Baylor not holding back

[lapdoggy <lapdoggy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

After reading that puff piece interview from Wallace the other day I
thought it would be appropriate to post an interview with a GM who's
got the balls to say what he feels. Wallace and Baylor couldn't be any
more opposite.





Bill Plaschke:
Baylor Is a Rock in Hardest of Places
 
LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS BASKETBALL TEAM
COLUMN
BAYLOR ELGIN


	 
He is draped elegantly across Seat 1, Row 1, a gray-templed portrait of
dignity and grace.

"How can we make the same mistakes over and over? How can we not learn?
You tell me, how?"

He is accessible, embraceable, a constantly smiling monument to this
town's earliest NBA glory.

"They shot layups, all layups, not outside shots! How come we can't
stop those layups?"

He is Elgin Baylor, and this is killing him.

The Clippers' best soldier has never spent a season taking so many
bullets for the boss.

The Clippers' best basketball man -- hey, Jerry West calls him to
brainstorm -- has never seen something so precious plundered so quickly.

"This is the most disappointing of all the seasons I've been here,"
said Baylor, no small claim considering he has spent 17 years as the
Clipper vice president of basketball operations.

"Before the season, everybody looked at this team and said, 'Wow,' " he
added. "Now I can't believe how we lose games. Some nights there's no
effort or enthusiasm. We've just really underachieved. So
disappointing. So frustrating."

Especially for one of the greatest players in NBA history, a
68-year-old man who still drives to work as if he were driving the
baseline, a guy who deserves better.

He is royalty in a kingdom of chaos.

He is the Duke of Donaldville.

The public sees him sitting courtside underneath the basket for every
Clipper home game -- his wife Elaine at his side, his daughter Krystle
behind him -- and they wonder how he tolerates it.

Hang with him for a few minutes and realize that he doesn't.

"He is always talking about things on the floor, strategy, the
players," Elaine said. "He's so intense, it's like he is still playing.
I have to tell him, 'You're not a player, you've done your part.' "

But Baylor was nothing if not a good teammate, so he willingly carries
the burdens of dysfunctional ownership on his still-broad shoulders. It
is an act that has never been more noble -- or nutty -- than now.

Through shrewd drafting and smart trading, he and personnel men Barry
Hecker and Gary Sacks built what was arguably the NBA's best young team.

But Baylor has watched it crumble under Donald Sterling's lack of
commitment.

Yet he offers only kindness.

"Mr. Sterling gave me my chance in this business, and for that I will
always be grateful," he said.

He has been in his job longer than all but one other NBA general
manager, he attends every practice, he watches most of the films, he
has grown into one of the better basketball minds in the business.

But he has seen his credibility attacked after carrying out mad
maneuvers on orders from Sterling.

Yet he refuses to pass the blame.

"We're all in this together," he said. "Everybody is disappointed, not
just me."

But everybody doesn't have a legend to uphold, and everybody doesn't
have to sit courtside at every home game while his creation crumbles.

"When he's upset, he's always talking about, we, like we're doing
poorly, or we need to be smarter," Elaine said. "That's what concerns
me. He takes all of this on himself."

Added Krystle: "I think people who understand, they look at my dad and
the situation and say, 'It's not him.' They know he's just doing the
best with what he has."

Give Baylor credit for playing that dealt hand, too, working it until
the cards are earmarked and faded.

He not only assembled this Clipper team but, in the manner of his buddy
West, he counsels it and coaxes it and scolds it.

Few other general managers, in fact, are so willing to publicly jab the
players for the sake of the fans.

"The players owe the fans everything; the fans owe the players
nothing," he said. "If not for these fans, we're nothing. I tell the
players, you owe them your best performance, period."

About pouting, loose-lipped, bag-packing Michael Olowokandi?

"I was so disappointed in him," Baylor said. "Running off at the mouth
like that, I don't know what purpose it serves. You're not producing,
you're talking."

About trouble-finding, coach-dissing Lamar Odom?

"He's not a bad young man, he just does some bad things," Baylor said.
"He's really trying to get his life together. His time on the floor is
therapy. Off the floor, now that's the hard part."

And about shot-bricking, nasty-dribbling newcomer Andre Miller?

"The other day I said to Andre, 'Boy, you are just playing awful,' "
Baylor said. "And he admitted it. He knows it. He is still trying to
adjust to a new system, and I think eventually he will."

Of course, the one question everybody wants to ask Baylor is about his
coach, Alvin Gentry.

And, of course, this being a life-or-unemployment situation, Baylor is
far too polite to dish.

"I'll just say, we all have to bear some responsibility for what's
happened this season," he said.

If Gentry is fired this spring, Baylor will again struggle against
unnamed superiors in trying to pay good money for a good coach.

And if Olowokandi leaves this summer, Baylor will again struggle to
loosen the purse strings that will keep the other guys from following
him.

Can you imagine Baylor's basketball mind mixed with the Lakers' money?
Can you imagine Baylor's ability mixed with a team that actually takes
advantage of it?

Baylor can't.

"I love Southern California, my home is here, I'm not going anywhere,"
he said. "I'm not retiring. I'm not quitting. I don't quit. I look for
the light at the end of the tunnel. I always look for the light."

A bittersweet notion because, on this team, in this town, Elgin Baylor
is the light.

Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com.