Elgin Baylor

CTL-E-7008 · Person · other · 1934–2021

VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)

Combined Graph record U-07880 · provenance: build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-7008.

Elgin Baylor (September 16, 1934 – March 22, 2021), born in Washington, D.C., was the Minneapolis and Los Angeles Lakers' first superstar and the prototype of the modern forward. Baylor won the 1959 NBA Rookie of the Year Award, made eleven All-Star teams, and averaged 27.4 points and 13.5 rebounds over fourteen seasons. He scored 71 points in a 1960 game — then a league record — and set the still-standing Finals single-game record of 61 points in Game 5 of the 1962 Finals. Baylor reached the Finals eight times without a championship; he retired nine games into the 1971–72 season, the year the Lakers finally won the title, and the team presented him a ring he had not been on the roster to earn. His hanging, improvisational scoring style — developed on D.C. playgrounds and refined at Seattle University and the College of Idaho — reshaped what a forward could do. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1977 and later spent twenty-two years as general manager of the Los Angeles Clippers.

The record

• Also known as: Elgin Gay Baylor

Notes

Sports Encyclopedia roster CTL-SPE-0325. Firsts disposition: no 'first' asserted; the 61-point Finals mark is stated as the standing record per the Hall of Fame and Wikipedia. The ring presentation is carried as both sources describe it. Curator's Judgment (DRAFT): Baylor is the great almost — eight Finals, zero titles — and the record shows the league he built was the one that finally won without him. Photo: CLEARED (1967 portrait, public domain).

Sources

• Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. "Elgin Baylor." Accessed 2026-11-03. (primary source · build store)
• Wikipedia. "Elgin Baylor." Accessed 2026-11-03. (build store)

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Record CTL-E-7008 · Combined Graph record U-07880 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 2 sources.
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Researched and maintained by the CultureTechLens research program · CultureTechLens Combined Graph, Release 2026-11-04. Corrections are public: the corrections log.

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