You Tube Gold: Forgotten Greatness

After ESPN revolutionized sports, it became a lot harder to forget people: sports were on constantly and so were highlights.

So if a guy like Elgin Baylor were playing today, we’d see him constantly. He was a brilliant basketball player who had immense talent and a deep intelligence for the game as you’ll see here. He makes some gorgeous passes and is just about unstoppable on offense

Spoiler alert: Kentucky wins the 1958 title.

Still, Seattle got there and that was impressive.

Unfortunately for Baylor, though the Lakers paired him with Jerry West for a dynamic 1-2 punch, their careers overlapped with Bill Russell’s Celtics and Boston sucked up all the glory.

The Lakers would have to wait until 1972 when Wilt Chamberlain was a Laker. Sadly for Baylor, he retired nine games into the season. As soon as he retired, the Lakers went on an epic 33-game winning streak and later won the championship.