1960-61 NBA Season Standings

The Boston Celtics, led by Bill Russell and Bob Cousy, ran away with the Eastern Division at 57-22 and went on to beat the St. Louis Hawks 4-1 in the NBA Finals for their third straight championship, avenging their loss to the Hawks in the 1958 Finals. This was the first season for the relocated Los Angeles Lakers (formerly Minneapolis, where the franchise had won five championships in the league's early years), who finished second in the West behind Bob Pettit's Hawks despite a rookie season from Jerry West that hinted at the stardom to come. The league still operated as two straight divisions (Eastern and Western), not conferences, with just eight teams total and no divisional realignment yet — a far cry from the 30-team, two-conference league of the modern era. Wilt Chamberlain, in his second season with Philadelphia, led the league in scoring and rebounding, part of a rivalry with Russell that would come to define the decade. Elgin Baylor, the Lakers' other star, was in the middle of a run of seasons often cited among the greatest scoring performances in NBA history.