Flying Under the Radar

Like the on-court action, the history of basketball moves in a blur. To today’s young fans, Michael Jordan is footwear or Bugs Bunny’s intergalactic teammate, not the pseudomortal who defied gravity 82 nights a year. Fans from the era of mood rings and Atari describe Julius Erving as a doctor who performed surgery against opposing forwards in two professional leagues.

Every generation has its own aerial artist. Elgin Baylor, who began his career in 1958 with the Minneapolis Lakers, is the first. Baylor literally unleashed moves that nobody had ever seen in a previously ground-bound game. He brought basketball into color, provided the foundation for scorers to leap ever-higher.

“I never stepped in and thought about what I’m going to do, how I’m going to play or anything else,” says Baylor, 83, who retired in 1971 with the Los Angeles Lakers. “I just go out there and play. The defense really determines what you’re going to do, how they’re going to guard you.”

Good luck getting Baylor to unleash the superlatives. For a man who introduced the aerial offensive game to the NBA, who averaged more than 27 points and nearly 14 rebounds a game on his way to the Hall of Fame and a 16-foot, 9-inch, 1,500-pound statue outside the Staples Center, he sounds like a hobbled journeyman grateful for the 10-day contract and a warm bed.

On how he wants to be remembered: “I always gave my best effort, and hopefully, they were pleased with my performance.” On his place in NBA history: “When I went out there and played, I just did the best that I could.” Thankfully, the fans of Giannis and Kyrie and KD can learn more about one of the NBA’s first-name stars beyond YouTube footage and folk tales from their elders. Co-written with Alan Eisenstock, Baylor’s recently released memoir, Hang Time: My Life in Basketball, is a thoughtful, expansive road map of Baylor’s path to greatness. In his basketball life, Baylor battled a despotic father, endured racism in Washington, D.C., survived a plane crash, battled through crippling knee pain, and had stints as an NBA head coach (New Orleans Jazz) and general manager (Los Angeles Clippers).

In today’s socially conscious NBA, Baylor was also a trailblazer. When he and his fellow African American teammates were denied a hotel room in Charleston, West Virginia, before a game there in January 1959, Baylor refused to play in the game. The move made national headlines and prompted a personal apology from the town’s mayor. Five years later, Baylor agreed to boycott the 1964 All-Star Game if NBA players didn’t get better conditions from the League. The move worked. The game went on and the players received a raft of new benefits, including a pension plan.

No matter how hard Baylor shuns the mythology, the record book has the final word. Nearly 50 years later, Baylor still holds the single-game scoring record in the Finals, pouring in 61 points against the Boston Celtics in 1962’s Game 5 victory. To put the feat in perspective, consider this: The Celtics’ roster that season featured seven Hall of Fame players, including arguably the greatest defensive force the game has ever seen in Bill Russell.

Yes, Jordan scored 63 points 24 years later, also against the Celtics, in the First Round of the 1986 playoffs. But he faced five Hall of Famers on that legendary team. It wasn’t on the NBA’s grandest stage. He needed overtime to break Baylor’s mark. And, most importantly, the Bulls lost.

Baylor’s career in the Finals lacked the ultimate triumph. Eight times his teams made the Finals. Each time, his team lost—seven times to the vaunted Celtics and once to the storied, teamwork-friendly 1970 Knicks. It’s all irrelevant. Baylor is part of the gilded history of the NBA, which led us to today’s international success. He showed that basketball could be ballet, and that you could succeed grandly with that approach. Without Baylor, Erving might have actually operated in a room and not the hardwood; Jordan might have retired from baseball to try his hand at basketball.

It is impossible to cover a basketball legend’s life in a single conversation, so we stuck to mostly Finals related questions, including the scoring record, why the Celtics were so hard to beat, and why Baylor was happy for Jerry West to win the championship that eluded him.

Do you take pride in the Finals scoring record?

You know, really, I don’t think about it. I have a mindset: I look at every game as the same. I go out there to give my best and to win every game, so I don’t think of anything different than that.

When playing the Celtics, did they bring more out of your game than other teams?

To be honest, it doesn’t matter [who you’re playing]. You want to win. You have to have that winning thing in your system, your mind. When you go out there, every game you feel the goal [is] to give your best, 100 percent. I don’t care who it is. It could be my brother: I want to win.

During that 61-point game, you write in Hang Time that you felt you were just scoring more than usual, but it didn’t feel like anything special.

I never used the term “in the zone” or anything, and I’m never aware of it when I go out there and play—whether it’s points I got or rebounds I got. I never even thought about that until later on when a writer or somebody might write about it or bring it up. Some things I’ve done out there on the floor, I don’t even remember. I don’t even think about it. The only thing I think about is, feel good about, is the fact that we won the game.

How did you get that focus?

Ever since I was a teenager going out there playing with marbles, I wanted to win. For some reason, the good Lord made me that way. That’s the way I am…. You have to have the feeling that anything I wanted to do that I can do it. If I wanted to go to my left, I could go to my left. I want to go to my right, I could go to my right. If I want to take the jump shot to try and get in and get a layup, I just feel anything I wanted to do that I could do it regardless of the defense or how they played me.

Is that confidence what differentiates the good players from the great players?

I think so, because you have to have confidence that you could do something that maybe is beyond your limits. But the point is you think about it, and you think: “Hey, whatever it is, you challenge it and you’re going to conquer it.”

By Pete Croatto