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Yesterday, I posted my reaction to the announcement from the Clippers that GM Elgin Baylor was stepping aside, with his duties being absorbed by head coach Mike Dunleavy, who was for all intents and purposes performing them anyway.  My thoughts?  Baylor wasn’t a great GM or even a good one, but given his 20+ years of service to Donald Sterling- a thankless job on its best day- and storied place in NBA history, deserved a much more honorable sendoff than he got.  I am not alone in that sentiment, but the reaction to Baylor’s departure brings up all sorts of issues about his tenure, and the franchise he was asked to guide:

Kevin Arnovitz of ClipperBlog (and occasional SHLA contributor), writing in his new capacity for ESPN.com:

…During the Lakers’ inaugural season in Los Angeles, Baylor averaged 34.8 points and 19.8 rebounds per game. Baylor was an elegant improviser in the half-court and a preternatural rebounder, even though he was an undersized 6-5 forward.

As an executive, Baylor was an enigma — a fact that’s as much a product of circumstance as instinct. From the outset, Baylor had a unique arrangement with Sterling. Virtually every owner in sports demands winning as a mandate from his front office principal. But Baylor wasn’t asked to achieve with the Clippers so much as to preside. No matter how bad things got for the Clippers, Baylor had unrivaled job security.

That’s because Sterling wasn’t looking for a visionary. He wanted an attendant…

Marc Stein, ESPN.com: 

…So much, then, for the fantasy notion that Baylor would be the one prominent figure in a quarter-century of Clippers history under Donald Sterling who could avoid leaving the organization in a messy divorce. We’re instead looking at the usual unsavory parting of Sterling and one of his leading basketball men, requiring the intervention of lawyers to negotiate a resolution.

The Clippers might actually run more smoothly without Baylor, because it reduces their management muddle from three factions — (1) Sterling and team president Andy Roeser, (2) Dunleavy and trusty aide Neil Olshey, (3) Baylor — to two.

It’s also undeniable that Dunleavy — whether it was somehow keeping the Clips in the free-agent hunt for Kobe Bryant all the way to the buzzer in the summer of 2004 or combining with the supreme on-court confidence of Sam Cassell to lead them to within one win of the Western Conference finals in 2006 — gave this longtime laughingstock of a franchise credibility it had never had previously.

Yet none of that stops us from wishing that ol’ No. 22, after an unfathomable 22 seasons at Sterling’s side, went out in the more stately manner he deserved this time…

ClipperSteve, at Clips Nation: 

To say that this was a long time coming doesn’t really do it justice.  Elgin Baylor had been the Vice President of Basketball Operations (essentially the general manager) of the Clippers for 22 years, longer than anyone else in the league - the second longest current tenure is 13 years for Kevin McHale and Geoff Petrie; no one else has been with their team more than 9 seasons.  The year Baylor first took the job, Magic Johnson was the league’s MVP.  He’s been around a long time.  Unnaturally long.  Too long.

But in typical Clipper fashion, they appear to have screwed up his departure…

Mark Heisler, LA Times: 

…Did you ever notice these things never happen to the Lakers?

The words Laker Family mean something with an organization studded with former players and Jerry Buss giving Magic Johnson and Pat Riley multi-million dollar severance packages after they left and were of no more use to him.

You don’t hear people talk about Clipper Family. If someone did, I’d think of a family like that of the Emperor Commodus in “Gladiator.”

This didn’t have to happen at the same time you opened a sparkling $50-million practice site that could have symbolized a rebirth but as this debacle shows, your organization still needs some work, like from the top down.

Vikings went out like Vikings, pushed into fjords in ships to be set ablaze in a hail of burning arrows.

Clippers still go out like Clippers, feet first…

Randy Hill, Fox Sports.com:

…As a former Clippers beat writer (a gig I often described as not unlike having the electric-chair beat), I was aware that many of what turned out to be personnel missteps were abetted by the franchise’s head coaches.

That’s where the Sterling influence really teamed up with his cheap player-hiring practices to sabotage any sharp decisions Elgin might have mustered. Based on the owner’s commitment to minimal spending or simply bad decisions in hiring coaches, Baylor seemed unable to work with someone whose abilities he didn’t believe in or (in many cases) respect.

Although I’ve for many years howled about how having superstar players has been a prerequisite for NBA success, hiring an astute coach is another fine move. Unfortunately for the Clippers, the parade of (mostly) weak hires usually inspired lousy rapport with the VP of basketball ops.

That’s where Elgin often was at his worst. While playing alongside West with the Lakers, Baylor helped bridge the NBA gap between mechanical, structured basketball movement and the aerial ballet we often see today. This level of on-court achievement made it difficult for Elgin to accept what he perceived as tactical or talent-judging weaknesses in the coaches he needed to deal with. The lines of communication often were either severed or irreparably jammed…

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