Lakers great, Clippers VP Elgin Baylor dies at 86
LOS ANGELES — Elgin Baylor, the Los Angeles Lakers’ first superstar, among the first in an emerging National Basketball Association, and a fixture on the L.A. basketball scene for the better part of half a century, has died of natural causes in Los Angeles.
Baylor, who coached briefly after his Hall of
Fame 14-season playing career ended, then had a 22-year run as an executive with L.A.’s other NBA team, the Clippers, died Monday morning, the Lakers announced on Twitter. He was 86.
“Elgin was THE superstar of his era — his many accolades speak to that,” Lakers President Jeanie Buss tweeted.
An undersized power forward at 6-foot-5, Baylor dazzled with a variety of athletic moves that often left defenders flat-footed as he sailed by for one of his signature running bank shots or pulled up for a hanging jump shot.
Richie Guerin of the New York Knicks once griped, “Elgin Baylor has either got three hands or two basketballs out there. It’s like guarding a flood.”
Observed Oscar Robertson, a contemporary of Baylor and himself no stranger to NBA stardom, “As a shooter, as a dribbler, Elgin Baylor had no match. The greatest game I ever saw was a Los Angeles playoff game in Boston when the Celtics double-teamed Elgin and Jerry West, and Elgin still scored about 60 points.” Sixty-one, actually.
A 10-time All-NBA first team selection and 11-time All-Star, Baylor was elected to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 1977. Although primarily a scorer, he was nonetheless a complete player, finishing his career with 23,149 points, 3,650 assists and 11,463 rebounds in 846 games, all with the Lakers in Minneapolis and Los Angeles.
He scored a then-record 71 points against the New York Knicks during a regular-season game in 1960, and his 61-point game against the Celtics in Game 5 in 1962 still stands as an NBA Finals individual record.
For the Lakers, Baylor came along at precisely the right time. Still in Minneapolis, where the George Mikan glory years were well past, they used the No. 1 overall pick in the 1958 draft to get Baylor, after owner Bob Short persuaded him to skip his senior year at Seattle University. The Lakers had just finished a 19-53 season with a team that was old and slow, and drawing poorly at the gate, and Baylor was viewed as the team’s hope for survival.
“If he had turned me down then, I would have been out of business.” Short told the Los Angeles Times in 1971. “The club would have gone bankrupt.”
With Baylor earning rookie-ofthe-year honors in 1958-59, the Lakers went from last in their division to the Finals, where they were beaten by the Celtics. After one more season in Minneapolis, where they continued to draw poorly, Short moved the club to Los Angeles, hoping to cash in on some of the excitement generated by the recently arrived Dodgers.
The NBA, with televised games still off in the future, was struggling to make it in those days and Los Angeles seemed largely unimpressed by the Lakers. The newcomers tried to drum up interest by using sound trucks in L.A. neighborhoods, the players inviting residents to come see them play at the then-new Sports Arena. But at least the team had a selling point in Baylor, a superstar in the making, and West, a promising rookie guard from West Virginia.
Baylor and West meshed beautifully and in only their second season in Los Angeles, the Lakers were back in the Finals — and again were beaten by the Celtics.
Cockburn had the Ramblers’ lead down to six, 39-33, with 15:48 remaining.
Dosunmu hit a 3-pointer at 13:12 remaining, followed immediately by a return basket by Loyola’s Lucas Williamson to make it a 44-36 Ramblers’ lead. The pair were former youth league basketball teammates in Chicago and guarded each other for much of the game. Williamson finished with 14 points.
“At the end of the day I’m disappointed in myself. I’m disappointed in the way I played,” Dosunmu said. “I don’t think I played to my standards. I don’t think I played nowhere near how I wanted to play to help my team win. I understand that. Life comes with adversity. It’s not what you do when it happens, it’s what you do after it happens.”
Another basket by Norris and an Illini turnover led to two Ramblers free throws and a 49-36 Loyola advantage with about 10 minutes remaining.
With 5:08 remaining, Williamson drove the basket, scored and was fouled. He completed the 3-point play to put Loyola up 59-46. From that point, Illinois could only shrink the lead to seven points.
Cockburn led the Illini with 21 points and nine rebounds. Adam Miller scored 10 points and Dosunmu finished with eight in what was likely his final college game.
Loyola will face No. 12-seeded Oregon State at 8:40 p.m. CT on