Lakers great revolutionized NBA air game
LOS ANGELES — Elgin Baylor changed the very direction of basketball when he joined the NBA and brought his vertical feats of athletic brilliance to a largely horizontal game.
He filled scoresheets and sparked young imaginations with his trailblazing aerial style, and every high-flying player of the past 60 years has followed his path.
Although the Lakers’ first superstar in Los Angeles never won a championship ring, Baylor still looms high above the franchise and the game he loved.
The Hall of Fame forward died Monday of natural causes in Los Angeles with wife Elaine and daughter Krystal by his side, the team said. He was 86.
An 11-time All-Star who soared through the 1960s with a high-scoring artistry that became the model for the modern basketball player, Baylor played a major role in revolutionizing basketball from a ground-bound sport into an aerial show.
“Elgin was THE superstar of his era — his many accolades speak to that,” Lakers owner Jeanie Buss said in a statement.
With a silky-smooth jumper and fluid athleticism, Baylor spent parts of 14 seasons with the Lakers in Minneapolis and Los Angeles, teaming with Jerry West in one of the most potent tandems in basketball history.
Baylor’s second career as a personnel executive for 22½ years with the woebegone Los Angeles Clippers was far less successful, but he remained a beloved 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 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 careerbest 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 played high 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 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.