Black History Month: Elgin Baylor and the start of the modern NBA

Back in 2021, Elgin Baylor died. Baylor played pro basketball across three decades before coaching for five and then spending 20+ years as a general manager in the league.

I don’t always follow pro basketball. If I do it is Christmas or the postseason and even then, I tend to only watch the last 20-30 minutes of a game. With that said, I’m old enough to know that basketball today isn’t the same as it was 20 years ago, is radically different than in the years of the Thug Pistons and equally as different as the days of the ABA and Celtic Dynasty.

What did Baylor do? More like what did he not do.

For his career he averaged 27-13-4. Pretty good…though people always mention Oscar Robertson and his triple-double season as a measure of greatness. The thing is, Baylor’s still had more triple-doubles than all but 19 other players in history and those points/rebound averages–he’s also one of only five guys to do that for a career in history.

That’s still not telling the story. Obviously the numbers were great, but he put them up at a point where pro basketball was the 4th ‘major’ pro sport with no national TV coverage. Teams struggled–Baylor made the news though and his level of play may have even saved a struggling team from bankruptcy and folding in the 1960s. They’d moved to LA in hopes of making money…they didn’t. Until Baylor. The team? The L.A. Lakers.

Right there–that’s pretty significant. Baylor saved one of the NBA’s iconic franchises from going under. Without Baylor, there’s no Pat Riley, no Kareem, no Showtime.

The problem is–sometimes greatness gets overshadowed. Baylor played with Wilt–who scored more, rebounded more. Wilt’s one of the top 10 guys ever. Point guard on those teams was Jerry West–the man they turned into the NBA’s logo. If you’re talking about winning at the time–then people were talking about the Celtics players.

Still–when Baylor turned pro, if you watch NBA games, you see it’s really mechanical and orthodox–guards stay on the perimeter unless they are talking a layup…big guys with backs to the basket pounding down into the lane. Baylor’s responsible for changing that.

I suspect hypothetically if you used video editing, you could take Dr. J’s face and put it on Baylor’s highlights and wouldn’t really be able to notice a difference. Baylor permitted someone like Dr. J to become who he was–likewise you can see Julius Irving in the game of Michael Jordan.

Once a player shows what is possible, minds open, the game changes. Life works that way, too. Find a new possibility and the door opens wide for everyone else.

That’s Baylor’s legacy–he isn’t remembered often, but he’s at the root of modern basketball.