Elgin Baylor deserved a better send-off from Clippers

Donald T. Sterling

Sterling World Plaza

Beverly Hills, Calif.

Dear Donald,

I hate to be the one to tell you this but Elgin Baylor just hung them up.

Come on, you must remember. Tall, distinguished-looking former NBA great? Headed up your Clippers' front office the last 22years?

I knew you'd remember!

Oh, you knew about this?

Actually, it turns out that you hung up Elgin's shoes with Elgin still in them, officially handing his duties to Coach Mike Dunleavy.

Actually, Dunleavy has run the basketball operation for four seasons, if you count the last one when you put Mike on ice and no one ran it.

Elgin is 74 so it was your prerogative to pension him off.

On the other hand, it would have been nicer if it hadn't ended bitterly so you could hold a night for him instead of seeing him allege a "dispute" and refer people to his legal team.

Elgin had just dropped out of sight this preseason until Tuesday's announcement . . . in an eight-paragraph press release . . . titled, "Clippers Add GM Role to Coach Mike Dunleavy's Duties."

Almost in passing, it noted Dunleavy was replacing Baylor, followed by this effusive quote from you:

"We greatly appreciate Elgin's efforts during his time with the Clippers and we wish him the very best."

That's it?

That was 18 words -- not even one word for each of the 22 seasons Elgin worked for you.

I understand you're put out at Elgin. You usually sue former employees, not the other way around, and I can see where this is less fun.

Relative to other GMs with as much tenure as he had, Elgin always made bubkus -- reportedly $400,000 -- so what would it have hurt to pay him another $400K for taking all those bullets for you all those years?

Elgin's problem was always two-fold: a) You rarely did anything he wanted to do, and b) he wanted the job too badly to ever put it on the line.