Maceo Baston

Maceo Demond Baston is a former professional basketball player from the United States of America. Baston has been known to rotate his playing position between forward and center, ever since he began playing at the H. Grady Spruce High School. Baston went on to play for the University of Michigan and was part of a team that had Maurice Taylor, Travis Conlon, Jerod Ward and Willie Mitchell.

With excellent dunking and defensive ability, Baston was averaging at 10.7 points and 6.6 rebounds per game at the collegiate level. He was part of the team that went to the NCAA tournament in 1995 and 1997 although his 1996 season was nullified after a few teammates were found guilty of accepting money from boosters, leading to forfeiture of the entire season by the college.

After the end of his college career in 1997, Baston appeared for the 1998 NBA Draft and the Chicago Bulls picked him at 58th overall, in the second round. Baston would not play a single game for the Bulls in his first year and subsequently, began playing for the Quad City Thunder between 1998 and 2000, the CBA league.

Named to the 2000 CBA All Star team, Baston then decided to move to Europe to ply his trade and signed up with SC Montecatini in the Italian League for a year before moving to Spain with Joventut Badalona for a couple of seasons. In 2003, Baston returned to the NBA to play with the Toronto Raptors however his stay lasted just two months after which he was back in Europe to play for Maccabi Tel Aviv from 2003 to 2006.

After setting a Euroleague Final Four record of 6 against Tau Ceramica in the 2006 edition, Baston returned to the United States to play with the Indiana Pacers after they signed him up on a 2-year, $1.8 million deal. With 47 appearances for the Pacers in his first year, Baston was averaging at a meager 3 points per game. However, in July, 2007, he decided to sign with the Raptors for a deal worth $3.8 million over 2 years.

Although the Pacers refused to match that offer, Baston came back to them in 2008 in a trade including Jermaine O’Neal and T. J. Ford.