Sports This Week: Baker goes from court to bench with Stingers

YORKTON -  It has been an off season of change in the Canadian Elite Basketball League with team attrition, expansion and moves.

In Edmonton, the Stingers have seen a major change in terms of who will guide the team’s fortunes in 2023 with Steve Sir taking over as general manager and Jordan Baker as head coach.

In Baker though it really is a rather smooth change since he has been a stalwart on the court for the Stingers for four seasons. He is a two-time CEBL champion, a four-time All-CEBL player, and has been honoured with the CEBL Canadian Player of the Year award in 2020.

Baker told this reporter that the decision proved rather easy to make in terms of hanging up his playing jersey for a coach’s clipboard.

“Coaching is what I want to do for a long term career,” he said, adding that while he might have had a couple more years of playing ahead, he had had conversations about coaching with the Stingers. “. . . I wanted to be involved with the Stingers in some way, shape or form when I retired.”

Then coach Jermaine Small announced he would not return for 2023, and the door opened now for Baker.

“It was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up,” he said, adding the chance to coach professionally in Canada is limited with only 10 CEBL positions, and the Stingers are in his home-town so it was a perfect fit. “. . . I decided to jump at the opportunity . . . It’s a great opportunity to stay close to the game.

The position really builds on a tradition of basketball involvement for Baker and his family in Edmonton.

Baker is the son of Doug and Trix Baker. Doug is a former Alberta Golden Bear while Trix is a former Alberta Panda who coached the Pandas from 1991 to 2005, winning a national championship in 1999. Jordan Baker was also an Alberta Golden Bear.

And, it’s not that Baker comes at the Stinger job as a raw rookie in terms of coaching. Baker was previously the Lead Assistant Coach for the University of Alberta Golden Bears and is the current Head Coach of the NAIT Ooks.

Baker said a few Ooks plays might make the move to the Stingers, but not as many as might be expected because the pro game, and how you have operated an offence and defence is simply different.

How he will have to approach preparation will be decidedly different too.

For example, Baker said with the Ooks he had a two-month run to prepare for the season. With the Stingers it will be two weeks.

With NAIT it’s a week between games to get ready for an opponent. With Edmonton it might be two, or three days between games.

But, with the Stingers there will be new challenges, starting with recruiting a roster in a CEBL where the western landscape has changed with a team transferred to Calgary, and an expansion team in Winnipeg.

Baker said it will certainly make it more difficult to attract players from Western Canada as they now have options. In particular players out of Calgary might have normally looked at the Stingers as a CEBL landing spot, but now there is the Surge.

“We’re not going to get guys from Calgary who can now live at home and play in front of family and friends,” offered Baker.

But, Baker said GM Sir is not going to worry too much about the home address of players, and more about what they can bring to the team in terms of skill.

“We want to put a group of guys on the floor to win basketball games,” he said.

Baker is also likely to face a different dynamic, at least with some players, going from teammate to coach.

However, he was also a leader on the court as a player, able as captain to talk to players about mistakes and errors they may have made in a game.

“So, the dynamic doesn’t change too much,” said Baker.

And, of course it will be about recruiting players willing to listen with a singular goal of getting better every day.

It should help that Baker knows the CEBL from the floor view.

“I know what guys go through playing in this league,” he said.

In the short term Baker has the Ooks to lead, as he noted hopefully to national final, but by mid-March he expects a lot of players signed with the Stingers and he’ll be ready for May training camp.