An update - I just listened to an hour long interview with Bill Russell
today on 'On Point', hosted by Tom Ashbrook. When asked about today's
players, Mr. Russell said "Kobe, Lebron and Howard are great players, but
they are not better than Elgin Baylor or Oscar Robertson". Again I thought
that this was very revealing and confirms some of the other sentiments I
have heard about Baylor from Oscar himself as well as Wilt and Jerry West.

--vb14086



Elgin Baylor was the finest player I have seen in
the 35 years I have watched basketball. Before
his knee injury, he was an unstoppable player and
as teammate Tom Hawkins said, 'He could post up Bill
Russell, pass like Magic and dribble as well as the
best guards in the league. Wilt once said in an
interview (when talking about how many players he'd
seen dunking over Kareem), 'no one dunked over
me - I still get nightmares thinking about the time
Elgin Baylor did'.

Bill Russell said that he has what he calls his 'firsts' - never
saying which player he thinks is the best, he said Jordan and
Baylor were the 2 in his list of 'firsts'.

Plus, when Oscar Robertson was asked about 5 years ago who's
the best player he'd seen, he answered quickly and unequivocally :
Elgin Baylor (but then again, who's Oscar Robertson :) ).

And he also holds the record for most points in a playoff game at
61. Oh, I know - Jordan scored, I believe, 63 once, but that was in
a game that had at least 1 overtime and perhaps even 2 of them.
Not exactly a fair comparison.

--vb14086

Very dominant in his time.

Baylor didn't play defense like Jordan (although I think Jordan's defense, like the rest of his game, is overrated), but he was three-times the rebounder Jordan was. And considering he played without a three-point line and had to share the ball with West, I'd say he was a better scorer as well. Overall, Baylor was better than Jordan and at least as good as Oscar.

Baylor was the first guy to ever score 70 points in one game. He once averaged 19.8 rebounds and 34.8 points per game in the same season, at 6'5; another year, he went for 38.3 per game. The guy jumped like Doc or MJ; he was double teamed constantly, and was flat-out unstoppable. While he never won a title, not many players outside of Boston did either. Its kind of like arguing Pete Maravich wasn't a good college player because UCLA won all the NCAA tourneys back then.

Baylor was the Michael Jordan of his day. He led no teams to an championship, but if Jordan had played for the Bulls during that era, he wouldn't have either. And Jordan would have had to invent that going up in the air and creating from there style of play - which is what Baylor orginated. RJ, better defense; Baylor, better passer and rebounder; in scoring equal. Bill Adair

Elgin Baylor is never talked about when people talk about the best ever. He was an unstoppable scorer, and a great rebounder.