Elgin Baylor, the 11-time NBA All-Star and beloved Basketball Hall of Famer, has passed away from natural causes at age 86.
The Lakers – for whom he played 14 seasons in Minneapolis and Los Angeles – confirmed the news on Monday. A specific cause of death has not been revealed.
‘Elgin was the love of my life and my best friend,’ said his widow, Elaine. ‘And like everyone else, I was in awe of his immense courage, dignity and the time he gave to all fans. At this time we ask that I and our family be allowed to mourn his passing in privacy.’
‘I loved him as a person and shared my career with him,’ longtime teammate Jerry West, 82, told ESPN on Monday. ‘Never had a teammate like him; great, great player but an even better person. Very sad day for me and his family.’
With a silky-smooth jumper and fluid athleticism, Baylor revolutionized basketball from a ground-bound sport into an aerial show while teaming with Jerry West throughout the ’60s in basketball’s most celebrated tandems.
Baylor had an uncanny ability to hang in mid-air indefinitely, inventing shots in a way that would be emulated by the likes of Julius Erving and Michael Jordan. In many ways, Baylor created the blueprint for the modern superstar.
‘He was just ballet in basketball,’ Dr. J. told The Undefeated in 2018. ‘And that opened a lot of doors for young players, myself in particular, to try that stuff. Suddenly it was like, ‘Wow. This can actually work.”
Elaine and their daughter Krystal were by Baylor’s side at the time of his death, according to the Lakers. He is also survived by a son and daughter from a previous marriage, Alan and Alison, and by his sister Gladys Baylor Barrett.
NBA legend Elgin Baylor has passed away at age 86. The Lakers – the team he played for across 14 seasons in both Minneapolis and Los Angeles – confirmed the news on Monday. A cause of death has not been revealed. Baylor was the first NBA player to surpass 70 points with a 71-point game December 11, 1960, against New York (pictured after the game)
Elgin Baylor pictured alongside his wife Elaine at the 2019 NBA Awards in Santa Monica
‘Elgin was THE superstar of his era – his many accolades speak to that,’ said Lakers owner Jeanie Buss said in a statement. ‘He was one of the few Lakers players whose career spanned from Minneapolis to Los Angeles.
‘But more importantly he was a man of great integrity, even serving his country as a U.S. Army reservist, often playing for the Lakers only during his weekend pass. He is one of the all-time Lakers greats with his No. 22 jersey retired in the rafters and his statue standing guard in front of STAPLES Center.
‘He will always be part of the Lakers legacy. On behalf of the entire Lakers family, I’d like to send my thoughts, prayers and condolences to Elaine and the Baylor family.’
Baylor went on to become a coach with the middling New Orleans Jazz in the late 1970s
Baylor had the unfortunate challenge of playing during the Boston Celtics dynasty, when the east coast club won NBA titles in 11 of 13 seasons.
His title window seemingly opened when Celtics legend Bill Russell retired in 1969, but by that point Baylor was battling knee issues. He ultimately retired early in the 1971-1972 season because he couldn’t play up to his own expectations. The Lakers would go on to win their first title since the George Mikan era of the 1950s.
Baylor went on to become a coach with the middling New Orleans Jazz in the late 1970s.
Baylor’s second career as a personnel executive with the woebegone Los Angeles Clippers was much less successful. He worked for the Clippers from 1986 until 2008, when he left the team with acrimony and an unsuccessful lawsuit against owner Donald Sterling and the NBA, alleging age and race discrimination.
The 6-foot-5 Baylor played in an era before significant television coverage of basketball, and little of his play was ever captured on film. His spectacular style is best remembered by those who saw it in person — including West, who once called him ‘one of the most spectacular shooters the world has ever seen.’
Elgin Baylor in action against the San Francisco Warriors during an NBA basketball game circa 1968 at the Cow Palace in San Francisco, California
West and Baylor were the first pair in the long tradition of dynamic duos 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.
Baylor arrived in the NBA in 1958 as the No. 1 draft pick out of Seattle University. He immediately set new superlatives for individual scoring, with a 55-point game in his Rookie-of-the-Year season before scoring 64 on Nov. 8, 1959 — then the NBA single-game record, and the Lakers record for 45 years until Bryant broke it
But 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.
Baylor arrived in the NBA in 1958 as the No. 1 draft pick out of Seattle University. He immediately set new superlatives for individual scoring, with a 55-point game in his Rookie-of-the-Year season before scoring 64 on Nov. 8, 1959 — then the NBA single-game record, and the Lakers record for 45 years until Bryant broke it.
Baylor became the first NBA player to surpass 70 points with a 71-point game December 11, 1960, against New York. Chamberlain set the record of 100 points in 1962.
Baylor averaged 38 points in the 1961-62 season despite doing active duty as an Army reservist. He scored 61 points in a playoff game against Boston in 1962, a record that would stand for 24 years until Jordan broke it.
Baylor averaged 27.4 points and 13.5 rebounds during his 14-year career. He scored a total of 23,149 points in 846 games, and was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in May 1977.
Baylor poses with some of his trophies after announcing his retirement in 1971
The 6-foot-5 Baylor played in an era before significant television coverage of basketball, and little of his play was ever captured on film. His spectacular style is best remembered by those who saw it in person — including Jerry West, who once called him ‘one of the most spectacular shooters the world has ever seen’
Orlando Magic center Mo Bamba reflected on Baylor’s decision to boycott an exhibition game in West Virginia in 1959 because he wasn’t permitted to stay in the team hotel
Baylor was thrust into the fight for civil rights as a rookie before an exhibition against the Cincinnati Royals in Charleston, West Virginia.
Upon arriving in the city, Baylor and two black teammates were told they were not permitted to stay in the hotel with the white members of the Minneapolis Lakers.
In a show of solidarity, the team checked out of that hotel and went over to one in a black area of town, but Baylor was unmoved and decided to boycott the game.
An article in the Charleston Gazette-Mail in January of 1959 described the scene: ‘Despite pleas from his teammates, urging him to play, Baylor, former Seattle University star and a rookie in the NBA this year, declined to put on a uniform and sat on the Minneapolis beach in civilian clothes throughout the game. As a result, the Lakers dropped a 95-91 decision to the Royals before 2,356 fans who braved icy streets and near-zero weather to see the game.’
The Charleston’s American Business Club filed a protest with the NBA, demanding a refund of its $1,000 fee for the exhibition.
Baylor said he took some criticism for the decision, but never regretted it.
‘I got the guys together and said, “Listen, if we don’t stay together, I’m not gonna be part of it,”‘ Baylor told reporter Jeff Eisenband in 2019. ‘I told the coach that. I told him I wasn’t going to play. And I didn’t. We lost and the media the next day blasted me. But I thought it was the right thing to do.’
Baylor had the unfortunate challenge of playing during the Boston Celtics dynasty, when the east coast club won NBA titles in 11 of 13 seasons. His title window seemingly opened when Celtics legend Bill Russell retired in 1969, but by that point Baylor was battling knee issues. He ultimately retired early in the 1971-1972 season because he couldn’t play up to his own expectations. The Lakers would go on to win their first title since the George Mikan era 1950s
Elgin Gay Baylor was born in Washington, D.C. on September 16, 1934. He was named after his father’s favorite watch, an ‘Elgin’ timepiece. Although he starred at two high schools, Baylor struggled academically and briefly dropped out, working in a furniture store and playing in local recreational leagues.
Baylor went to the College of Idaho because he was given a scholarship to play both basketball and football, but the school fired its basketball coach and cut several scholarships a year later.
Baylor played for the Minneapolis Lakers for two years before the club moved to Los Angeles
He transferred to Seattle and played from 1956-58, averaging 31.3 points per game and leading the team to the 1958 NCAA championship game, where it lost to coach Adolph Rupp’s Kentucky Wildcats.
The year before the Lakers persuaded Baylor to leave college a year early, the club was near bankruptcy after finishing 19-53, falling far since their glory years in the late ’40s and early ’50s in Minneapolis with center George Mikan.
Baylor transformed the franchise with his scoring and style. Minneapolis beat the Detroit Pistons and the defending champion St. Louis Hawks in the 1959 playoffs to make it to the NBA Finals, losing to the fledgling Celtics dynasty.
Baylor averaged 24.9 points, fourth in the league, and was third in rebounding with 15 a game. He was easily voted Rookie of the Year.
The Lakers moved west to Los Angeles in 1960, and Baylor became the centerpiece of their Hollywood revival. He averaged 34.8 points in the Lakers’ first season in Los Angeles, second in the league to Chamberlain.
Jerry West arrived from West Virginia in 1960, and they immediately clicked, averaging 69.1 combined points per game. Baylor played in only 48 games on weekend passes because his military service, but the Lakers still won the Western Conference by 11 games.
Baylor’s 61-point performance against the Celtics in Game 5 of the finals put the Lakers ahead 3-2 in the series, but they lost to the Celtics in overtime in Game 7 — the pinnacle of the Lakers’ suffering at Boston’s hands.
Frank Selvy missed a 10-foot jumper that would have won the game in regulation. In film of that moment, Baylor appears poised to get Selvy’s rebound, then disappears from the screen. Baylor contended he was pushed out of bounds by Boston’s Sam Jones.
‘I’ve always felt that was our championship,’ Baylor told the Riverside Press-Enterprise in 2000.
He never got closer to a ring.
The following season Baylor became the first to finish in the NBA’s top five in four different statistical categories: scoring, rebounding, assists and free-throw percentage. The Lakers reached the finals again — and lost to the Celtics again.
Knee problems that began in the 1963-64 season started a slow decline for Baylor. He never averaged more than 30 points a season again, though he remained a competent scorer.
Baylor played his last full season in 1968-69, and suited up only sporadically until retiring at 37 in the fall of 1971.
Baylor’s post-playing career never lived up to the magic of his on-court skills.
‘Elgin is so humble,’ Elaine told The Undefeated in 2018. ‘He just doesn’t like to talk about himself and all the things he has accomplished. But he has done so much. And with everything thats happening now, a lot of people who maybe don’t know will see Elgin in a whole new way.’
Elgin Baylor, assistant coach of the New Orleans Jazz, gives instructions to forward E.C. Coleman during the NBA basketball game against the New York Knicks at the Louisiana Superdome on January 30, 1976
The expansion New Orleans Jazz hired him as an assistant coach for their debut season in 1974, and he eventually replaced Butch van Breda Kolff as coach during the 1976-77 season, going 86-135 in parts of three seasons. Pete Maravich’s Jazz never made the playoffs, and Baylor resigned after the 1978-79 season.
In April 1986, the Clippers hired Baylor as their vice president for basketball operations. The Clippers made the playoffs in 1992 and 1993, but the franchise became the modern model of sports ineptitude for most of his tenure with poor drafting, indifferent fans and skinflint financial dealings.
Sterling largely was blamed for the franchise’s ineptitude, while Baylor received both admiration for his tenacity and ridicule for his inability to fix the Clippers’ woes.
Their 22-year relationship ended abruptly in October 2008 when the club put coach Mike Dunleavy in charge of personnel decisions.
Baylor, then 74, filed a $2 million lawsuit against the Clippers, Sterling and the NBA in February 2009, alleging he was fired because of his age and race. Baylor also said the Clippers grossly underpaid him.
The Clippers denied the allegations and said Baylor had resigned voluntarily. A Los Angeles County jury unanimously ruled in the Clippers’ favor in March 2011, refusing to award any damages.
The Los Angeles Lakers announced Baylor’s passing in a statement on Monday
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