High-flying Lakers legend Baylor dies
LOS ANGELES – Elgin Baylor soared through the 1960s with a high-scoring, high-flying artistry that that became the model for the modern basketball player.
The Lakers’ 11-time allstar and Hall of Famer died Monday of natural causes at 86 in Los Angeles with wife Elaine and daughter Krystal by his side, the team said.
With a silky-smooth jumper and fluid athleticism, Baylor played a major role in revolutionizing basketball from a ground-bound sport into an aerial show. He spent parts of 14 seasons with the Lakers in Minneapolis and Los Angeles, teaming with Jerry West throughout the ’60s in one of the most potent tandems in basketball history.
“Elgin was THE superstar of his era – his many accolades speak to that,” Lakers owner Jeanie Buss said in a statement.
Baylor’s second career as a personnel executive for 221⁄2 years with the woebegone Los Angeles Clippers was far less successful, but he remained a beloved basketball figure in Los Angeles and beyond. Baylor strengthened his ties again to the Lakers over the past decade, and the team honored him with a statue outside Staples Center in 2018.
“Elgin Baylor set the course for the modern NBA as one of the league’s first superstar players,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said. “In addition to his legendary playing career, Elgin was a man of principle. He was a leading activist during the height of the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s and an influential voice among his fellow players.”
The 6-foot-5 Baylor played in an era before significant television coverage of basketball, and confoundingly little of his play was ever captured on film. His athletic brilliance is best remembered by those who saw it in person. No one had a better view than West, who once called him “one of the most spectacular shooters the world has ever seen.”
Baylor had an uncanny ability to
two and then shut it down. But (the Packers) were Tom Brady away from being in the Super Bowl this year. (Going to another team) doesn’t guarantee anything, and it’s not like that (Packers) team isn’t built for a title run. They just didn’t get it done.”
If this comes down to providing Rodgers financial assurance he’ll be back in ’22, I don’t know why the Packers wouldn’t do it.
That doesn’t mean giving Rodgers a raise. If general manager Brian Gutekunst and team President Mark Murphy are opposed to a raise, they have good reason. In 2018 they signed Rodgers to a contract extension that gave him a market-setting new-money average of $33.5 million a year. Don’t look at his 2021 salary of $23.2 million and think Rodgers is grossly underpaid. He received $66.9 million in firstyear pay back in ’18. That was part of the deal too, and he took the big money in hand knowing that within a year or two other quarterbacks, including inferior ones, were going to sign for higher averages. He shouldn’t be looking for a raise with three years left on his deal and in the pandemic NFL financial climate. hang in mid-air indefinitely, inventing shots and improvising deception along his flight path. Years before Julius Erving and Michael Jordan became international heroes with their similarly acrobatic games, Baylor created the blueprint for the modern superstar.
Baylor was the first NBA player to score 70 points in a game, and he still holds the single-game NBA Finals scoring record with 61 against Boston in 1962. He averaged 27.4 points and 13.5 rebounds over his career, and he even averaged a career-best 38 points during a season in which he only played on weekend passes while on active duty as an Army reservist.
“I spent a lot of time with him over the years,” Charles Barkley said during CBS’ coverage of the NCAA Tournament. “To me, he’s probably the most underrated great basketball player of all time. He always carried himself with great dignity and respect.”
Baylor soared above most of his contemporaries, but never won a championship or led the NBA in scoring largely because he played at the same time as centers Bill Russell, who won all the
But if all he wants is some of his ’22 pay in ’21, why wouldn’t Gutekunst and Murphy be OK with that? Rodgers was league MVP last season at age 37, and with how well quarterbacks are protected by today’s rules, there’s no reason to think he’s facing a big performance cliff anytime soon. If all he’s looking for is an extra $5 million or so this year, taken off his salary in ’22, it’s hard to see why Gutekunst and Murphy would balk.
Or, they could just guarantee some of his ’22 pay. The Packers have never done future guarantees, but they can justify the precedent as a quarterback-only thing. Either way, is there really good reason to think Rodgers won’t be, by far, the Packers’ best chance to win a Super Bowl in not just ’21 but ’22 too?
If Rodgers wants assurances beyond ’22, that’s a different matter. For all we know he still might have five good years left in him, but he is old enough the Packers shouldn’t take it more than two years at a time.
I don’t doubt for a second that Rodgers can be difficult to work with at times, and he carries a grudge. Gutekunst and Murphy rings, and Wilt Chamberlain, who claimed all the scoring titles. Knee injuries hampered the second half of Baylor’s career, although he remained a regular all-star.
West and Baylor were the first in the long tradition of dynamic pairings with the Lakers, followed by Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in the 1980s before Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal won three more titles in the 2000s.
“My first few years in the league, he cared for me like a father would a son,” West said Monday. “We shared the joy of winning and the heartbreaking losses in the finals. He was a prince both on and off the court.”
Baylor’s Lakers lost six times in the NBA Finals to the Boston Celtics and another time to the New York Knicks. Los Angeles won the 1971-72 title, but only after Baylor retired nine games into the season, dissatisfied with his standard of play due to his ailing knees.
“Before there was Michael Jordan doing amazing things in the air, there was Elgin Baylor!” Johnson tweeted. “A true class act and great man.”
surely know Rodgers wants them feeling the same heat now he did when they drafted Love. His “uncertain” future comment in January was proof he’s not letting go of the Love pick anytime soon.
But that’s not reason enough to rush to Love onto the field. Even the scouts who loved Love going into last year’s draft considered him a bigger project than most first-round quarterbacks.
Going through last season without OTAs and preseason games, and as the Packers’ No. 3, only slowed his growth. And for all Gutekunst and Murphy know at this point, Love might never be good enough anyway.
The Packers are working on a restructure with Rodgers’ contract, as the NFL Network reported Monday. There’s no viable way to get under their cap without it. And while it’s curious this wasn’t worked by late last week, maybe talks are going well now.
But the way the restructure turns out will tell all. If there’s nothing to show the team and quarterback have committed to each other beyond this year, we’ll know something really is up.