Elgin Baylor

Elgin Baylor
Position(s) Forward
Jersey #(s) 22
Listed height 6 ft 5 in (1.96 m)
Listed weight 225 lb (102 kg)
Born September 16, 1934 (1934-09-16) (age 76)
Washington, D.C.
Career information
Year(s) 1958–1971
NBA Draft 1958 round 1 pick # 1
College Seattle University
Professional team(s)
Career stats (NBA)
Points 23,149
Rebounds 11,463
Assists 3,650
Stats @ Basketball-Reference.com
Career highlights and awards
Basketball Hall of Fame as player
Coaching

Elgin Gay Baylor (born September 16, 1934 in Washington, D.C.) is a retired Hall of Fame American basketball player and former NBA general manager who played 13 seasons as a forward for the NBA's Minneapolis Lakers/Los Angeles Lakers.

Baylor was a gifted shooter, strong rebounder, and an accomplished passer. Renowned for his acrobatic maneuvers on the court, Baylor regularly dazzled Lakers fans with his trademark hanging jump shots. The No. 1 draft pick in 1958, NBA Rookie of the Year in 1959, and an 11-time NBA All-Star, he is regarded as one of the game's all-time greatest players.[1] In 1977, Baylor was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.[2]

Baylor spent twenty-two years as GM of the Los Angeles Clippers, being named the NBA Executive of the Year in 2006, before being relieved of his duties slightly before the 2008-09 season began.[3]

Contents

Early life in D.C.

Elgin "Rabbit" Baylor had two basketball playing brothers, Sal and Kermit. After stints at Southwest Boys Club and Brown Jr. High, Baylor was a 3 time All City player in High School. Elgin played his first 2 years at Phelps in the '51 and '52 basketball seasons where he set his first area scoring record of 44 points vs Cardozo. During his 2 All City years at Phelps he averaged 18.5 and 27.6 points per season. He did not perform well academically and dropped out of school ('52-'53) to work in a furniture store and to play basketball in the local recreational leagues. Baylor reappeared for the '54 season playing for the newly opened Spingarn High School and the 6'5, 190 lb senior was named 1st team All Met and won the SSA's Livingstone Trophy as the Area's Best Basketball player for 1954. He finished with a 36.1 average for his 8 Interhigh Division II league games. On Feb 3, 1954 in a game against his old Phelps team, he scored 31 in the first half. Playing with 4 fouls the entire second half, Baylor scored 32 more points to establish a new DC area record with 63 points. This broke the point record of 52 that Western's Jim Wexler had set the year before..... when he broke Rabbit's record of 44 .

College career

An inadequate scholastic record kept him out of college until a friend arranged a scholarship at the College of Idaho, where he was expected to play basketball and football. After one season, the school dismissed the head basketball coach and restricted the scholarships. A Seattle car dealer interested Baylor in Seattle University, and Baylor sat out a year to play for Westside Ford, an AAU team in Seattle, while establishing eligibility at Seattle.

Baylor led the Seattle Chieftains (now known as the Redhawks) to the NCAA championship game in 1958, falling to the Kentucky Wildcats, Seattle's last trip to the Final Four. Following his junior season, Baylor joined the Minneapolis Lakers in 1958.

In his three collegiate seasons, one at Idaho and two at Seattle, Baylor averaged 31.3 points per game. Baylor is a member of Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity.

NBA player

The Minneapolis Lakers used the No. 1 overall pick in the 1958 NBA Draft to select Baylor, then convinced him to skip his senior year at SU and instead join the pro ranks. The team, several years removed from its glory days of George Mikan, was in trouble on the court and at the gate. The year prior to Baylor's arrival the Lakers finished 19-53 with a squad that was slow, bulky and aging. Baylor, whom the Lakers signed to play for $20,000 per year (a great amount of money at the time), was the franchise's last shot at survival.

With his superb athletic talents and all-round game, Baylor was seen as the kind of player who could save a franchise, and he did. According to Minneapolis Lakers owner Bob Short in a 1971 interview with the Los Angeles Times: "If he had turned me down then, I would have been out of business. The club would have gone bankrupt."

Rookie of the Year

As a rookie in 1958-59, Baylor finished fourth in the league in scoring (24.9 points per game), third in rebounding (15.0 rebounds per game), and eighth in assists (4.1 assists per game). He registered 55 points in a single game, then the third-highest mark in league history behind Joe Fulks's 63 and Mikan's 61. Baylor won the NBA Rookie of the Year Award and led the Lakers from last place the previous year to the NBA finals, where they lost to the Boston Celtics in the first four game sweep in finals history. Thus began the greatest rivalry in the history of the NBA. During his career, Baylor helped lead the Lakers to the NBA Finals seven more times.

Middle Years

From the 1960-61 to the 1962-63 seasons, Baylor averaged 34.8, 38.3 and 34.0 points per game, respectively. His 38.3 point per game season average is the highest for any player other than Wilt Chamberlain. Baylor, a United States Army Reservist, was called to active duty during that season, and being stationed in Washington state, he could play for the Lakers only when on a weekend pass. However, despite playing only 48 games on the season, he still managed to score over 1,800 points.

Baylor began to be hampered with knee problems during the 1963-64 season. The problems culminated in a severe knee injury, suffered during the 1965 Western Division playoffs. Baylor, while still a very powerful force, was never quite the same, never again averaging above 30 points per game.

Retirement

Baylor finally retired nine games into the 1971-72 season because of his nagging knee problems. The timing of his retirement caused him to coincidentally miss two great achievements. First, the Lakers' next game after his retirement was the first of an NBA record of 33 consecutive wins.[4] Second, the Lakers went on to win the NBA Championship that season, something that Baylor never achieved.

Career Achievements

Baylor was the last of the great undersized forwards in a league where many guards are now his size or bigger. He finished his playing days with 23,149 points, 3,650 assists and 11,463 rebounds over 846 games. His signature running bank shot, which he was able to release quickly and effectively over taller players, led him to numerous NBA scoring records, several of which still stand.

The 71 points Baylor scored on November 15, 1960 was a record at the time. The 61 points he scored in game 5 of the NBA Finals in 1962 is still an NBA Finals record. An underrated rebounder, Baylor averaged 13.5 rebounds per game during his career, including a sterling 19.8 rebounds per game during the 1960-61 season — a season average exceeded by only five other players in NBA history—all of whom were 6'9" or taller.

A 10-time All-NBA First Team selection and 11-time NBA All-Star, Baylor was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1977. He was named to the NBA 35th Anniversary All-Time Team in 1980 and the NBA 50th Anniversary All-Time Team in 1996. in 2009, SLAM Magazine ranked him number 11 among its Top 50 NBA players of all time.

NBA Coach and Executive

In 1974, Baylor was hired to be an assistant coach and later the head coach for the New Orleans Jazz, but had a lackluster 86-135 record and retired following the 1978-79 season. In 1986, Baylor was hired by the Los Angeles Clippers as the team's vice president of basketball operations. He stayed in that capacity for 22 years before resigning in October 2008 at the age of 74. During his tenure, the Clippers managed only two winning seasons and amassed a won loss record of 607 and 1153. They also won only one playoff series during this time.

In February 2009, Baylor filed an employment discrimination lawsuit against the Clippers, team owner Donald Sterling, and the NBA. He alleges that he was underpaid during his tenure with the team and then fired because of his age and race.[5]

Baylor was selected as the NBA Executive of the Year in 2006. That year the Clippers won their first playoff series since 1976, when the franchise was located in Buffalo, New York and named the Buffalo Braves.

NBA highlights

Quotes

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ "Elgin Baylor: Complete Bio". nba.com. http://www.nba.com/history/players/baylor_bio.html. Retrieved 2008-02-03. 
  2. ↑ "Hall of Famers". Basketball Hall of Fame. http://www.hoophall.com/hall-of-famers/tag/elgin-baylor. Retrieved 2009-08-02. 
  3. ↑ http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5h4nfAIfXcLJkJQAs4zy5fLu8uIXw
  4. ↑ "Top 10 Teams In NBA History: 1971-72 Los Angeles Lakers". nba.com. http://www.nba.com/history/72lakers.html. Retrieved 2008-02-03. 
  5. ↑ Elgin Baylor Sues Los Angeles Clippers for Employment Discrimination ESPN.com, February 11, 2009
  6. ↑ The Official NBA Basketball Encyclopedia,. Villard Books. 1994. p. 382. ISBN 0-679-43293-8. 

External links