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“NBA Remembers”

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Before LeBron James and Michael Jordan.
Before Larry Bird and Magic Johnson.
Before Julius Erving and Oscar Robertson.
Before Kobe Bryant and the Twin Towers-Olajuwon-Sampson.
Before so many others, he was there.

And he was special.

The NBA remembers the great dynasties, Red Auerbach’s Celtics…the Chicago Bulls-Jordan and Pippen…Phil Jackson-Kobe and Shaq and the Lakers.

And the NBA is remembering Elgin Baylor, who passed away mid-day Monday at age 86.  West-Baylor-Chamberlain, the original LA Lakers dynasty.

The first legendary NBA super star.  He accomplished so much as a player, not so much as an executive.

A look back at a remarkable playing career and his troubled life as an NBA-GM in this TSN report:

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LOS ANGELES — Elgin Baylor, the Lakers’ 11-time NBA All-Star who soared through the 1960s with a high-scoring style of basketball that became the model for the modern player, died Monday. He was 86.

The Lakers announced that Baylor died of natural causes in Los Angeles with his wife, Elaine, and daughter Krystal by his side.

With a silky-smooth jumper and fluid athleticism, Baylor played a major role in revolutionizing basketball from a ground-bound sport into an aerial show. He spent parts of 14 seasons with the Lakers in Minneapolis and Los Angeles during his Hall of Fame career, teaming with Jerry West throughout the ’60s in one of the most potent tandems in basketball history.

“Elgin was THE superstar of his era — his many accolades speak to that,” Lakers Governor Jeanie Buss said in a statement announcing Baylor’s death.

Baylor’s second career as a personnel executive with the woebegone Los Angeles Clippers was much less successful. He worked for the Clippers from 1986 until 2008, when he left the team with acrimony and an unsuccessful lawsuit against owner Donald Sterling and the NBA, alleging age and race discrimination.

The 6-foot-5 Baylor played in an era before significant television coverage of basketball, and little of his play was ever captured on film. His spectacular style is best remembered by those who saw it in person — including West, who once called him “one of the most spectacular shooters the world has ever seen.”

Baylor had an uncanny ability to hang in mid-air indefinitely, inventing shots along the way with his head bobbing. Years before Julius Erving and Michael Jordan became international superstars with their similarly acrobatic games, Baylor created the blueprint for the modern superstar.

Baylor soared above most of his contemporaries, but never won a championship or led the NBA in scoring largely because he played at the same time as centres Bill Russell, who won all the rings, and Wilt Chamberlain, who claimed all the scoring titles. Knee injuries hampered much of the second half of Baylor’s career, although he remained a regular All-Star.

West and Baylor were the first pair in the long tradition of dynamic duos with the Lakers, followed by Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in the 1980s before Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal won three more titles in the 2000s.

But Baylor’s Lakers lost six times in the NBA Finals to the Boston Celtics and another time to the New York Knicks. Los Angeles won the 1971-72 title, but only after Baylor retired nine games into the season.

Baylor arrived in the NBA in 1958 as the No. 1 draft pick out of Seattle University. He immediately set new superlatives for individual scoring, with a 55-point game in his Rookie-of-the-Year season before scoring 64 on Nov. 8, 1959 — then the NBA single-game record, and the Lakers record for 45 years until Bryant broke it.

Baylor became the first NBA player to surpass 70 points with a 71-point game Dec. 11, 1960, against New York. Chamberlain set the record of 100 points in 1962.

Baylor averaged 38 points in the 1961-62 season despite doing active duty as an Army reservist. He scored 61 points in a playoff game against Boston in 1962, a record that would stand for 24 years until Jordan broke it.

Baylor averaged 27.4 points and 13.5 rebounds during his 14-year career. He scored a total of 23,149 points in 846 games, and was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in May 1977.

Elgin Gay Baylor was born in Washington, D.C. on Sept. 16, 1934. He was named after his father’s favourite watch, an “Elgin” timepiece. Although he starred at two high schools, Baylor struggled academically and briefly dropped out, working in a furniture store and playing in local recreational leagues.

Baylor went to the College of Idaho because he was given a scholarship to play both basketball and football, but the school fired its basketball coach and cut several scholarships a year later. Baylor transferred to Seattle and played from 1956-58, averaging 31.3 points per game and leading the team to the 1958 NCAA championship game, where it lost to coach Adolph Rupp’s Kentucky Wildcats.

The year before the Lakers persuaded Baylor to leave college a year early, the club was near bankruptcy after finishing 19-53, falling far since their glory years in the late ’40s and early ‘50s in Minneapolis with centre George Mikan.

Baylor transformed the franchise with his scoring and style. Minneapolis beat the Detroit Pistons and the defending champion St. Louis Hawks in the 1959 playoffs to make it to the NBA Finals, losing to the fledgling Celtics dynasty.

Baylor averaged 24.9 points, fourth in the league, and was third in rebounding with 15 a game. He was easily voted Rookie of the Year.

The Lakers moved west to Los Angeles in 1960, and Baylor became the centerpiece of their Hollywood revival. He averaged 34.8 points in the Lakers’ first season in Los Angeles, second in the league to Chamberlain.

Jerry West arrived from West Virginia in 1960, and they immediately clicked, averaging 69.1 combined points per game. Baylor played in only 48 games on weekend passes because his military service, but the Lakers still won the Western Conference by 11 games.

Baylor’s 61-point performance against the Celtics in Game 5 of the finals put the Lakers ahead 3-2 in the series, but they lost to the Celtics in overtime in Game 7 — the pinnacle of the Lakers’ suffering at Boston’s hands.

Frank Selvy missed a 10-foot jumper that would have won the game in regulation. In film of that moment, Baylor appears poised to get Selvy’s rebound, then disappears from the screen. Baylor contended he was pushed out of bounds by Boston’s Sam Jones.

“I’ve always felt that was our championship,” Baylor told the Riverside Press-Enterprise in 2000.

He never got closer to a ring.

The following season Baylor became the first to finish in the NBA’s top five in four different statistical categories: scoring, rebounding, assists and free-throw percentage. The Lakers reached the finals again — and lost to the Celtics again.

Knee problems that began in the 1963-64 season started a slow decline for Baylor. He never averaged more than 30 points a season again, though he remained a competent scorer.

Baylor played his last full season in 1968-69, and suited up only sporadically until retiring at 37 in the fall of 1971.

Baylor’s post-playing career never lived up to the magic of his on-court skills.

The expansion New Orleans Jazz hired him as an assistant coach for their debut season in 1974, and he eventually replaced Butch van Breda Kolff as coach during the 1976-77 season, going 86-135 in parts of three seasons. Pete Maravich’s Jazz never made the playoffs, and Baylor resigned after the 1978-79 season.

In April 1986, the Clippers hired Baylor as their vice-president for basketball operations. The Clippers made the playoffs in 1992 and 1993, but the franchise became the modern model of sports ineptitude for most of his tenure with poor drafting, indifferent fans and skinflint financial dealings.

Sterling largely was blamed for the franchise’s ineptitude, while Baylor received both admiration for his tenacity and ricidule for his inability to fix the Clippers’ woes.

Their 22-year relationship ended abruptly in October 2008 when the club put coach Mike Dunleavy in charge of personnel decisions.

Baylor, then 74, filed a $2 million lawsuit against the Clippers, Sterling and the NBA in February 2009, alleging he was fired because of his age and race. Baylor also said the Clippers grossly underpaid him.

The Clippers denied the allegations and said Baylor had resigned voluntarily. A Los Angeles County jury unanimously ruled in the Clippers’ favour in March 2011, refusing to award any damages.

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“Aztecs-End of Run–End of Era?”

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Clank

That’s all I heard most of the night.

It was awful to watch, imaging playing in the game, how much worse it was.

Syracuse’s blowout win over San Diego State.  The Aztecs never looked like the Aztecs.  Looked more like Mt St. Mary’s, Towson State or Colgate.

Overwhelmed and overmatched.  Out coached and out schemed.

It was shocking to see SDSU get stomped the way they did, considering they had 5-days of film and full practices to cope withthe Orange zone defense.

Maybe Brian Dutcher should have watched videos of Syracuse-Pitt when Jamie Dixon coached the Panthers.  He went (15-6) against the Orange.  Jay Wright of Villanova is (10-8) against SU.

I knew it would be a challenge, playing Syracuse, I did not think it would be impossible, but it was.

I am a big believer in body language, and I did not like what I saw some 5-minutes into the first half.  SDSU was shell shocked.  They had a glaze in their eyes.  They were intimidated by the length of the Syracuse guards out on the edge of the zone defense.

Clank.

Who would have thought San Diego State would go 15-possessions without a basket…no points in a span of (9:38)?  Who could have seen a (20-0) Orange run?  Or a (42-12) Orange burst?  Imagine a State team going (1-for-20) from the 3-point arc for nearly a half.  At one point they were down 27-points.

Clank.

So disheartending to see it end this way, but SDSU is (6-13) in NCAA play, and (6-10) in the Steve Fisher-Brian Dutcher era.

The Matt Mitchell-Jordan Schakel team’s have given us a fun four years of basketball, including (54-7) over the last two winters.

Brian Dutcher has been spectacular (96-30) in his era sitting in the first chair on that bench over four seasons.

If Dutcher elects to go home to Minnesota to coach the Golden Gophers, we which him well.

If not, then we will look forward to the next batch of players he brings in to ‘coach em up’, which is what they have done over the last decade and a half.  Make them better players, make them men too.

We should say ‘job well done’ for what they have given us at Viejas.  It may take some time to get over this stomach ache of a loss, the way it happened.

But it is what happens to ‘mid-majors’ and that is what SDSU is.  Till they beat a Gonzaga, a Duke, a North Carolina, a Syracuse, it will always be a reach to think the Aztecs are a big time player.

End of a season, yes, end of an era, hope not.

Clank.

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“Aztecs-Building Tradition…Syracuse is Tradition”

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San Diego State plays Syracuse in the 1st round of the NCAA tourney late Friday night in Indianapolis.

The Aztecs have become a quality program on the West Coast, but a national following has yet to happen.

Syracuse has all that and more because of Jim Boeheim, and what he did helping form the Big East Conference and then guiding the move to the ACC.

A look at the Orange from Syracuse.com reporter Brent Axe and the some of the storylines that have made Syracuse a national power as I asked-he answered.

Q&A….

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THE DEMISE OF THE BIG EAST…WHAT WAS THE STRUGGLE LIKE FOR THE ORANGE TO LEAVE THE CONFERENCE

It was a moral struggle for sure given the history of Syracuse in the Big East but a no-brainer in terms of finances, television exposure and status in a Power 5 conference. You have to remember that when Syracuse went to the ACC there was a wild reshuffling of the deck in college sports. The pressure was on to cash in and that’s what Syracuse had to do, especially in football where the Big East had no foothold.

HAS THE MOVE TO THE ACC BEEN WELL RECEIVED BY THE FANS IN THE MARKET?

Fans understand why the moved had to be made but still miss the old Big East for sure. Syracuse still plays Georgetown every year, but it’s not the same.

A nice rivalry has blossomed with Duke. That game has produced some epic moments and record crowds in a short period of time. The problem is it is not a two-way rivalry. Ask 100 Duke fans who their rival is and they will all say North Carolina. Ask Syracuse fans the same question and it would be hard to get a consensus these days.

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PERCEPTION SYRACUSE HAS SLIPPED IN THE AFTERMATH OF THE NCAA SANCTIONS YEARS AGO?

There is no question Syracuse has slipped a little. They have not finished higher than sixth place in the ACC other than the first year joining the conference and have been on the NCAA bubble every year since 2016. That said, there is a Final Four (2016) and Sweet 16 run (2018) built in to the conversation, so that tends to make up for lost ground in the regular season.

SURPRISE BOEHEIM IS STILL COACHING-FIGURED HE WAS GOING TO RETIRE AND HAND OVER THE REIGNS TO MIKE HOPKINS?

I’m honestly not surprised. I knew Boeheim would find a way to keep coaching. It’s what he does. The man is a lifer. As for when he retires, I honestly have no idea. There is a theory that he will step aside when his son, Buddy, graduates from Syracuse next year. I don’t buy it. I’ve always joked it is going to be a “Weekend at Bernie’s” situation. They are going to look at the end of the bench one day and he will have just quietly passed away.

HOW GOOD IS THIS TEAM….LIVE OFF ZONE….LIVE OFF OFFFENSE….DEFENSE NOT STRONG

This team certainly doesn’t live off the zone defense the way it has in the past, but the defense has been much better down the stretch of the season.

Syracuse lives and dies on two things; 3-point shooting and rebounding. Syracuse is undefeated (14-0) when it outrebounds opponents this year. You have to keep the Orange off the boards if you are going to win.

As for 3-point shooting, watch out for Boeheim’s son, Buddy. He has been hot down the stretch, averaging 22.5 points, shooting 31-of-67 (46%) from distance in that stretch. Alan Griffin, Joe Girard III and Robert Braswell off the bench can all hit 3’s as well.

GREAT VENUE….IS THE DOME STILL THE DOME…ROCKING WITH FANS?

There is nothing like it when 35,000 fans make the Carrier Dome shake for a big college basketball game, so you can imagine how weird it was to see the building completely empty this season.

Syracuse just finished a $118 million renovation of the facility and fans have barely had the opportunity to see what the new center hung scoreboard can do. The experience is only going to be better when those two factors are finally combined once COVID protocols ease.

BOEHEIM VS THE MEDIA…STILL AN ISSUE?

Absolutely! Boeheim is as feisty as ever. I interview Boeheim once a week on the radio and it is truly “box of chocolates” radio. You never know what you are going to get.

He got into hot water recently for calling out a reporter’s height during a recent press conference. He also made national headlines last month for his comments on Duke’s Jalen Johnson, though that got a little ridiculous because Boeheim’s opinion that Duke was better without Johnson got attached to some other narratives about the story that he didn’t even say.

The Aztecs open the NCAA Tournament on Friday as historic Hinkle Field House, where they shot the movie ‘Hoosiers’ about that legendary 1954 high school team, the move featuring Gene Hackman.

SDSU will face a piece of history in Jim Boeheim, who has coached the Orange for 45-years.  He was one of the architects in the building of the Big East Conference.  His games with the legendary John Thompson and the Georgetown Hoyas are iconic in nature.

Now Syracuse plays in the ACC, and those rivals are Duke-North Carolina and Virginia.

The Orange have been spectacular during this Boeheim run at the Carrier Dome.

Longtime Utica OD sports writer John Pitarresi has covered the Orange during this halcyon era.  A close up look:

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SYRACUSE BASKETBALL
By JOHN PITARRESI

Syracuse is in the NCAA basketball tournament.
Of course, the Orange are. Aren’t they always?

Pretty much, but lately it has been by the skin of their teeth.
Though many SU fans tend to think their guys are owed a spot in the Big Dance every year, Jim Boeheim’s team has become a frequent resident on the bubble in recent seasons.

They were floating along in that perilous spot again this year until earning a berth after they gave Virginia everything they had in a last second loss In the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament last week.

So, the Orange are in and play San Diego State in a first round game March 19.

How did they get there? It’s hard to say. This is a mystifying team that was up and down most of the season until winning three in a row before the UVA loss.

The Orange, 16-9, aren’t outstanding by most
statistical measures, although they do rank in the top 20 in the nation in free throw percentage, steals,and blocks. They have some major flaws. They lack brawn on the front line, so they often have trouble
on the boards, and the defense has been lax at times. They gave up 52 points in the first half at Duke last month.

They have pluses, though, and right now the biggest one is Buddy Boeheim, the boss’s son. If anyone
ever thought the 6-6 junior guard plays because of nepotism – and there were more than a few – they
should be embarrassed by now. Boeheim is SU’s leading scorer at 17.1 points per game, he’s up to .373
from long range, and he’s scored 26, 17, 27 and 31 points in his last four games.

Boeheim might not be a great athlete – although he is better than he looks – but he knows how to play the game, as you would expect from a gym rat coach’s son. He handles well, usually knows when to
shoot, gets rid of the ball quickly, has great form, and recognizes when he has the advantage, as demonstrated by his recent tendency to take smaller defenders into the paint and shoot over them or kick the ball out for open shots. Big, quick guards can give him trouble and defend him well, but no one
has recently.

Boeheim isn’t the only weapon. Illinois transfer Alan Griffin is averaging 14.7 points and is a threat to go off at any time. He has speed, can get to the rim, and is a good 3-point shooter.

Sophomore forward Quincy Guerrier has played well, averaging 14.3 points and 8.8 rebounds, is tough inside, and is going to get better and better. Veteran Marek Dolezaj remains an important contributor, playing a smart all-around game, seeing the court and distributing the ball nicely, averaging 9.9 points, and taking more
hard charges than maybe his 6-foot-10, 200-pound body can stand.

Starting guard Joe Girard, up and down along with the team all season, averages 9.9 points, and sophomore forward Kadary Richmond is at 6.4 and is a defensive ace. Young forwards Robert Braswell and Jesse Edwards (6-foot-11) are likely to see a lot of action against San Diego State.

That crew probably is playing its best basketball of the season right now, moving the ball well and getting good looks, playing reasonably well on defense, and pressing with great effect when needed.
Defensive rebounding remains a weakness, and a bad night on the boards combined with a poor shooting night can put SU in a tough spot. Otherwise the Orange are capable of handling almost anyone
in the tournament.

This is Boeheim’s 45 th season as coach at his alma mater, and he’s piled up a 1,081-408 record, has never had a losing season, made the NCAA tournament three dozen times, reached the Final Four five times, and won a national championship, in 2003. He’s an ultra-competitive person – he was a very good player himself – is not warm and fuzzy, and has his faults – he has not been a noted disciplinarian, but who knows what happens behind the scenes? – but that is a resume few can match, and that’s why he is in the Hall of Fame.

Boeheim turned 76 in November, and the popular belief is that he will retire when Buddy graduates. Don’t bet on it. Unless his wife and family demand otherwise, they will have to drag him off the court by
his heels. He can’t live without basketball.

Boeheim has had to make the transition from the old Big East to the ACC, and it hasn’t been easy. Sanctions following the Fab Melo eligibility fiasco of 2012 – including Boeheim being suspended and
athletic director Daryl Gross losing his job – undoubtedly hurt in terms of recruiting and reputation, but the blowback is no longer a factor.

The Orange have been somewhat better than .500 in conference play
(79-65) since joining the league in 2012-13, they made the NCAA tourney five of the last six years – 2019-20 doesn’t count – and went to the Final Four in 2016.

By contrast, the Big East was no cakewalk for SU, but the Orange almost always were among the league’s top teams, had only two losing conference campaigns in 34 seasons, and almost always were nationally ranked at the end of the year.

Right now, and for a long time, Duke, North Carolina, and Virginia have been the big dogs in the ACC. Joining that group is going to take a while longer for the Orange.

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“Drew Brees-Greatness”

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So what should we remember him for?  Drew Brees-the quarterback.

His drive to get the historically downtrodden New Orleans Saints a Super Bowl ring, so the phrase ‘Who Dat’ became Bourban Street lore?

His 80,000 plus yards and his 571-career touchdowns in a 20-year career in the NFL?

His resurrection of a wretched San Diego Chargers franchise, trying to recover from the (1-15) Ryan Leaf era?

His recovery from a horrible shoulder blade injury in his final game as a Charger just as free agency was about to start?

His comeback from all the insults of his career, just 1-free agent offer after he got hurt, a one year make good contract at a lower price, after Miami pulled an offer off the table?

His determination to take the only college offer he had from Purdue Boilermaker coach Joe Tiller after none of the big schools in Texas offered him anything more, except to walk-on as a safety not a quarterback with the Longhorns or Aggies or Baylor Bears?

His personna to excel when everyone said, too small, to weak an arm to play in college or the NFL?

So many memories of the man who overcame all the doubters.

I’ll add one more, what Drew Brees did when he signed in New Orleans, not on the field, but in the community.

New Orleans, devastated by Hurricane Katrina.  You remember the bodies floating on flooded streets.  Bodies found in attics of flooded houses.  The Superdome turned into a safe haven for those trying to escape from the catastrophic parishes southeast of the city.  The raging waters, the floods, the stench, the death that permeated everywhere in the Gulf South.

That was Drew Brees, carrying a Saints flag, and a Louisiana state flag, starting 5-different foundations to help lead the city back to life.  A football player investing his own millions that first year and rallying NFL players everywhere to help fund trucks upon trucks of food supplies, water and medical supplies to be imported into the Crescent City.

The same Drew Brees who stepped up a year ago this week to make a massive finanical donation to help in the early fight with Covid.

We will remember him on the field, but we should never forget him off the field in his community too.

The quarterback lives here in DelMar in the off season.  He begins his NBC-TV career this summer as an NFL-analyst..Color analyst on Notre Dame games, and work at the Olympics.

Next stop will be the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton.

What a player, what a gentleman.  What a career and life well lived.  Drew Brees-Well Done!

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Below a unique column written by legendary Gil Brandt-a longtime scout for the Dallas Cowboys.  Courtesy NFL.com

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Watching the praise roll in for Drew Brees on the occasion of his retirement from the NFL, I’ve been thinking back on someone I’ve come to know quite well over the years, someone who will go down not just as one of the great quarterbacks of all time but as one of the great people.
And I’ve also been thinking about how his career might not have happened the way it did if not for a phone call I made roughly 20 years ago.
I first became familiar with Drew when he led Westlake High School to the Texas state championship in 1996, beating Abilene Cooper — which was then coached by Randy Allen, who currently helms the program at Highland Park — by the score of 55-15. Though he finished with a record of 28-0-1 as a starter, he was basically ignored by major college programs; the best he got from Texas, where his uncle played, was a walk-on offer. Of course, today, we know Drew is a lifelong overachiever who excels at everything he does, whether in football, business, or whatever else he wants to do. He landed a scholarship from Purdue, and being snubbed because of his height — which officially is 6-foot-3/8 — merely provided him with one of his first chances to show the world what he’s made of.
I personally got a close look at what Brees could do via my role with the Playboy All-American Preseason Team, which I picked (along with Gary Cole) from 1962 to 2011. (Incidentally, our track record selecting notable college players was pretty good: 52 of the players that we picked are currently in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and 32 became Heisman Trophy-winners.) Drew was our choice at quarterback ahead of his junior year, in 1999. In 2000, we couldn’t decide whether to go with Brees again or Michael Vick, so we included them both, slotting Vick as the QB and Brees as a scholar-athlete.

Tomlinson: I always knew Drew Brees was going to be a Hall of Famer
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What we used to do was, we’d have our honored players come to an Arizona resort for a long weekend in the spring. The players loved the chance to golf and fish, and we also had pro-day-type events where they’d test their skills, encompassing both combine-type events (minus the 40-yard dash) and things like a quick-draw contest and a mechanical-bull riding contest. We usually didn’t have multiple quarterbacks, but with Brees and Vick there in 2000, we had them throw passes, to receivers and at targets. Here’s how I remember the results of the targeted event: Brees put the ball through the hole 23 of 25 times, while Vick hit the target on 10 of 25 tries. (And, for what it’s worth, I have to note that Brees hit this mark while also drinking beer, while the 20-year-old Vick was sticking to soda. )
Fast-forward to the 2001 NFL Draft, when the San Diego Chargers held the first overall pick. I called my good friend John Butler, the Chargers general manager (who sadly passed away in 2003), and asked him what he was going to do with the selection. He said, “We’re going to take Vick.” I said, “Well, you’d better send somebody to work him out first, because I think Drew Brees is a lot better.” So the Chargers worked Vick out. When I got a call back, it was to let me know that I was absolutely right, and that the Chargers were going to try to trade the choice. They ended up swapping with the Falcons, who drafted Vick, then used the fifth overall pick to snag future Hall of Fame running back LaDainian Tomlinson in the first round before grabbing Brees in the second. And the rest is history.

Brees will go down as one of the ultimate underdogs after proving doubters wrong at every level. But his career was also marked by twists of fate. Like in 2006, when he might have signed with the Dolphins (Nick Saban wanted him!) and not the Saints (where he put together some truly legendary seasons) if Miami’s doctors hadn’t been scared off by Brees’ shoulder injury. Or in 2001, when he might have missed out on the chance to show his stuff in San Diego if I hadn’t called Butler.
I know we’re losing a great player with Brees’ retirement. I also know he’ll continue to be a factor in the growth of New Orleans. I’ve known a lot of people over the years, and what I have to say about Drew Brees is this: He’s definitely a once-in-a-lifetime type of person.

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