Elgin Baylor, Acrobatic Hall of Famer in N.B.A., Dies at 86

The Minneapolis Lakers selected Baylor as the league’s overall No. 1 pick in the 1958 draft. He took them to the 1959 N.B.A. final series, where he averaged nearly 25 points a game in a losing cause, the Lakers being swept by the Celtics. He was named rookie of the year.

The Lakers moved to Los Angeles in 1960, the year West arrived to provide an outside game to go with Baylor’s all-around skills.

Baylor was eventually hampered by knee surgery that diminished his spring, but he remained an offensive force. He retired after his injuries limited him to two games in 1970-71 and just nine at the outset of the 1971-72 season, when the Lakers went on to defeat the Knicks for the championship.

“Winning that championship was marred for me by the sad, conspicuous absence of Elgin Baylor,” West recalled in his memoir “West by West” (2011), written with Jonathan Coleman. “The guy that shared all the blood, sweat and tears wasn’t there to realize what it felt like.”

Baylor averaged 27.4 points and 13.5 rebounds for his career and played in 11 All-Star Games.

He was fired as the Jazz coach in 1979. He became the head of basketball operations for the Clippers, essentially their general manager, in 1986.

The Clippers made the playoffs only four times in Baylor’s tenure, which ended before the 2008-9 season opened. The Clippers said he had resigned, but he filed a lawsuit maintaining that he had been fired as a result of age discrimination. A jury decided in the Clippers’ favor, concluding that he had lost his job because of the team’s poor showings.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/22/sports/basketball/elgin-baylor-dead.html