Elgin Baylor

June 29, 2015
Elgin Baylor, one of the premier superstars in the NBA, gets his first biography courtesy of Bayne, a Washington, D.C., sportswriter, who makes the case for considering Hall of Famer Baylor among the most elite players with his signature gravity-defying “hesitation” jump shot. Born in 1934 in segregated D.C., Baylor didn’t play basketball until high school, quickly gaining notice on the Phelps Vocational High School team. When the High Court struck down integration in 1954, Baylor transferred to another school, where a press notice called him “literally unstoppable,” before joining teams at the College of Idaho and Seattle University, scoring big points and media attraction. During the 1958 NBA draft, Baylor was selected first overall and signed with the Minnesota Lakers, only to face Jim Crow laws when it came to hotels; the Lakers sat out a game in hopes of influencing team owners to create a nondiscrimination policy. Bayne writes expertly of Baylor’s golden era with the newly relocated Los Angeles Lakers, his team-up with sharpshooter Jerry West, their rivalry with the Boston Celtics, his play in seven NBA finals and 11 All-Star games, and his decision to retire in 1971 due to bad knees. Bayne’s gracious biography of a media-savvy, high-profile ex-sportsman shows the man as much more than his patented spin moves and one-legged jumpers.

August 1, 2015

While often cited by current NBA superstars as being one of basketball's most athletically gifted and influential players of all-time, Elgin Baylor (b. 1934) is not a household name for many of today's fans. This biography from Bayne (Sky Kings) chronicles Baylor's on-court heroics during the 1960s as a Minneapolis and then L.A. Laker, giving insight into why the versatile, acrobatic, high-scoring power forward is so revered within NBA circles. Baylor's greatest games during the peak of his playing career, his mostly friendly rivalries with Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain, and the Lakers' status as perennial bridesmaids to the hated Boston Celtics are covered in impressive detail. But this rosy portrait glosses over Baylor's personal life, college playing career, injury-marred late-career decline, and postplaying years as an executive for the crosstown Clippers. The author's plodding, artless narrative is bogged down by too many statistics and an overreliance on superfluous and repetitive quotes culled from a wide variety of sources, all of which gush over Baylor's talent and character. VERDICT Surprisingly, this is the first biography devoted to the Hall of Famer, but it shouldn't be the last. Bayne's focus on the positives combined with ineloquent prose and a glut of unnecessary and fawning quotes mar a book that can only be mildly recommended to basketball fans interested in NBA history.--Douglas King, Univ. of South Carolina Lib., Columbia

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