Elgin Baylor, who died yesterday at age 86, played his first two NBA seasons for the Minneapolis Lakers. He was a rookie during the 1958-59 season, which I believe is the first year the Lakers played their home games at the Armory in downtown Minneapolis. Before that, most of their games were at the Minneapolis Auditorium. During my days as a contributing member of society, the Armory was used as a parking garage, and I was in there a lot as it was across the street from the building I worked in. Just about impossible to imagine it as a venue for NBA games but Baylor had a pretty good season there in 58-59: Rookie of the Year, although, by the numbers, he could as well have been the league MVP—he averaged 24.9 points per game (second best in the league), 15 rebounds (third best), and 4.1 assists (eighth best). Baylor would never win the MVP award. Starting in his second season, it went to either Russell or Chamberlain almost every year for a decade. Once in that span it was Oscar Robertson. His team, the Cincinnati Royals, wasn't much but in the year he won it he practically averaged a triple double: more than 31 points per game, 11 rebounds, and 9.9 assists.
Scanning Baylor's career numbers, what stands out to me is his rebounding. Over 14 NBA seasons, he averaged 13.5 rebounds per game. He was 6-5. No mislick on the keyboard: he was 77 inches tall. Michael Jordan's career rebounds per game average was 6.2; Larry Bird, 10.0; Magic Johnson, 7.2; LeBron James, 7.9 (so far). Baylor was always a rebounding machine. In his junior year of college, at Seattle U, he averaged 20 rebounds a game—and 30 points. Seattle U didn't have a lot besides him, but in his senior season that was enough to advance to the NCAA championship game, which they lost to Kentucky. Baylor was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player, which I'm sure he was—probably by a lot, since the award usually goes to a member of the championship team.
It seems odd to me that I have almost no memory of him as a player, even though contemporaries like Chamberlain, Russell, Robertson, and his teammate Jerry West are vivid. I can picture Hal Greer shooting free throws but regarding Baylor, one of the greats, I'm essentially blank. I guess West played a couple of seasons after Baylor was done, and in the 60s the Game of the Week usually featured Chamberlain or Russell (or both), which would explain too why I can picture the 76er's Greer. Not being able to call to mind an image of Baylor playing basketball seems fitting only in the respect that in the first NBA season of my life he starred for my hometown team, winning the Rookie of the Year Award while playing in a building that would later be known to me as a parking garage.
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