Remembering Elgin Baylor, Coach of the New Orleans Jazz

Hall of Famer Elgin Baylor coached the Jazz during the franchise’s time in New Orleans. (Reed Saxon via espn.com)

Last week the NBA community lost a giant with the passing of Elgin Baylor. Several NBA teams had posts specifically honoring Baylor and his contributions to the game of basketball. The Lakers of course honored the 11-time All-Star, as he spent his entire 14 year playing career with the team in both Minneapolis and Los Angeles. The Clippers, too, as he spent 22 years there as an executive working for infamous former owner Donald Sterling. Even the Washington Wizards made sure to remember the Washington, D.C. native.

I would be lying if I didn’t say I was a little disappointed that the Jazz didn’t specifically have a post in remembrance of Baylor. There have been only eight head coaches in Jazz franchise history and Baylor was the third, taking over for Butch van Breda Kolff midway through the 1976-77 New Orleans Jazz season.

He only coached the team for 2 1/2 seasons and his win-loss record was unremarkable at 86-135. But Baylor was there at the beginning of the Jazz franchise. After inaugural head coach Scotty Robertson led the Jazz to an ignominious 1-14 record, he was fired and Baylor’s old Lakers coach Butch van Breda Kolff was hired to replace him. van Breda Kolff asked if Baylor would join him and so Baylor decided to give coaching a try. In his memoir, Baylor wrote how he agreed to coach because he wanted to reunite with van Breda Kolff as well as his former teammate Hot Rod Hundley, the radio and tv broadcaster for the fledgling Jazz team. As Baylor recalled, it was perhaps not the best idea to look for a change of scenery in one of the country’s premier party cities while joining two of the country’s premier party animals.

Beyond the partying, Baylor remembered that the Jazz’s early struggles weren’t always a reflection of the coaching as the roster was severely lacking in talent. It didn’t help that van Breda Kolff never got along with star Pete Maravich. When van Breda Kolff was fired in 1976, Baylor reluctantly accepted the head coach job, becoming only the sixth black full-time head coach in NBA history. Baylor was able to better utilize Maravich but struggled with racial divisions in the locker room and while his star player’s production improved, the team still didn’t win much. In a 2018 interview with NOLA.com, Baylor noted that his time with the Jazz wasn’t among his fondest memories.

Beyond the locker room divisions, he consistently struggled against the pressures of ownership that did not want to pay for quality players or truly invest in the team, something he would experience in perpetuity during his 22 years as an executive with the Clippers. Eventually, Maravich would get injured and after five years of struggling to profit in the New Orleans market, the team would be relocated to Utah. Baylor would not make the trip, as at the end of the 1979 season, the Jazz informed Baylor that his services would no longer be needed.

A Hall of Fame player, Baylor’s greatest legacy will always be from what he did on the court as a player more than his legacy as an executive or as a head coach. Nonetheless, he was a trail blazer. He wasn’t the first full time black NBA head coach; Bill Russell, Al Attles, Lenny Wilkens, Earl Lloyd and Ray Scott all preceded him, but he was among those who helped open those doors. He wasn’t the first Jazz coach, but he was there from the first season and helped to create and guide the franchise we all love today. I’ll always be grateful for Elgin Baylor’s contributions to basketball and specifically to the Jazz. Rest in peace, coach.