By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
At 33 years of age, American guard and one of the best EuroLeague shooters in the last couple of years, Billy Baron, decided to retire from professional basketball.
He spent his entire pro career in Europe, starting in 2014 with Rytas in Lithuania and finishing last season at Italian Olimpia Milano. Over the years, he won several titles, including the Italian League, ABA League and Serbian League with Crvena Zvezda, and VTB League championships with Zenit St. Petersburg.
Talking to Meridian Sport, Baron touched on his decision to call it a career.
“Mixed emotions. It’s tough to change how you are wired inside… Every morning when I woke up, I would go play basketball. I was my own trainer. It’s nice to relax, not think that you always have to do something. Especially during this past year, with all the problems I was dealing with, basketball started to feel more like a job, like something I had to do. It was mentally and physically tough… That part I’m not going to miss, but making the decision was extremely hard. I didn’t want it to seem like I was giving up, but I always told myself, if I can’t play at a certain level, I’m not going to play. I worked too hard to reach a certain level; I respect the guys who play until they are 40 years old and for bottom teams, but I didn’t want to do that. There are other things in life I want to do, and I’m already starting to pursue them. It’s relieving; it’s tough and emotional. I’m sad about the way it ended, but I’m 33 years old, with a successful career behind me. You can’t dwell on what you didn’t have, but on what you did have. It’s time to reflect on everything I’ve accomplished,” Baron said.
He intends to stay in basketball but not necessarily as a coach.
“I talked to my agent about the possibility of working with him, and a few NBA teams have reached out to see if I’d be interested in scouting or player development. I’m looking at all the options and want to stay involved in basketball, but I want to have a flexible schedule because I have three boys, and I want to coach them. I don’t want to be coaching at a college or professional level.”
Baron looked back on his last season with Olimpia Milano, when injury problems started occurring.
“The injury wasn’t that serious… I was playing fine; I was in a bit of pain, but I could still shoot, and maybe I was playing the best basketball of my career. We won the championship, and the next day I went for surgery. I went in for a cleaning process, and recovery was expected to take 4-6 weeks. I wanted to get it done to feel better in my arm because I had a two-year contract and had established myself… I went to the doctor they recommended, he performed the surgery, and it never felt the same after. I had discomfort in my arm, it was painful, and it stopped moving.”
The elbow problems persisted, and he had to go for another surgery.
“I went back to the same doctor in September, and the MRI showed that there were a bunch of things that had grown back in my arm. It was very confusing. We scheduled another surgery; they made even bigger cuts to take out these pieces, and took out 300 grams from my arm in October. It was painful, and the plan was to return around Christmas – but it was the same again. My arm wasn’t getting better. I played a few games, but I couldn’t shoot. They told me that I had to go through it, that it was part of the recovery process… After a few games, I got frustrated and needed to rest. I spent January in treatment, but it didn’t get better.”
Baron decided to seek a second opinion.
“I went to Munich with my family and met with Bayern’s doctor. He told me it was impossible to play with an arm like that. I had to have another surgery and change my rehab process, which was not correct. It was February, seven months had passed, and I was getting worse, and I thought it was my body the whole time; I thought it was me. I didn’t want to have surgery in Munich and recover there, so I decided to go back home. I found one of the best doctors in the world, who works with the New York Yankees. I probably should’ve reached out to a doctor who specializes more in the baseball world since the injury was of more of that nature. As soon as he looked at my arm, he started shaking his head and said, ‘This is a disaster. That’s a shame.’ He couldn’t guarantee that my arm would be better after the surgery, but I decided to go through with it in March, and this time I felt a lot better. After two or three weeks, I could move my arm, which I hadn’t been able to move normally since the previous season. I started shooting and felt like a kid; I kept feeling better.”
He returned to the court earlier than expected, but…
“We thought the season was over for me, but my physiotherapist in Florida told me I’d be able to return to the court in May. The rehabilitation we were doing was different. I wasn’t bending my arm, like before, when it was extremely painful. We took it slow, with light massages and gentle movements, and my arm kept getting better. I returned to Milan to try and play in the playoffs, I practiced four times, I felt good, was hitting shots, and Ettore (Messina) told everyone I was going to play. It felt unbelievable. During the warm-up for the first playoff game, I felt something in my calf. It turned out I had torn it. I couldn’t believe it. I decided to play. I had to show that my elbow was better. I made the first shot, and that was it.”
Then came the Shanghai Sharks and China, but – it wasn’t meant to be.
“After that, I talked to a few teams in Europe, but there was no offer. I went to China, got hit in the elbow a few times, and realized it was dumb, that it wasn’t going to last. I told my wife I wasn’t going to put myself through that anymore, and that was it,” Billy Baron concluded.