RIP Elgin Baylor

[Regan MacNeil]

 

[MTM]

An underrated superstar who would be more regarded if more people saw him play on TV.

Probably also hurt by being such a crappy executive.

 

[Songbird]

Wish I could have watched him play in the purple and gold. He deserved at least 1 ring.

 

[heyabbott]

Wish I could have watched him play in the purple and gold. He deserved at least 1 ring.

I was fortunate enough to have seen him play at the end of his career and in the 69-70 Championship series. He was sublime. A great life.

 

[micropolitan guy]

There used to be a mark on a wall or doorway at the Corner Club in Moscow, Idaho, noting how high Baylor jumped one night when he was there during his days at the College of Idaho, before transferring to Seattle U. It's at least 12 feet off the ground.

 

[Starman]

An underrated superstar who would be more regarded if more people saw him play on TV.

Probably also hurt by being such a crappy executive.

The prime of his career was in the early Sixties, when the NBA had little or no national teevee presence.
By the time ABC started more substantial coverage about 1969-70, Baylor's career was on the downswing.
He retired early in the 1971-72 season when it looked like he was going to lose his starting role to the then-upcoming Jim McMillan.
The Lakers, who rolled to the title, offered him a ring because he had been on the roster during the season, but he turned it down.

 

[Small Town Guy]

I am a Lakers fan because my dad was a Lakers fan and he was a Lakers fan because Elgin Baylor was a Laker. He was a kid on a farm in Minnesota when Elgin came to Minneapolis and he remains Dad's sporting hero. Him and Hank Aaron. Called Dad to tell him when each passed away. He can still recite some of Elgin's stats, same way he does Aaron's. One of his most prized possessions remains a signed autograph he got of Elgin from his Minneapolis days.

The Baylor-West combo was such an unbelievable pairing with ridiculous numbers and so much heartbreak.

A few weeks ago was thinking of gift idea's for my dad's birthday and thought, I wonder if Elgin might be on cameo. He was! But it was like 450 bucks, bit too steep for a brief message, even from an idol. RIP to one of the underrated greats.

 

[Starman]

Baylor is often described as the proto-Dr. J, and he was, except his hands weren't quite as huge, so he couldn't pull off the condor-like one-hand swooping dunks as often as the Doctor (and Connie Hawkins) did. Plus dunking wasn't really that much of a thing until later in the decade. Baylor dunked plenty, just not all the time as it seemed with Dr. J (especially in the ABA).

 

[maumann]

Interesting that Starman brought up Connie Hawkins, because that was the first name that came to mind when comparing Elgin Baylor to someone from that era. I still remember Hawkins just holding a basketball with his arm outstretched, like an osprey clutching a fish. I don't have small hands, but dang I wanted so badly to have long enough fingers to one-hand a basketball. (And talk about an underrated guy who got the royal shaft from the NBA.)

 

[Slacker]

Interesting that Starman brought up Connie Hawkins, because that was the first name that came to mind when comparing Elgin Baylor to someone from that era. I still remember Hawkins just holding a basketball with his arm outstretched, like an osprey clutching a fish. I don't have small hands, but dang I wanted so badly to have long enough fingers to one-hand a basketball. (And talk about an underrated guy who got the royal shaft from the NBA.)

It's like the rest of us palming a bocce ball. Or maybe a volleyball.

 

[Starman]

Hawk's long and winding road to the NBA resulted in his having a game that was truly unique.
First, because of the gambling pseudo scandal, he never really played college basketball at all. He was only on campus at Iowa for a semester and a half, thus he wasn't drilled endlessly in the "fundamentals" and constantly reminded of 9000 reasons why he couldn't do stuff.
Then he went to the Pittsburgh Rens of the ABL, an abortive league which played a season and a half. He was by far the best player in that league, so nobody else told him not to do anything there either.
When the ABL bit the dirt Hawkins went to play four seasons for the Globetrotters, where instead of telling him not to do flashy stuff, they told him to do anything flashy he could think of. This was where he developed his one-handed palming waving the ball style.
Then he joined the ABA where once again
he was probably the best player in the league and no coaches were likely to lecture him
about fundamentals.
Had Hawkins followed a more conventional college-then-NBA path for his career, his style probably would have been more conventional as well.
Also most of his career was played in substandard leagues (with probably substandard medical care) as well as thousands of games on blacktop, plus the overall level of treatment for knee injuries was still in the relative Stone Age, he was already hobbled by major injuries before he arrived in the NBA at age 27.
So essentially, he missed about a decade of a career which might have been something quite like Elgin Baylor's.

 

[ChrisLong]

Elgin and Jerry playing at the Sports Arena were the ones who gave us in SoCal our first look at the NBA. RIP, sir.

 

[Songbird]

West and Baylor < or > Jordan and Pippen?

 

[Regan MacNeil]

One pairing won six rings and never lost in the finals. How’d the other one do?

 

[Regan MacNeil]

To get away from the focus on just winning, Jordan and Pippen are considered two of the best defenders to ever play.

Also, no reasonable person would ever put Baylor above Jordan. West is better than Pippen, but it’s not enough to overcome the Jordan-Baylor gap, especially when defense is factored in.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

To get away from the focus on just winning, Jordan and Pippen are considered two of the best defenders to ever play.

Also, no reasonable person would ever put Baylor above Jordan. West is better than Pippen, but it’s not enough to overcome the Jordan-Baylor gap, especially when defense is factored in.

This strikes me as a very reasonable assessment. Of course, Baylor played in an era when defense was mostly left to the big man in the middle. This worked great if you had Wilt or Russell or Nate Thurmond. If you didn't...

 

[Starman]

Both West and Baylor were far far far better than Pippen.

 

[Regan MacNeil]

Pippen is criminally underrated. Not surprised a Pistons fan would join in.

 

[Webster]

The Bulls teams worked because Pippen and Jordan were the best perimeter duo I’ve ever seen. Jordan was obviously just the absolute best offensive killer but Pippen was amazing.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

I don't think it's criticizing a player to say you don't think he was as good as Jerry West.