Elgin Baylor

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Template:Infobox NBAretired Elgin Gay Baylor (born September 16, 1934 in Washington, D.C.) is a retired American basketball player who played 13 seasons as a forward for the NBA's Minneapolis Lakers/Los Angeles Lakers. Baylor was a gifted shooter, a 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. He is regarded as one of the game's all-time greatest players.[1]

Early life

Elgin Baylor was born in 1934 in Washington, D.C., and was named for his father's favorite watch. A sports star at Spingarn High School, he did not perform well academically and even dropped out for a while to work in a furniture store and to play basketball in the local recreational leagues. [1]

College career

See also: List of college men's basketball players with 2000 points and 1000 rebounds

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 an amateur team while establishing eligibility at Seattle.

Baylor led the SU Chieftains (now known as the Redhawks) to the NCAA championship game in 1958 (where they lost to the Kentucky Wildcats). Following his junior season, Baylor joined the Minneapolis Lakers for the 1958-59 season and moved with them to Los Angeles in 1960.

In his three collegiate seasons, one at Idaho and two at Seattle, Baylor averaged 31.3 points per game.

NBA career

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 Lakers, several years removed from the glory days of George Mikan, were in trouble on the court and at the gate. The year prior to Baylor's arrival the Lakers finished 19-53 with a team 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.

"If he had turned me down then, I would have been out of business," Minneapolis Lakers owner Bob Short told the Los Angeles Times in 1971. "The club would have gone bankrupt." Baylor was seen as the kind of player who could save a franchise. And he did.

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 on April 9, 1959, in the first four game sweep in finals history. Thus began the greatest rivalry in the history of the NBA finals between the Celtics and the Lakers. During his career, he helped lead the Lakers to the NBA Finals eight times (although never winning).

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.

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 remarkable 19.8 rebounds per game during the 1960-61 season — a season average exceeded by only five other players in NBA history. Baylor was a 10-time All-NBA First Team selection and went to the NBA All-Star Game 11 times.

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. During Baylor's career, the Lakers were a consistently powerful team, but were continuously overshadowed by the Boston Celtics.

Baylor finally retired nine games into the 1971-72 season because of his nagging knee problems. His retirement resulted in two great ironies. First, the Lakers' next game after his retirement was the first of an NBA record of 33 consecutive wins.[2] Second, the Lakers went on to win the NBA Championship that season, something that Baylor never achieved. He finished his career with 23,149 points, 3,650 assists and 11,463 rebounds over 846 games.

Baylor was the last of the great undersized forwards, in a league where many guards are now his size or bigger. Baylor's signature shot was a running bank shot, which he was able to release quickly and effectively over taller players.

In 1977, Baylor was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame and in 1980 he was named to the NBA 35th Anniversary All-Time Team and again in 1996, he was named to the NBA 50th Anniversary All-Time Team.

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 deciding to resign in October 2008 at the age of 74. In 2006, Baylor was selected as the NBA Executive of the Year.

Trivia

Baylor ranked #11' on SLAM Magazines Top 75 NBA Players of all time in 2003.

Since Seattle University lost the NCAA Championship Game with him and has never returned to the Final Four (since they dropped from Division I), the Lakers moved out of Minneapolis after drafting him and never won an NBA Championship in Los Angeles until the season he retired, the Jazz moved out of New Orleans after he coached them, and the Clippers have become synonymous with NBA futility while he has been their general manager, it has been suggested that a curse exists.[citation needed] However, in 2006 he won the NBA Executive of the Year leading the Clippers to the playoffs, and on May 1, 2006, the Clippers won their first playoff series since 1976, when the franchise (Buffalo Braves) was located in Buffalo, New York.

Singer Ginuwine's first and middle names are Elgin and Baylor, respectively.

Baylor is a member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc.

NBA highlights

  • NBA Rookie of the Year (1959)
  • All-NBA First Team 10 times (1959-65, 67-69)
  • Eleven-time NBA All-Star (1959-65, 1967-70)
  • NBA All-Star Game Co-MVP (1959)
  • Holds NBA Finals single-game record for most points (61) on April 24, 1962 against the Boston Celtics
  • Scored 71 points (8th highest in history) against the New York Knicks (Nov. 15, 1960)
  • Scored 23,149 points in only 846 games (27.4 points per game, fourth best all-time) and averaged 30 points or more three times (1961-63)
  • Retired as NBA's third all-time leading scorer
  • Retired as fifth leading scorer in All-Star Game history (19.8 points per game)
  • Ranked sixth in NBA Finals all-time scoring (26.4 in 44 games)
  • Ranked seventh in NBA playoffs all-time scoring (27.0 in 134 games)
  • NBA 35th Anniversary Team (1980)
  • NBA 50th Anniversary Teams (1996)
  • NBA Executive of the Year (2006)
  • 87 Career 40-point games in the regular season[3] (4th All-time behind Wilt Chamberlain, Michael Jordan, and Kobe Bryant)

Quotes

  • "He was one of the most spectacular shooters the game has ever known", Baylor's longtime teammate Jerry West told HOOP magazine in 1992. "I hear people talking about forwards today and I haven't seen many that can compare with him."
  • Bill Sharman played against Baylor and coached him in his final years with the Lakers. "I say without reservation that Elgin Baylor is the greatest cornerman who ever played pro basketball", he told the Los Angeles Times at Baylor's retirement in 1971.
  • Tommy Hawkins, Baylor's teammate for six seasons and opponent for four (and later a basketball broadcaster) declared to the San Francisco Examiner that "pound for pound, no one was ever as great as Elgin Baylor." "Elgin certainly didn't jump as high as Michael Jordan", Hawkins told the San Francisco Examiner. "But he had the greatest variety of shots of anyone. He would take it in and hang and shoot from all these angles. Put spin on the ball. Elgin had incredible strength. He could post up Bill Russell. He could pass like Magic [Johnson] and dribble with the best guards in the league."

See also

Notes

  1. ^ a b "Elgin Baylor: Complete Bio". nba.com. Retrieved 2008-02-03.
  2. ^ "Top 10 Teams In NBA History: 1971-72 Los Angeles Lakers". nba.com. Retrieved 2008-02-03.
  3. ^ The Official NBA Basketball Encyclopedia,. Villard Books. 1994. pp. p. 382. ISBN 0-679-43293-8. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help); Check |isbn= value: checksum (help)

External links

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