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.
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(Mike Kupper is a former Los Angeles Times stafff writer.)
