Where does Elgin Baylor rank all time?

[mischievous]

I noticed on the top 100 list that he was ranked 33rd. I thought that was kind of low, so is that the consensus here or..?

[SactoKingsFan]

I've seen Baylor in the top 20 on some lists. My recently updated list has Baylor in the 30-35 range with Payton, Kidd, Gilmore, Pierce and Pettit.

[Ballerhogger]

Top 20

[SlowPaced]

I don't have a ranking right now but I reckon he'd be Top 30.

[Laimbeer]

The list was done by a handful of posters, it doesn't really represent the site. He has a very good case for top 15, but I'm more comfortable saying top 20.

It might be interesting to do a poll like this in the general forum to get a broader perspective, but it might get moved back in here.

[Jim Naismith]

According to ESPN's SportsCentury, these are the top basketball players of the 20th Century:

01 Michael Jordan
13 Wilt Chamberlain
17 Magic Johnson
18 Bill Russell
26 Kareem Abdul Jabbar
30 Larry Bird
36 Oscar Robertson
43 Julius Erving
58 Elgin Baylor
62 Jerry West
94 Bob Cousy

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SportsCentury

[RSCD3_]

According to ESPN's SportsCentury, these are the top basketball players of the 20th Century:

01 Michael Jordan
13 Wilt Chamberlain
17 Magic Johnson
18 Bill Russell
26 Kareem Abdul Jabbar
30 Larry Bird
36 Oscar Robertson
43 Julius Erving
58 Elgin Baylor
62 Jerry West
94 Bob Cousy

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SportsCentury

I think it's a big stretch to say Baylor over west

[Jim Naismith]

According to ESPN's SportsCentury, these are the top basketball players of the 20th Century:

01 Michael Jordan
13 Wilt Chamberlain
17 Magic Johnson
18 Bill Russell
26 Kareem Abdul Jabbar
30 Larry Bird
36 Oscar Robertson
43 Julius Erving
58 Elgin Baylor
62 Jerry West
94 Bob Cousy

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SportsCentury

I think it's a big stretch to say Baylor over west

West over Baylor is the RealGM consensus, but the outside world viewed them differently. I think Elgin Baylor was viewed as a proto-Jordan, or at least a proto-Dr. J, and the father of modern (slam dunking, high-flying) basketball.

Jerry West may have benefited from a halo effect due his success as Laker GM, while Baylor's tenure as Clipper GM had the opposite effect.

You know what's a big stretch? Pippen (#27 on the RealGM list) over Baylor. Baylor completely dominates Pippen in MVP shares and PoY shares.

[Ballerhogger]

According to ESPN's SportsCentury, these are the top basketball players of the 20th Century:

01 Michael Jordan
13 Wilt Chamberlain
17 Magic Johnson
18 Bill Russell
26 Kareem Abdul Jabbar
30 Larry Bird
36 Oscar Robertson
43 Julius Erving
58 Elgin Baylor
62 Jerry West
94 Bob Cousy

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SportsCentury

I think it's a big stretch to say Baylor over west

Agreed

[CaliBullsFan]

I've seen Baylor in the top 20 on some lists. My recently updated list has Baylor in the 30-35 range with Payton, Kidd, Gilmore, Pierce and Pettit.

Baylor in a range with Pierce... There list of accomplishments are planets apart how could they possibly be in the same range?

[CaliBullsFan]

According to ESPN's SportsCentury, these are the top basketball players of the 20th Century:

01 Michael Jordan
13 Wilt Chamberlain
17 Magic Johnson
18 Bill Russell
26 Kareem Abdul Jabbar
30 Larry Bird
36 Oscar Robertson
43 Julius Erving
58 Elgin Baylor
62 Jerry West
94 Bob Cousy

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SportsCentury

I think it's a big stretch to say Baylor over west

Why when they played together and Baylor was healthy Baylor was viewed as the clear best player

[mischievous]

I've seen Baylor in the top 20 on some lists. My recently updated list has Baylor in the 30-35 range with Payton, Kidd, Gilmore, Pierce and Pettit.

Baylor in a range with Pierce... There list of accomplishments are planets apart how could they possibly be in the same range?

They aren't, Baylor is a a couple tiers ahead of Pierce.

[Johnlac1]

About to the mid sixties Baylor was viewed as the better, more impactful player. Baylor could do everything including handling the ball. He was a good passer and a superior rebounder.
After West's super performance without Baylor in the '65 finals against Boston, people starting thinking a little differently. By the latter part of the sixties as his assist totals grew, many people felt West was by that time the more impactful player.
But even his mid thirties and after a major knee operation Baylor averaged over 24 ppg and shot the best fg pct. of his career during the '69-'70 season.

[Owly]

According to ESPN's SportsCentury, these are the top basketball players of the 20th Century:

01 Michael Jordan
13 Wilt Chamberlain
17 Magic Johnson
18 Bill Russell
26 Kareem Abdul Jabbar
30 Larry Bird
36 Oscar Robertson
43 Julius Erving
58 Elgin Baylor
62 Jerry West
94 Bob Cousy

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SportsCentury

I think it's a big stretch to say Baylor over west

West over Baylor is the RealGM consensus, but the outside world viewed them differently.

Depends what you mean.

Historically (in published rankings) West has been placed above Baylor more often than vice-versa and averages out higher, but it is fairly close.

West has a fairly clear-cut MVP share advantage though in the MVP share rankings there isn't much of a difference (West: 2.090, 21st; Baylor 1.659, 23rd). West perhaps has an advantage in that his prime covers an era with weaker MVP competition (after Wilt, Russell, Robertson had declined a little - though Baylor played for a little bit before most of these guys too), but is disadvantaged in those rankings because MVP is an RS award and those percieved as strong playoff players (perhaps most notably Olajuwon) tend to get a significant boost in GOAT type rankings.

For RealGM PotY the gap is larger (Jerry West: 3.795, 16th; Baylor 2.223 23rd), again here playoffs can play a large role (Dirk, 2011: 0.093 MVP Shares - 6th, 2nd team all NBA; RS wise 10th in PER, 7th in WS/48, 10th in total win shares, but - one suspects largely due to postseason - 1st place in PotY with .939 shares, ditto Olajuwon '95).

Possible reasons why opinion on the gap between West and Baylor has been revised:

1) Emphasis on D: West was a premier guard defender in his day. Because there weren't accolades for this for much of his career this perhaps wasn't factored as much into 80s, 90s early 2000s (and some modern) rankings of their respective merits.

2) Movement away from accolades/awards: Baylor continued to rack up 1st team all-NBA's after '63 but the metrics suggest prior to this point he was an elite player, after depending on the metric and year he was good to average (by the boxscore, and being less mobile after the injuries - presumably a worse defender).

3) Movement away from (non-efficient?) volume scorers. Now iirc, peak Baylor isn't bad in terms of efficiency versus league norms, but I think even young West was the more efficient scorer.

4) Maybe WoWY stuff too.

Fwiw Baylor is framed as a proto-Erving, but then so is Connie Hawkins. Some will frame David Thompson as a proto-MJ. There has been a move a away from innovation (and perhaps style, as in Cousy or especially Maravich) towards value added on court. This hurts Baylor.

For me Barry over Baylor was the suprise but to each their own.

I think it's a big stretch to say Baylor over west

Why when they played together and Baylor was healthy Baylor was viewed as the clear best player

This is a red herring. Peak Baylor didn't play with West near his peak (it might even be argued that West didn't/couldn't enter his prime until Baylor went down - and I think this and the fact they didn't seem to miss Baylor so much counted against him). And West played much longer at a high level.

This wouldn't (necessarily) mean Baylor over West is a reach, but it does mean arguing Baylor over West based solely on what each did up to '63 is a poor argument.

[Quotatious]

Baylor in a range with Pierce... There list of accomplishments are planets apart how could they possibly be in the same range?

I have Baylor ahead of Pierce (about 5-10 spot difference on my list), but Baylor was generally overrated when he played, Pierce was generally underrated, and then you factor in how much weaker Baylor's era was, and it's not that huge of a difference. Baylor was like a better Iverson - he produced incredible raw numbers, but he needed a ton of shot attempts (there's no way any coach would let him take 28-33 shots per game in the modern era, like he was taking during his highest volume years between '61 and '63), and obviously his numbers are inflated by extremely high pace. He also wasn't anything special on defense (definitely not better than Pierce, as far as I'm concerned).

Baylor was obviously an excellent scorer (not nearly as efficient as West or Robertson, though), capable of creating his own shot and a great rebounder.

I know that you like to reward players for how great they were in the era they played in, and that's okay, I guess, but comparing Baylor's and Pierce's accolades is disingenuous because Pierce's competition was far better, and it's much more difficult to get All-NBA recognition when there are 29/30 teams in the league, than 8 or 9, like it was in the 60s, most of the time.

Why when they played together and Baylor was healthy Baylor was viewed as the clear best player

No, he wasn't. Baylor was clearly better than West for only one season - 1961, which was West's rookie year. Besides, West was a far more advanced and complete player than Baylor, more efficient, too. Oscar and West were both easily better than Elgin. It's kinda like Kobe/Wade (Oscar/West) vs Iverson (Baylor). Pretty solid gap. Well, maybe the gap between Oscar/West and Baylor was a bit smaller, but still quite large.
Oh, and one more thing - Baylor shouldn't have taken more shots than West. It was just a poor coaching job in this regard, because the inferior scorer (Baylor) actually took more (and more low percentage, at that) shots than the superior one - West.

I think that a player's standing during his own era should count for something, so I rank Baylor ahead of Pierce, but in a vacuum, there isn't much separation between the two.

[Quotatious]

West over Baylor is the RealGM consensus, but the outside world viewed them differently. I think Elgin Baylor was viewed as a proto-Jordan, or at least a proto-Dr. J, and the father of modern (slam dunking, high-flying) basketball.

Ironically, West was a proto-Jordan just as much as Baylor was. What I mean is that Elgin had MJ-like aerial skills and he was the most explosive wing athlete of his era, but West had MJ-like two-way abilities, efficiency (at least league-relative), obsessive competitiveness and their below-the-rim game was very similar.

Jerry West may have benefited from a halo effect due his success as Laker GM, while Baylor's tenure as Clipper GM had the opposite effect.

What does it have to do with how good they were as players?

You know what's a big stretch? Pippen (#27 on the RealGM list) over Baylor. Baylor completely dominates Pippen in MVP shares and PoY shares.

Again - comparing accolades of 60s and 90s/2000s players is disingenuous, because the league was much smaller in the 60s, a lot less players to compete with. Besides, Pippen played with Jordan who was getting most of the recognition for the Bulls' success. Pippen also owns Baylor on defense.

[Jim Naismith]

Jerry West may have benefited from a halo effect due his success as Laker GM, while Baylor's tenure as Clipper GM had the opposite effect.

What does it have to do with how good they were as players?

By calling it a halo effect, I'm implying the reputational boost West enjoyed from his Laker GM days is illogical.

[Witzig-Okashi]

Jerry West may have benefited from a halo effect due his success as Laker GM, while Baylor's tenure as Clipper GM had the opposite effect.

What does it have to do with how good they were as players?

By calling it a halo effect, I'm implying the reputational boost West enjoyed from his Laker GM days is illogical.

So, are you saying that West's reputation as a player is amplified solely due to his Lakers GM days? I'm sort of getting that from what you're typing, but I don't want to jump the gun.

Even if that was the case, there's nothing wrong with constructive historical revisionism. It usually gets a negative connotation (and that's an entirely different conversation), but if new information comes out to challenge the commonly held beliefs, then said beliefs should be scrutinized in order to see if it holds up.

[trex_8063]

Baylor was clearly better than West for only one season - 1961, which was West's rookie year. Besides, West was a far more advanced and complete player than Baylor, more efficient, too. Oscar and West were both easily better than Elgin. It's kinda like Kobe/Wade (Oscar/West) vs Iverson (Baylor). Pretty solid gap. Well, maybe the gap between Oscar/West and Baylor was a bit smaller, but still quite large.
Oh, and one more thing - Baylor shouldn't have taken more shots than West. It was just a poor coaching job in this regard, because the inferior scorer (Baylor) actually took more (and more low percentage, at that) shots than the superior one - West.

I want to give a couple plugs for Baylor, although I generally agree with you on his relation to Pierce (I presently have him probably 7-9 places ahead of Pierce all-time).

On "...shouldn't have taken more shots than West" and West being more efficient
I agree with the gist of this, although I'm not sure how much of that to lay at Baylor's feet. How much of that was, as you suggested, a coaching mistake? And how much of the blame can we lay on West himself? Perhaps was deferring too much or not being assertive enough in general.
And while West had much better shooting efficiency, one must wonder how much that would change if we shifted the dynamic in shot volume. Suppose Baylor no longer creates so much, but instead takes largely the better shot opportunities that come his way. And in compensation, suppose it is now West who must shoulder added usage and isos (isos probably being the primary means by which West would increase his volume; I mean it's not like he was turning down quality shot opportunities).....I suspect we'd see the gap in their respective shooting efficiencies (except for '65 and '66, when Baylor was really struggling post-injury) close substantially (probably even pretty close to even a few years).

And fwiw, Baylor was amazing in his first few seasons (especially '61), and imo still more or less West's equal in '62 and probably better in '63. Below are per 100 possession estimates, relative ts%, and mpg by year....

'59 Baylor (rookie): 25.4 pts, 15.3 reb, 4.2 ast @ +3.09% rts in 40.8 mpg (that's a hell of a rookie year)

'60 Baylor: 28.6 pts, 15.85 reb, 3.35 ast @ +2.58% rts in 41.0 mpg

'61
Baylor: 31.1 pts, 17.75 reb, 4.55 ast @ +2.91% rts in 42.9 mpg
West (rookie): 19.1 pts, 8.4 reb, 4.6 ast @ -0.10% rts in 35.4 mpg

'62
Baylor: 33.6 pts, 16.3 reb, 4.1 ast @ +1.34% rts in 44.4 mpg
West: 29.1 pts, 7.5 reb, 5.1 ast @ +4.57% rts in 41.2 mpg

'63
Baylor: 32.9 pts, 13.9 reb, 4.7 ast @ +2.63% rts in 42.1 mpg
West: 28.05 pts, 7.2 reb, 5.8 ast @ +3.07% rts in 39.3 mpg (missed 25 games, too)

Baylor's defensive reputation isn't bad either.

[Johnlac1]

One thing that hurt Baylor's stats by modern standards was his tendency to take a lot of bad shots...which were considered good shots in the late fifties and early sixties.
Baylor took a lot of turn around jump shots from 15-18 feet which are some of the toughest, low percentage shots to take. Which is why his fg. pct. was usually in the low forties and only occasionally around the mid forties.
Plus, Baylor didn't use his guide hand and stopped taking bad turn around shots until later in his career.
Which is probably why against superior defenses (compared to his early days) he shot close to 49% from the floor in '69-'70 at the age of 35 and averaged 24 ppg.
West almost always took a straight up jump shot and used his guide hand from the start of his career. Which is one reason his career fg pct. is about five pct. pts above Baylor's.