While the likes of Michael Jordan, Connie Hawkins, Julius “Dr. J.” Erving, Dominique Wilkins, and LeBron James are players we think of when it comes to scoring in the most magnificent of ways through the air, it was a former Laker whose ability to do what we see as routine firsthand that gave these players the vision to see what is possible. This said player was not just someone who could ski, he was a star that put together a Hall of Fame career as a player first in the land of 10,000 lakes and then in Hollywood for the “Purple and Gold,” who he lead to the brink of the NBA mountain top, only to be denied by the boys from “Beantown.” On Monday, the basketball world said goodbye to one of the greats of the hardwood, who also made a strong name for himself in the front office for L.A.’s so-called NBA little brother.
On Monday, the Los Angeles Lakers
announced that Hall of Famer Elgin Baylor who played for the Los Angeles Lakers
for 14 seasons, with the first two years as a member of the Minneapolis Lakers
before they moved to L.A. in 1960 died on Monday from natural causes. He was 86
years old, and is survived by his wife Elaine, his son, Alan, and daughter,
Alison.
“He was one of the few Lakers players
whose career spanned from Minneapolis to Los Angeles. But more importantly he
was a man of integrity, even serving his country as a U.S. Army reservist,
often playing for the Lakers only during his weekend pass,” Lakers Governor
Jeanie Buss said in a statement at the start of this week.
“He is one of the all-time Lakers greats
with his No. 22 jersey in the rafters and his statue standing in front of
STAPLES Center. He will always be part of the Lakers legacy. On behalf of the
entire Lakers family, I’d like to send my thoughts, prayers and condolences to
Elaine and the Baylor family.”
In his 14-year career, Mr. Baylor’s resume
consists of ranking No. 1 on the Lakers all-time list in rebounds (11,463), No.
4 in scoring (23,149) and minutes played. Baylor won the 1959 Rookie of the
Year. He is one of 10 players in NBA history to make 10-plus All-NBA teams,
making the All-NBA First Team 10 times.
The No. 1 overall pick out of Seattle
University in the 1958 NBA Draft earned 11 All-Star selections, winning MVP of
the unofficial mid-season classic in 1959 at the former Olympia Stadium in
Detroit, MI as a rookie. He was named to the 35th Anniversary Team in
1980 as well as being named to the NBA 50 Anniversary All-Time Team in 1996.
Mr. Baylor’s 27.4 career scoring average is the third highest in NBA history, only trailing Wilt Chamberlin (30.07), and Jordan (30.12) all-time. He is one of four players in NBA history to average 25 points and 10 rebounds per game in his career. Baylor also averaged 34 points or more per game in three straight seasons.
In a regular-season game at the New York
Knicks on Nov. 15, 1960, Mr. Baylor scored 71 points, which was a Lakers record
at the time, that would be bested by the late Hall of Famer to be in Kobe
Bryant when he registered 81 points in Jan. 2006 versus the Toronto Raptors.
That 71-point performance by Baylor is the eighth highest single-game total in
NBA history.
Hall of Famer Richie Guerin, who played 14
NBA seasons for the Knicks and St. Louis/Atlanta Hawks (1956-1970) called
Baylor’s record setting performance then the “most dominating athletic
performance” that he had ever seen.
“This is a great talent doing sensational
type of events,” Guerin said.
“Nobody changed basketball more than Elgin
Baylor,” longtime journalist Frank Deford said back in 1996. “Baylor would just
blow your socks off. You’ve never seen anything like that before. He was a
forerunner of everything that came after. Elgin Baylor was Michael Jordan
before Michael Jordan.”
When asked by ESPN’s “NBA: The Jump” host
Rachel Nichols back in 2018 sitting alongside ESPN.com’s senior NBA writer
Brian Windhorst and three-time NBA champion with the Lakers back in the 1980s
Byron Scott about being one of the first in NBA history to score above the rim,
Baylor said it was something he was not “conscious of” at the time.
“The defense is going to dictate to what
you’re doing. How they’re guarding you,” Baylor added. “Sometimes you’ll do
something you’ve never done before. So, you really don’t know.”
In Game 5 of the 1962 NBA Finals at the
Celtics, Baylor scored a Finals-record of 61 points in the 126-121 win at the
C’s, which is an NBA-record which still stands today.
That would stand as the only good moment
for Baylor in The Finals as those Lakers teams lost their eight straight tilts
in The Finals against the Celtics.
“I used to marvel at the competitiveness
of him in big games,” West said of Baylor’s ability to perform on the NBA’s
biggest stage.
The late great Celtics, player, coach, and
broadcaster Tom Heinsohn, Hall of Fame class of 1986 and 2015 said back in 2011
that Mr. Baylor was “the best forward” that he ever saw play.
Mr. Erving said that he tried to emulate
Baylor’s style of play because he saw him play a great deal from his body
control and how he scored around the basket.
Fellow Hall of Fame guard of the Boston
Celtics Bob Cousy, Hall of Fame Class of 1971 said that Mr. Baylor was the
first player in the league to hang in the air for about 15 seconds have “some
lunch and a cup of coffee.”
“He became the first guy that couldn’t be stopped, regardless of defensive pressure and what measures you took in terms of double-teaming or whatever. He was going to get his points,” Cousy added.
Former Laker and longtime Utah Jazz
play-by-play commentator in the late Hot Rod Hundley said in 2010 that Mr.
Baylor is without a doubt one of the Top 15 players to ever had played this
game.
Baylor retired nine games into the 1971-72
season, missing out on the begging of the Lakers NBA-record 33-game winning
streak and then winning an NBA championship. The Lakers did award Baylor a 1972
championship ring, even though he retired earlier that season.
In mourning his former teammate, fellow
Hall of Famer and Lakers legend Jerry West called Baylor one of basketball’s
most gifted players that “has never gotten his just due,” adding that Baylor
“cared” for him like “a father would a son.
“There are no words to describe how I feel
at this time.”
Mr. Baylor’s second act in the NBA started
in 1974 when he was hired as an assistant coach and then later head coach for
the then New Orleans (now Utah) Jazz, where he compiled a disappointing 86-135
record and retired following the 1978-79 season.
In 1986, Baylor was hired by the Los
Angeles Clippers as their Vice President of Basketball Operations, where he
would work in that title for 22 rough seasons, though he won NBA Executive of
the Year in the 2005-06 season as the Clippers made the playoffs for the first
time since the 1996-97 season, winning their first playoff series since 1976,
when the franchise was in Buffalo, NY as the Buffalo Braves. It was the only
playoff series victory for the Clippers under Baylor’s tenure as GM, where they
amassed a 607-1,153 mark. It was one of four playoff appearances the so-called
little brother of the Lakers had in Mr. Baylor’s tenure as Clippers general
manager, where they managed to put together only two winning seasons (1992-93
and 2005-06).
"The Clippers mourn the loss of Elgin Baylor, a transcendent player, a beloved teammate, and a pioneering executive," the Clippers said in a statement before their 119-110 win versus the Atlanta Hawks on Mar. 22. "Baylor was a Los Angeles basketball institution, a first as a superstar for the Lakers, then as a general manager of the Clippers, leading the team's front office for 22 years. We extend our deepest condolences to the Baylor family."
Before taking the NBA by storm for 14
seasons, Mr. Baylor’s basketball journey began in then segregated Washington,
D.C. where be started playing basketball at age 14 where he had limited access
to basketball courts, despite growing up near a District of Columbia recreation
center.
After playing for the Southwest Boys and
Girls Club and Brown Junior High, Baylor became a three-time All-City player,
playing his first two years at Phelps Vocational High School in 1951 and 1952,
where he only played against other black high school teams because of
segregation.
Mr. Baylor set his first of many area records scoring 44 points versus Cardozo High School. He averaged 18.5 and 27.6 points his first two years at Phelps High.
After dropping out of high school in what
would have been his junior year because of poor grades and working in a
furniture store, and playing basketball in the local recreational leagues, Mr.
Baylor reappeared for the 1954 season as a senior for the all-black Spingarn
High, being named to the first-team Washington All-Metropolitan, the first
African American player to earn that honor. He also won the SSA’s Livingstone
Trophy as D.C.’s best basketball player for that year, finishing with a 36.1
scoring average in his eight Interhigh Division II league contests.
Baylor’s basketball journey in college
began at College of Idaho, after arranged for him to get a scholarship. After
averaging 31.3 points in one season, the school dismissed the men’s basketball
head coach and restricted the school’s scholarships.
A Seattle car dealer interested Mr. Baylor
in Seattle University, which he attended after sitting out a year to player for
Westside Ford, an AAU team in Seattle, WA while establishing eligibility
requirements to attend SU.
Baylor averaged 29.7 points and 20.3
rebounds per game (led NCAA) for SU in 1956-57 season. He averaged 32.5 points
in leading the then Chieftains (now the Redhawks) to their only NCAA
Championship game appearance, their only trip to the Final Four, where they
lost to the University of Kentucky Wildcats.
Over his three-year collegiate career, one
at College of Idaho and two at Seattle, Baylor averaged 31.3 points and 19.5
rebounds.
On Nov. 19, 2009, the court which the
Redhawks now play on at Seattle’s KeyArena was renamed Elgin Baylor Court in
Baylor’s honor. The Redhawks also host the annual Elgin Baylor Classic.
In June 2017, the College of Idaho
inducted Mr. Baylor as one of their inaugural inductees into their Hall of
Fame.
On April 6, 2018, a statue of Baylor was
unveiled at the Staples Center prior to the Lakers tilt versus the Minnesota
Timberwolves. The ceremony featured Baylor’s teammate and longtime friend in
the aforementioned Jerry West, and fellow Hall of Famers and NBA champions with
the Lakers in Earvin “Magic” Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
“RIP to the NBA’s first highflyer, Lakers Legend, & Hall of Famer Elgin Baylor,” Fellow Hall of Famer and five-time NBA champion with the Lakers in the 1908s Earvin “Magic” Johnson tweeted @MagicJohnson on Monday. “Before there was Michael Jordan doing amazing things in the air, there was Elgin Baylor! A true class act and great man, I’ll always appreciate the advice he shared with me when I first came into the league. Cookie and I are praying for his wife Elaine, kids, and the entire Baylor family.”
Besides being known as one of the best
scorers and the original highflyer in NBA history, he built a reputation for
being a consummate gentleman.
Former Boston Celtic now NBA analyst
Kendrick Perkins said on the Tuesday edition of ESPN’s “NBA: The Jump” that in
his second NBA season the C’s were in Los Angeles that then head coach Glenn
“Doc” Rivers, now the head coach of the Philadelphia 76ers was trying to
introduce Mr. Baylor to Perkins and he did not know who Baylor was, even though
Perkins said that he knew who Mr. Baylor was.
Coach Rivers after the team got on the
team bus reminded Perkins about the importance of knowing those that paved the
way for him to be in the NBA.
“We’re always in those tunnels as young
guys, and we’re always running across greats that were before our time, and
anytime that you could pay homage and respect that carries a long way. And I
will always cherish that moment,” Perkins said about meeting Mr. Baylor.
Vince Carter, the 2000 NBA All-Star Slam
Dunk champion added on that episode of “NBA: The Jump” that he too also got to
meet Mr. Baylor once during his playing career first with the Toronto Raptors
when they played at the Clippers, and while he was like Perkins not up to date
on knowing the history of the NBA, that when a historic figure like Mr. Baylor
is front of him, that he has a great appreciation for it.
One of Carter’s heroes is Mr. Erving, who
he has gotten the chance to meet with and talk about the art of dunking. The
one person that Erving said to Carter as the original highflyer was Mr. Baylor.
“He is one of the original highflyers, and
we don’t see a lot of film and tape on it. But let it be known, he was one of
the original highflyers and he deserved a lot of credit for what has transpired
for Dr. J, MJ [Michael Jordan], myself, I mean, the laundry list of players
that we consider highflyers in today’s game,” Carter said.
On Monday, the NBA and the basketball
world said goodbye to a legend on the court and a gentleman off of it in Elgin
Baylor. An original who was fundamentally sound and had the athleticism to do
things that many NBA players do with ease like jumping through air to score on
athletic layups and dunks.
Elgin Baylor was the first to perform
those athletic feats on the NBA hardwood, and the likes of Julius “Dr. J.”
Erving, Michael Jordan, Dominique Wilkins, LeBron James, Vince Carter, and many
others just continued to take it to another level.
But it was Mr. Baylor who got the ball
rolling and played at a consistent level and continued to be involved in
basketball on the business side and etched his name beginning as a coach and
then as an executive for many years in the front office of the Los Angeles
Clippers, even when many of those years were tough ones.
We said goodbye to one of the best to ever
play the game who left a serious footprint in the NBA landscape that has lasted
a great period of time and will continue to leave a mark for future generations
of NBA players and executives.
No comments:
Post a Comment