Elgin Baylor: The Man Who Changed Basketball

by Bijan C. Bayne

NBA Hall of Fame player Elgin Baylor was an innovator in his sport, a civil rights trailblazer, and a true superstar. He influenced future NBA All Stars such as Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, and is considered by many to be one of the most important players in NBA history. A prolific scorer who baffled opponents with his twists and turns and inventive moves, Baylor was a force both on and off the court for the Minneapolis and Los Angeles Lakers.

In Elgin The Man Who Changed Basketball, Bijan C. Bayne tells the story of how a kid from the streets of segregated Washington, DC, who didn’t attend college until he was over twenty, revolutionized basketball and stood up for his rights. In a time when few nationally prominent black athletes spoke out about racial inequality in the United States, Baylor refused to tolerate discrimination. On the court, with his balletic moves and urban style of play, Elgin Baylor lifted the game of basketball off the floor and into the air.

Elgin The Man Who Changed Basketball includes personal reflections from Baylor’s old schoolyard companions, former teammates, players he coached in the NBA, and noted sports journalists, bringing to life his childhood, college career, and professional life with intimate detail. Basketball fans, historians, and those interested in the impact of sports on the Civil Rights Movement will all find this first-ever biography of Elgin Baylor both fascinating and inspirational.

Genres: Basketball, Sports

292 pages, Paperback

First published August 13, 2015

Reviews

[Jeremy Fenton · Rating 1 out of 5]

Clearly, Elgin Baylor was an early NBA star who helped popularise and evolve the game. This book however, reads like a high school paper.
It is poorly written, cut-and-pasted quotes from a few sources with no interviews done by the author, filled out with many unnecessary and tedious game-by-game stats and some glaring factual inaccuracies which irritated me (like Jordan not scoring over 61pts in a playoff game; see Chicago V Boston in 1986, clearly he meant NBA Finals game).
I understand that Baylor was a private person which may explain why there is such a focus on individual game statistics (otherwise the book would be about 19 pages long). However, there is more information on Donald Sterling's decline than Baylor's off-court life. The deterioration in the relationship and divorce from his first wife constituted 5 lines...
I honestly think you could just read the first and last chapters which summarise his influence well. For the rest, go to basketball-reference.com

[Josh · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book does a nice job of capturing what made Baylor special, both as a player and a man. The writing was a bit dry, though, and there was too much focus on individual game statistics for my taste. More big picture and deeper dives into his post-career employment would have made me appreciate this more.

Solid read for big basketball fans.

[Carlton Duff · Rating 3 out of 5]

I appreciated learning about the extraordinary and impactful life of Elgin Baylor, despite the slipshod effort of the author.

[Richard Gilpin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very well done and very readable for those interested in basketball and Elgin Baylor's personal history.

[Lance · Rating 5 out of 5]

Elgin Baylor was one of the first true superstars of the NBA, with his best years coming during the late 1950’s and early1960’s for the Minneapolis/Los Angeles Lakers This biography of the man by Bijan C. Bane is the most complete book about Baylor. It is a well-researched and well written account of Baylor’s entire basketball career.

His style of play was considered to be unusual at time, as he was playing above the rim often and making spectacular passes to teammates for easy baskets. That doesn’t mean he didn’t score himself – while he never won the scoring title, he did not finish lower than sixth in the league during each complete season he competed. Bayne captures the spirit of Baylor’s game with exciting accounts of the skills he would show off. Here is one account of what Baylor could do from the 1962 All-Star game: “A third drive demonstrates Baylor’s yen for improvisation, as he drives the right side, is challenged by East All-Star forward Tommy Heinson, and takes to the air, bringing the basketball down to protect it and then releasing it for the layup as he clears the defender.” Like Baylor’s game, the book is filled with beautiful passages similar to this one.

Baylor also stood up for civil rights and was outspoken about fair treatment for African-American players in the NBA. At the time, it was widely speculated that each team followed an unwritten quota of no more than three African-American players on each team. There were the struggles of segregation for hotels and eating establishments. But the best account of what Baylor did for this movement was the stand that he and several other African-American players took before the 1964 All-Star game when they refused to play unless the league could guarantee them a pension. Eventually their demands were met. Bayne writes about this aspect of Baylor’s life with the same attention to detail as he does with the action on the court.

Baylor did remain in the game after his playing career ended, serving as head coach of the New Orleans (now Utah) Jazz and also as the general manager of the Los Angeles Clippers. He did not have the same success here as he did as a player and as a result, the book does not talk about this aspect of his career as much as his playing days.

Nonetheless, this is an outstanding book on a man that is often overlooked when the greatest players in the history of the game are mentioned. While that is a shame, this book does justice to show that Baylor truly is one of the game’s elite players and the reader will come away with much respect for both Elgin Baylor the player and the man.


http://sportsbookguy.blogspot.com/201...

[Monte Lamb · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book really came up short. There are typo's and the writing is not very good. There are places where the paragraphs jump from one subject to another without knowing why and there are out of place sentences in some paragraphs. Basically, the book is somewhat like a collection of re-posted sports stories giving Baylor's stats. I can say the final chapter does a good job of summarizing Baylor's life and achievements. I really did get a sense of Baylor's greatness and importance to the game, but thought the story could have been written so much better.

[Alex Hayes · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't realize how good of player Elgin Baylor was despite playing with bad knees most of his career. The book itself contained a lot of stats which hurt its readability and did not get much into his personal life. Most of the information in the book was taken from other sources.

[Adam J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Timely biography of a great player and a better man.