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GOAT of many colors?!.....RIP: Elgin Baylor [ Hall of Fame basketball player ] at 86.....
#1
....of natural causes......


Elgin Baylor, legendary Hall of Famer and Lakers star, dies at 86

....Elgin Baylor, the Hall of Fame star who spent 14 years playing for the Minneapolis and Los Angeles Lakers, has died at 86. The Lakers released a statement about his death, which was from natural causes.

Baylor is considered one of the all-time greatest players in the history of the NBA, and a vital figure in the history of the game. Athletic and quick, his trademark hanging jump shot was part of the movement that took the NBA off the ground and lifted it into the air, where it's stayed ever since.

A Washington, D.C., native, Baylor was the No. 1 overall draft pick in 1958. That was when the Lakers were based in Minneapolis, which changed before the 1960-61 season. Over his 14-year career, which he spent entirely with the Lakers, Baylor was an All-Star 11 times, was named to the All-NBA First Team 10 times, and was the Rookie of the Year in 1959. He and the Lakers went to the finals nine times during his career, finally winning in 1972.

Baylor retired in 1972 and jumped into a coaching career just a few years later. He spent six years as an assistant and a head coach for the New Orleans Jazz before calling it quits, and then spent 22 years as vice president of basketball operations for the Los Angeles Clippers. The team went 607-1153 during his tenure, which ended acrimoniously in 2008 when he was relieved of his duties. Baylor sued the Clippers and then-owner Donald Sterling for age and race discrimination in 2009, but the suit was rejected in 2011. Just three years later, Sterling was banned from the NBA and forced to sell the Clippers after recordings of him making racist comments were released to the public.

Baylor was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1977, and his No. 22 has been retired by the Lakers. The Lakers went beyond just retiring his jersey, though. Baylor and his signature hanging jump shot were immortalized in an amazing statue outside the Staples Center in 2018.



RIP............?!
_____________________________________
I reject your reality and substitute my own!
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#2
My 6th favorite NBA player of all time.
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#3
He was sure fun to watch, great player. RIP.
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#4
Great player - hard to imagine 9 finals to get a ring.
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#5
When I was in high school, I went to a Laker game with the intent of seeing Elgin Baylor in person. For some reason, he was out that game, and we saw some rookie name of Jerry West. Never got to see Baylor in person, but LA Times columnist Jim Murray thought that he was the real MVP.
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#6
I got to see him live at least 3 times. During his heyday the NBA wasn't seriously popular, the Boston Garden was seldom more than half full. That meant you could walk up on game night, buy an $8 ticket and sit (surreptitiously) in any empty seat. The place would only get close to capacity (13,909) when the Lakers were in town - capacity in this case being about 2/3 full.

On only one Laker game did we get stuck in the "nose-bleed" seats for it's entirety. Others we watched from mid-court in seats close enough that by games end our feet were freezing from hockey ice below the parquet.
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#7
RgrF wrote:
Great player - hard to imagine 9 finals to get a ring.
And didn’t even get to play more than a handful of regular season games in that championship year. Poor Elgin. The year he retires in the preseason [edit] (I’ve had that stuck in my head, for some reason, forever. He actually played nine regular season games before calling it a career due to an injury.), the team gets white hot, has the 33 game win streak and wins their first L.A. championship.

One if my earliest NBA memories were games in the L.A. Sports Arena, in seats a friend of the family had. Guy would spend the entire game yelling, “GIVE IT TO ELGIN!”. :biggrin:

Baylor was my first NBA idol.
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#8
Ca Bob wrote:
When I was in high school, I went to a Laker game with the intent of seeing Elgin Baylor in person. For some reason, he was out that game, and we saw some rookie name of Jerry West. Never got to see Baylor in person, but LA Times columnist Jim Murray thought that he was the real MVP.

Jim Murray was perhaps the most unique sportswriter I encountered. Coming from the east coast where sports vitriol was the norm, it was entertaining fun to see Murray take a whole different tack. While most home town sports writers would talk sports and teams, Murray would take on cities. He's satirically go after places like Cleveland (an easy target) NY, Philly or Boston with such cutting wit that his columns were often picked up and run by the Globe or NY Daily News. The hit pieces often infuriated opposing fans to the extent Murray sometimes went on the road incognito.
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#9
RgrF wrote:
[quote=Ca Bob]
When I was in high school, I went to a Laker game with the intent of seeing Elgin Baylor in person. For some reason, he was out that game, and we saw some rookie name of Jerry West. Never got to see Baylor in person, but LA Times columnist Jim Murray thought that he was the real MVP.

Jim Murray was perhaps the most unique sportswriter I encountered. Coming from the east coast where sports vitriol was the norm, it was entertaining fun to see Murray take a whole different tack. While most home town sports writers would talk sports and teams, Murray would take on cities. He's satirically go after places like Cleveland (an easy target) NY, Philly or Boston with such cutting wit that his columns were often picked up and run by the Globe or NY Daily News. The hit pieces often infuriated opposing fans to the extent Murray sometimes went on the road incognito.
I still miss Murray even after all these years.
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#10
Blankity Blank wrote:
[quote=RgrF]
Great player - hard to imagine 9 finals to get a ring.
And didn’t even get to play more than a handful of regular season games in that championship year. Poor Elgin. The year he retires in the preseason, the team gets white hot, has the 33 game win streak and wins their first L.A. championship.

One if my earliest NBA memories were games in the L.A. Sports Arena, in seats a friend of the family had. Guy would spend the entire game yelling, “GIVE IT TO ELGIN!”. :biggrin:

Baylor was my first NBA idol.
He earned a ring by playing. He was all jacked up because the day after he retired, the Lakers went on a record 33 game winning streak. He didn't want to take a ring. Eventually he did accept one. Boogie Cousins got one and he played no games the Championship season.

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