Blast from the Past: Elgin Baylor | Syracusefan.com

Blast from the Past: Elgin Baylor

SWC75

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When listening to the Jim Boeheim Show and scribbling my notes on it, I like to watch You-Tube videos with the sound down. They are mostly sports videos that need no commentary. Tonight I watched this one:

Elgin Baylor is kind of a forgotten superstar. He broke the NBA single game scoring record with a 64 point game in his second year and then broke it again the next year with a 71 point, 25 rebound game against the Knicks. it was his scoring record that Wilt Chamberlain topped. He once had 61 points in a playoff game against the Celtics. At his peak he averaged 35 points and 20 rebounds a game one year and 38/19 the enxt. he was a tremendous rebounder even though he was only 6-5. As the documentary shows, he was a wonderful ball-handler as well. His statistical accomplishments, prodigious as they wee, were ultimate over-shadowed by Chamberlain. He was joined by Jerry west in was, to that point, certainly, was the two greatest players to play on one team but they were over-shadowed by the Celtics, whom they could never beat. Knee injuries caught up to Baylor and he retired early in the year the Lakers finally won the title in 1971-72. He deserves to be remembered much more than he is.

I'll look for some other highlights like this of the superstars of the old days so maybe some of our younger fans can get to know them a little better.
 
I saw him play in in a double header in the Utica Memorial Auditorium back in 1961. One of the very best ever.
 
Baylor was one of the first exceptionally athletic forwards to play the game above the the rim. I'm not sure he's been forgotten, as he still frequently comes up in discussions of the game's 20 or 25 greatest players.
 
He was the first player I ever saw that seemed to hang in the air. Just amazing athleticism.
 

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