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Lakers: How will Ball’s rookie year stack against all-time Laker greats?

By Jason Reed

LOS ANGELES, CA - JUNE 23: Lonzo Ball looks on as Magic Johnson, president of basketball operations of the Los Angeles Lakers talks to the media during a press conference on June 23, 2017 at the team training faculity in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Jayne Kamin-Oncea/Getty Images)
LOS ANGELES, CA - JUNE 23: Lonzo Ball looks on as Magic Johnson, president of basketball operations of the Los Angeles Lakers talks to the media during a press conference on June 23, 2017 at the team training faculity in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Jayne Kamin-Oncea/Getty Images) /
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(Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for Sports Spectacular)
(Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for Sports Spectacular) /

1. player. Pick Analysis. 1958-59. 24.9 pts, 4.1 ast, 15.0 reb. Elgin Baylor. 20. Scouting Report

The only Laker player to win the NBA Rookie of the Year had to place first on this list, right? Baylor’s award was not a case of weak competition where he posted worse numbers than the previous years. The fact of the matter was in Baylor’s rookie year that he thrived on the NBA scale and put together one of the best rookie years in NBA history.

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In fact, in today’s NBA, this performance would merit MVP votes and would likely win the award as long as Russell Westbrook wasn’t doing Russell Westbrook kind of things. That season the MVP winner, Bob Pettit, averaged 29.2 points, 3.1 assists and 16.4 rebounds per game. Baylor, in his rookie year, produced only slightly worse numbers than Pettit.

This would be the foundation for a great career for Elgin Baylor. The forward played 12 full seasons, all with the Lakers, before playing just nine games his last two seasons combined due to nagging knee injuries.

Baylor’s best season came during the 1961-61 year, in which he averaged 38.3 points, 4.6 assists and 18.6 rebounds. Again, not an MVP because of Chamberlain.

Baylor often times gets lost in the fold when basketball historians look back at the illustrious history of the Lakers. With names like West, Bryant, Johson, Abdul-Jabbar, Chamberlain, Worthy and O’Neal all in the record books, Baylor plays second fiddle.

However, Baylor had one of the most dominant tenures with the Lakers in all of their franchise history. Playing alongside West and Chamberlain though, some tend to forget how good Baylor really was for his time.

Now, this is a rookie season that Ball has no chance of catching. The NBA was different back then than it was today, and we may never see a rookie put up these kinds of numbers again.

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