local rivals Crystal Palace before returning to the Leopards. The Leopards won the "National Cup" cup competition in 1997, but lost the final game of the play-offs against local rivals London Towers as the first in the main round of the BBL .

From 1997 Baker played three years for the Giants from Manchester , who won the 1999 BBL League Cup Trophy, in which Baker was named " Most Valuable Player " (MVP) of the competition. With, among other things, the MVP of the BBL season 1999/2000 Tony Dorsey , the Giants then won the BBL play-offs in 2000 a year later. Baker then moved back to London with coach Nick Nurse , where he also played with the Towers newly established ULEB Euroleague played. After being able to win one more in ten preliminary round games in the ULEB Euroleague 2000/01 and, thanks to the better direct comparison, relegating the German competitor Opel Skyliners to the last place in the preliminary round group, they stayed in 14 preliminary round games of the ULEB Euroleague 2001/02 winless. Even in the BBL competitions, the Towers remained without a title win and in 2004, at the age of 35, Baker moved again to the English south coast to the Bears, who had moved their location from Worthing to Brighton . His former coach Nick Nurse switched to the Bears in 2001. Together they won the BBL Cup again in 2005, but after the 2005/06 season with a negative season record of more defeats than victories, the Bears was canceled from the BBL's game operations.

After Baker had been more or less unsuccessful for years with the English national team and the British Olympic selection and had never been able to qualify for the final rounds of title fights, his long-time national team colleague Peter Scantlebury appointed as national coach to be the team captain of the English national team when a basketball competition was held for the first time the Commonwealth Games at the 2006 Games in Melbourne . England had to admit defeat to New Zealand in the preliminary round and hosts Australia in the semi-finals , but after a clear victory over Nigeria they won the bronze medal. Then Baker looked for a new club and played for the Lions from Milton Keynes , who could win the 2008 BBL Cup. After winning the cup, Baker returned in 2008 to the Leopards, who had already withdrawn from the BBL in 2003 and played in Division One of the "English Basketball League" (EBL) below the BBL. After a third place in 2009, they missed the play-offs in 2010 in ninth place. For the 2010/11 season Baker returned to the BBL and supported the former junior selection coach Tim Lewis in the BBL franchise Essex Pirates from Southend-on-Sea founded a year earlier as an experienced player. However, the Pirates were chronically unsuccessful and only scored one season win in 33 season games. Baker completed 15 season appearances and missed the record stakes of Peter Scantlebury by a game that had come to a total of 540 BBL inserts, while at Baker 539 inserts are to book. After the end of the season, the Pirates were already signed off from the BBL's game operations and Baker was subsequently active for the Eastside Eagles from London in Division Two of the EBL.

Web links

• archive.fiba.com: Players - Ronald BAKER (ENG) - Overview of participation in competitions of the FIBA ( English )
• BAKER, RONNIE - Statistics on the websites of the ULEB (English)
• Fact File: Ronnie Baker - Profile on the Britball.com archive pages (Author: Mark Woods, English, 2003)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Size is not everything says Ronnie. British Broadcasting Corporation , 2003, accessed July 3, 2013 . 
2. ↑ ^{a b} M2006> Athletes> Display: BAKER Ronnie. (No longer available online.) Commonwealth Games 2006 : Melbourne2006.com, archived from the original on April 23, 2012 ; accessed on July 3, 2013 (English, participant profile). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.   
3. ↑ ^{a b} M2006> Schedule and Results> Basketball: Men Bronze M. Match 39. (No longer available online.) Commonwealth Games 2006 : Melbourne2006.com, archived from the original on September 5, 2013 ; accessed on July 3, 2013 (English, game statistics). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.   
4. ↑ Richard Taylor: Basketball: Baker defection deflates Byrd. The Independent , October 26, 1996, accessed July 3, 2013 . 
5. ↑ 1998-99 BBL Trophy. British Basketball League , accessed July 5, 2013 (competition overview). 
6. ^ Games Played. British Basketball League , accessed July 3, 2013 . 
7. ^ Roster - Eastside Eagles. (No longer available online.) Eastside-eagles.com, archived from the original on December 15, 2015 ; accessed on July 3, 2013 (English, roster). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.