Before Watchmen: The show must go on?

Andy Kubert’s final cover for Nite Owl confirms that this really was a Rorschach story all along. Here he is, front and center, taking up most of the cover, leaving Nite Owl a mere afterthought. Yeah, he’s on fire, but is anyone really worried? We all know Rorschach will be perfectly fine by the time the main Watchmen series begins. That’s the problem with prequels. It’s really hard to create tension.

Our lackluster variant cover is by Ethan Van Sciver, who also chose to minimize Nite Owl’s presence on the finale of his own series. I’m not fond of this art, and I’m less fond of this artist. So I’ll just move on to my review.

The Nite Owl series was delayed by the sudden passing of 85-year-old comics legend Joe Kubert. Of course, he was just the inker over his son’s pencils, so this issue was virtually indistinguishable from the previous three. I suspect the delay was mostly to allow Andy time to grieve, which was completely understandable. To fill in the gap in production time, DC hastily cobbled together two Moloch issues … with mixed results. So was this issue worth the prolonged wait?

The first half of the issue details Rorschach nearly being burned alive by the crazed reverend. A little bit of lip service is paid to how Nite Owl tracked down the reverend through his fingerprints, and he arrives just in time to save Rorschach. Rorschach then kills the reverend by stabbing him in the back with his “The End is Nigh” sign (even though its stick wasn’t sharpened or anything).

Dan then confronts Hollis over his deepest, darkest secrets that allegedly proved he wasn’t really a hero. Dan begs Hollis not to print this confessional, saying that he prefers to maintain the idealized version of his father figure alive. Hollis agrees to put the manuscript in his safe, urging Dan to revisit them after he dies.

Nite Owl then confronts Rorschach over his fatal tactics, and the conversation doesn’t really go anywhere. But we do get a flashback showing that a young Walter Kovacs killed one of his mother’s more aggressive clients by placing a tripwire at the top of the stairs. We then find out that Dan lied about the Twilight Lady in the main Watchmen series. He actually was deeply in love with her and dated her for some time before she broke up with him over the phone. And the miniseries closes on a shot of Walter walking down the street with his sign.

I guess I’ll start with the best part: Hollis Mason’s secret. I really like the idea of Hollis holding back the worst things about himself in his tell-all book. I’m a firm believer that Alan Moore intended to tell a story without any heroes, and that certainly includes Hollis. This bit felt in line with that vision and, although it was brief, the moments of Dan wrestling with that legacy were nice. Would this story have benefitted from actually revealing Hollis’ secret? I’m not sure. But I certainly think it should have had a lot more of Hollis in it. After all, this miniseries was called Nite Owl and there were two Nite Owls in Watchmen. I would have preferred to have had J. Michael Straczynski split his story between them and not devote so much of it to Rorschach.

From the cover to the final image, this issue made it clear that Straczynski really wanted to write about Rorschach all along. It’s kind of funny how he kept being given assignments in Before Watchmen that he seemingly didn’t want. He turned Nite Owl’s story into Rorschach’s and Moloch’s into Ozymandias’. And if that wasn’t bad enough, he insisted on revising the history of the main story. Instead of young Walter being a strange and timid child until some schoolyard bullies caused him to snap, Straczynski felt it would be better if he had always been devious, cunning, and overtly violent from the beginning.

And then there’s the bit with the Twilight Lady. Straczynski fell into the same trap Darwyn Cooke did by throwing in a genuinely good hero. Not only do I believe this conflicts with Moore’s intentions, but I really don’t appreciate how Straczynski basically said that Moore was wrong. Moore didn’t just show that none of his characters were good guys — he also went out of his way to make almost all the costumed individuals (heroes and villains alike) sexual deviants of some sort. In Moore’s mind, this life of costumed adventuring would most appeal to homosexuals, prostitutes, or people with strange kinks. Like the guy who got a sexual thrill from being beaten up. Or even Nite Owl, himself, who could only become aroused when wearing his mask. I felt that Moore deliberately placed the Twilight Lady in that same category and never wanted her to become the cliched “prostitute with a heart of gold.”

Even though I never really enjoyed the backup pirate tale, I must confess that this issue felt strangely empty without it. I’d wager that everyone involved in this bloated Before Watchmen project had lost their appetite for it by this point. DC abruptly ended the Crimson Corsair without bothering to wrap up its story in a coherent manner. And they quietly canceled the planned Epilogue issue, choosing to focus on finishing the rest of the miniseries. Nite Owl’s delay was understandable. But for the others? I’d wager that exhaustion and ennui had set in. The show must go on, right? By any means necessary.

A brief history of pro basketball in Utah: 1972

I am baffled by this banner. From what I can tell, this was the official championship banner the Stars hung in the Salt Palace. I have no idea why it randomly included the 1972 Western Division Championship — that seems like something that should be on its own banner, but what do I know? Anyway, as you can see from this strange banner, the Utah Stars followed up their championship run with another successful season, but fell short of repeating their title.

Despite a tumultuous offseason, new head coach LaDell Andersen guided Utah to a 60-24 record and a first-place finish in the Western Division. As always, I like to take a look at five of the most interesting players on this season’s roster.

Zelmo Beaty was once again Utah’s top player, putting up 23.6 points and 13.2 rebounds per game. He returned to the All-Star Game and finished third in MVP voting (rookie Artis Gilmore won and Dan Issel was second). Beaty played all 84 regular season games and all 11 of Utah’s playoff games. But his knees began giving him issues in the postseason and he was often seen hobbling around on crutches between games. As such, his scoring fell to just 20.1 ppg in the playoffs.

Willie Wise enjoyed a breakout season, averaging 23.2 points and 10.6 rebounds per game. He became an All-Star for the first time and led the Stars with 25.3 ppg during the playoffs. Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough for Utah, but I’ll get more into that later.

Glen Combs was Utah’s third All-Star this season with 16.5 points per game. But most impressively, he led the ABA with 103 total 3-pointers and a league-high .406 percentage. For some reason, he really struggled in the playoffs. His minutes dipped from 34.6 per game to 28.8 and his scoring fell to 13.3 ppg.

Jimmy Jones was the lone bright spot for Utah’s 1971 offseason. Even though former Ute Merv Jackson did have a few good moments during the championship run, he had already fallen far from his All-Star rookie year. So general manager Vince Boryla decided to find an upgrade at point guard through free agency. He did have to pay a heavy price, though. In addition to paying Jones twice what Memphis had offered him, Utah also had to forfeit its first round pick of the 1972 draft. (As the Oscar Robertson lawsuit worked its way through the courts, both the ABA and NBA continued enforcing onerous anti-free agency rules.)

Jones was born and raised in Louisiana and attended Grambling State. In 1967, he was drafted in the second round by the Baltimore Bullets and was a territorial pick by the New Orleans Buccaneers. The 6-4 point guard chose to stay close to home and became an All-Star in each of his first four seasons (three in New Orleans and one in Memphis after the team relocated). But when his contract expired, Memphis apparently lowballed him, even though he had twice received MVP votes.

After being burned by Jim McDaniels, Boryla was thrilled to learn that Jones actually wanted to come to Utah. In his first season with the Stars, Jones put up 16.5 points and 6.2 assists per game, bumping those numbers up to 21.0 ppg and 6.3 apg in the playoffs. It appeared that he was worth the cost.

John Beasley ultimately ended up being Utah’s consolation for losing McDaniels. Officially, Carolina gave the Stars a big man named George Peeples. But Peeples pulled a McDaniels and also refused to play in Utah. So in November 1971, the Stars were forced to trade Peeples, a future draft pick, and what was reported as “a considerable amount of cash” to Dallas for Beasley.

The 6-foot-9 big man was born and raised in Texas and attended Texas A&M. In 1966, he was drafted in the fifth round by the Baltimore Bullets, but he never made the team. So he went the minor league route, playing for the Phillips 66ers and Allentown Jets before joining the Dallas Chaparrals. Beasley was a huge hit right away, making three-straight All-Star Games, winning the 1969 All-Star Game MVP, and receiving votes for the regular season MVP twice. But by the time Utah traded for him, he was no longer that player. Beasley put up a dismal 3.9 points in just 10.8 minutes per game in his first season with the Stars, serving as a painful reminder of that lost No. 1 overall pick. On the bright side, Utah didn’t miss out on anything with Peeples. He only played in 15 more professional basketball games after this trade.

For this season, at least, the McDaniels debacle didn’t limit Utah’s production on the court. After claiming their first division title, the Stars once again faced off against the Chaparrals in the first round. And for the second-straight year, Utah cruised to an easy sweep, which set up another rematch with the Indiana Pacers in the division finals. Just like last year, this series went the full seven games, but this time, Utah had home court advantage. But it didn’t help too much, as the Pacers built a big lead early and held on for a 117-113 win. Willie Wise had an impressive 26 points, 11 rebounds, and seven assists. Zelmo Beaty added 25 points and 11 rebounds, and Jimmy Jones chipped in 23 points. But they just weren’t enough to best Roger Brown (27 points and seven rebounds), Freddie Lewis (23 points, 12 rebounds, and six assists), and Mel Daniels (19 points and 15 rebounds).

The Salt Lake Tribune reported the loss as the end of a “beautiful dream.” And for three key figures in our story so far, it was the end. In a way.

Former All-Star Red Robbins became victim to the ABA’s first (and only) expansion draft. The ABA lost its first two teams this summer — Miami and Pittsburgh — but oddly added an expansion team in San Diego. Many complained that the new owner of the Conquistadors should have simply acquired one of those failing franchises, but the ABA chose to make a clean break of them. As such, they held a dispersal draft for all the players on the folding teams, followed by an expansion draft for the new team. The Stars were only allowed to protect six players, so that left poor Red Robbins exposed. He stayed in the ABA until 1975, but never regained his All-Star form. After one final year in Italy, he retired from pro basketball. Robbins died in 2009 at age 65 due to cancer.

To replace Robbins, the Stars traded for a big man named Gerald Govan. He didn’t make much of an impact, but he did cost Utah former Runnin’ Ute Mervin Jackson. The one-time All-Star really was a shell of his former self by this point, and he ended up only playing 22 games for Memphis before his career came to an abrupt end. Jackson died in 2012 also at the age of 65 due to Parkinson’s disease.

The third key figure to leave didn’t actually leave, but just diminished his role. Team president and general manager Vince Boryla decided his dual role was too stressful. So he hired a new general manager, while maintaining his duties as team president. For all intents and purposes, Boryla remained the face of the franchise, as owner Bill Daniels rarely left his home in Denver and was so hands-off, he didn’t even meet with the Stars’ new general manager until well after Boryla had hired him. Just like with his choice at head coach, Boryla wisely tabbed a local legend for this position.

Arnie Ferrin was born in Salt Lake, played high school ball in Ogden, and college ball at the University of Utah. In 1944, he led the Utes to the NCAA Championship and was named the Most Outstanding Player of the tournament. After serving in the Army, he returned to guide Utah to the 1947 NIT Championship (which some considered even more impressive than the NCAA Tournament at the time). In 1948, the 6-foot-2 Ferrin was drafted in the second round by the Minneapolis Lakers. He won two championships with George Mikan, but then retired in 1951.

Ferrin spent the next two decades heavily involved in University of Utah athletics, holding various broadcasting and administrative jobs. But he never had any prior experience of being a pro team’s general manager. So we’ll see how he did in the coming years. Of course, it’ll be impossible to sort out his actions from Boryla’s, as he was a very active team president.

One of the first things Ferrin did was announce a series of exhibition games against NBA teams in Hawaii. After the 1971 merger fell through, the NBA and ABA began playing each other on a regular basis. In 1971, the Knicks visited the Salt Palace and won. In 1972, the Stars earned their first victory over an NBA team, defeating the Seattle SuperSonics, who were coached by Tom Nissalke. Remember that name.

In addition to entering the 1972-73 season with a new general manager, the Stars also finally did something about their dreadfully boring uniforms. Unfortunately, these new ones are a bit obnoxious. They’re the kind of gimmicky design that you would normally see for an All-Star Game — not for 84 regular season games. Come back next time to find out if these new jerseys brought any good luck. (Spoiler alert: They didn’t.)

Before Watchmen: So much wasted potential

After giving us such a strong cover for the first Moloch issue, I was really disappointed by Eduardo Risso’s work here. The choice of playing cards seems like a lazy play on magician clichés, especially since we never really saw Moloch use cards in his act. And the focus is completely on Ozymandias, which … well, actually is the perfect representation of this issue. Sadly. But it’s still a bland cover!

The variant cover by Olly Moss is a wonderful old timey poster of Moloch, Ozymandias, and Dr. Manhattan. I love the colors and design, and most of all I love the implied story within. Perhaps a scenario where Moloch, under the direction of Ozymandias, manipulated and controlled Dr. Manhattan. But that’s not what really happens in this issue. I think you could make the argument that J. Michael Straczynski was trying to tell a story like that, but I feel he fell far short of that goal.

Straczynski opened the finale of his two-issue miniseries with Adrian Veidt presenting himself as a Christ-like figure offering redemption to Edgar Jacobi for his many sins. Adrian gives Edgar a job with his own private office, secluded from the rest of the building so none of the other employees will ever see him enter or leave. The work Adrian gives Edgar to do is extremely tedious busywork, reviewing page after page of equations that allegedly came from three separate teams, working independently on a top secret project. Adrian claims he was always impressed by Moloch’s ability of concentration, and as such, he trusts Edgar with this work more than any computer.

Edgar gratefully accepts the job and diligently dives into the dull, repetitive task, never realizing that the equations were randomly generated by Adrian with a few mistakes intentionally placed in them to give Edgar a false sense of accomplishment. Nor does Edgar ever suspect that the papers he’s handling are highly radioactive. As the days pass, Adrian continues to heap praise upon Edgar and even doubles his salary. He then gives Edgar a new task: delivering packages to Janey Slater.

For some reason, Janey is incredibly open with Edgar. She reveals that the package contained what appeared to be cigarettes, but were actually medicine — at least, that was what Adrian told her. Janey had stopped smoking, but couldn’t shake her persistent cough, so Adrian promised to give her something that actually made her healthier while playing off her old addictive habit. Of course, neither Janey nor Edgar suspect that these medicinal cigarettes are actually much worse than ordinary cigarettes.

Edgar gets sicker and sicker each day, meeting with the company doctor, who secretly had his license revoked for some horrible reason. This meant that he was willing to go along with Adrian’s plan to keep progressing Edgar’s cancer under the guise of treating it. Adrian generously offers to cover the costs of all of Edgar’s treatments, and Edgar has no choice but to accept. Later, Edgar notices that Janey is also getting sicker each day, but she keeps smoking Adrian’s cigarettes as she doesn’t have any other choice.

After the Comedian visited Edgar in his run-down apartment and drunkenly rambled about the end of the world and a secret list, Edgar promptly tells Adrian everything that happened. It’s tough to tell, but it seems to me that Straczynski was implying that Adrian was genuinely surprised by Edgar’s revelation. After their conversation, Adrian decides to have someone constantly watch Edgar’s home, which comes in handy once Rorschach starts visiting.

Edgar was at home watching the TV on the night of Dr. Manhattan’s disastrous interview. As Edgar tries to come to terms with the knowledge that both he and Janey had been betrayed, Adrian pays him a personal visit. Surprisingly, Adrian reveals his entire plan to Edgar. He explains that Edgar’s death can help serve a higher purpose and save the world. So he gives Edgar a choice: continue to slowly die of cancer or accept to the head to set a trap for Rorschach. Edgar seems to genuinely buy into Adrian’s plan (not that he has much of a choice) and he accepts the bullet, calling it the greatest magic trick in the world.

I hate to admit it, but I actually really liked that final line about Adrian’s magic trick. I did not, however, enjoy the journey it took to get there. The story itself was as underwhelming as the artwork. It was slow, dull, and largely inconsequential. From the first page to the last, poor Edgar was a creature completely devoid of any agency. Of course he agreed to everything Adrian said — he literally had no other options! I guess he did technically volunteer the information about the Comedian, but that wasn’t presented as a choice he wrestled with. It was almost like he just did it out of instinct. Almost like how Straczynski instinctively threw Janey Slater into this story. It didn’t make any sense for Adrian to have Edgar interact with her, but Straczynski had an idea and couldn’t stop himself from putting it on the page.

A lot of the ideas in this comic don’t line up particularly well with Alan Moore’s work. First there’s Edgar’s bleak, run-down apartment. Would he really still be living there after Adrian doubled his salary? And why would Edgar be caught desperately buying illegal sham medicine when he believed that Adrian was providing him with the best medical care available? I also think Edgar would have promptly told Rorschach that he was working with Adrian as a way to prove that he was completely reformed. Almost nothing in this issue makes any sense.

It seems like Straczynski wanted to write about Ozymandias instead of Moloch. And that makes perfect sense. Adrian’s plan is vast and multifaceted, offering ample opportunity for exploration and addition. But I feel like Moloch’s story offered even more opportunity, as there were vast parts of his backstory left completely open by Moore. Give us a good reason for the Comedian feeling like Moloch was his only friend (beyond the lame “we heard about JFK’s death together”). Show some more direct interactions with Dr. Manhattan to lend more credence to the cancer story. And please, please show more of Moloch’s criminal career! He was the biggest traditional supervillain in Watchmen, but we never actually got to see him do anything. This series had so much potential!

Speaking of wasted potential, this issue also included the abrupt conclusion of The Curse of the Crimson Corsair. This modern-day homage to the Black Freighter had been presented in two-page increments at the back of every single Before Watchmen issue … until now. And it wasn’t supposed to end here. DC had planned to keep it going through the end of this whole enterprise, but then suddenly announced that writer Len Wein was leaving Corsair to work on an issue called Before Watchmen: Epilogue.

Wein later admitted that he was also confused by the whole situation. He only knew that artist John Higgins had been upset with the direction of the story. Wein, of course, believed it was his story to tell and Higgins had simply been hired to draw it. He had heard a rumor that Higgins threatened to leave the project if he didn’t get his way, and that’s what seems to have happened. But Higgins didn’t last the whole run of Before Watchmen and apparently was forced to wrap up the story long before he wanted to. The planned Epilogue issue also never came to being, as DC lost all appetite for it. Many artists had begun missing deadlines and I think the public had begun to wise up to the fact that most of the Before Watchmen issues were garbage.

Anyway, The Curse of the Crimson Corsair told the tale of an honest sailor who was a complete victim of circumstance. Much like Moloch in this issue, the sailor completely lacked agency and was dragged from one horrifying event to the next — especially once Higgins took over the writing and seemed to only care about drawing the scariest, most grotesque things imaginable. Then, completely out of nowhere, the story ends with the sailor turning into the Crimson Corsair because he apparently lost his soul while trying to save it. Well, that’s what happened in the Black Freighter. But not the Crimson Corsair. 

Had Wein been able to see the story all the way through, he might have been able to convincingly work up to that ending. I’m sure it would have been a lot better than the aborted mess we got, but I don’t know how much I would have actually enjoyed it. This project did waste its potential, but I have to admit it never had that much potential to begin with. It was always going to be a tough sale, as even the Black Freighter is often one of the most criticized aspects of the original Watchmen. But at least the Freighter story tied in directly to the main plot and had the added bonus of providing some fun world building. The limitations of this format prevented the Corsair from having that kind of significance. It was just a horror pirate story for the sake of being a horror pirate story. And that is why it failed.

A brief history of pro basketball in Utah: 1971

“They Did It! Stars Are ABA Champs” proclaimed the Deseret News’ front page on May 19, 1971. In their first season in Salt Lake City, the Utah Stars won the ABA championship, which remains the only professional basketball title awarded to a team in Utah. So let’s take a quick look at how this amazing achievement was accomplished.

Everything begins and ends with Zelmo Beaty, seen here with the ABA championship trophy. (That trophy later had all the names of the players engraved on it. As far as I can tell, it remains in possession of Bill Daniels’ estate in Denver.) Beaty was forced to sit out the entire 1969-70 season due to a punitive NBA rule designed to prevent players from joining the ABA. This was bad news for the Los Angeles Stars, but it may have been exactly what Beaty and his aching knees needed. When he returned to the court for the 1970-71 season as a member of the Utah Stars, he played the best basketball of his life.

Beaty averaged 22.9 points and 15.7 rebounds per game, including a league-high 5.4 offensive rebounds per game. He also led the ABA with a .555 field goal percentage. Not only was he an All-Star, but he finished second in voting for MVP, falling to Indiana’s Mel Daniels. And after the championship was won, he was named the ABA’s Playoffs MVP. Talk about a Hall of Fame season!

Austin “Red” Robbins was traded to the Stars in September 1970 for BYU’s Craig Raymond. A lot of people were really excited to see the former Cougar play in Utah, especially since he was coming off a career year. But Stars general manager Vince Boryla decided to swap out the center for a power forward to play alongside Beaty. And I think he ended up finding a nice upgrade for Raymond in the process.

Robbins was a 6-8 forward from Florida, who played at Chipola College before transferring to Tennessee. In 1966, he was drafted in the sixth round by the Philadelphia 76ers, but he didn’t make the team, so he went to Italy for a year. In 1967, he joined the New Orleans Buccaneers, where he became a three-time All-Star and even received MVP votes in the 1969-70 season. In his first season with the Stars, he made his fourth consecutive All-Star Game behind averages of 12.6 points and 11.9 rebounds per game.

Donnie Freeman actually shares a lot in common with Red Robbins. He was a 6-3 guard from Illinois, who was also drafted by Philadelphia in 1966. Although he went in the third round, he still didn’t make the team. In 1967, he signed with the Minnesota Muskies, who became the Miami Floridians after just one season. Like Robbins, Freeman was an instant ABA All-Star, even receiving MVP votes in 1969 and 1970. Also like Robbins, Freeman joined the Utah Stars through a daring offseason trade. Despite Mack Calvin’s impressive rookie campaign, Vince Boryla went with a win-now mentality and swapped him for the more seasoned three-time All-Star.

Freeman played well for Utah, putting up a team-high 23.6 points per game, as well as 5.7 rebounds per game. But he only played in 24 games for the Stars before Boryla pulled off an even more daring trade. On January 8, 1971, (just two days after being named an All-Star) Freeman was packaged in a blockbuster trade to Texas for Glen Combs, Ron Boone, and the Chaparrals’ first-round draft pick. 

Apparently Freeman had been locked in the middle of a nasty contract dispute with the Stars front office — they even fined him $1,000 for failing to suit up for a game. I’m assuming he enjoyed his situation with Chaparrals, as he finished the 1970-71 season strong, receiving MVP votes for the third time in his career. And he made the All-Star Game for the fifth and final time in the following season. He then fell into a supporting role with Indiana and San Antonio before concluding his professional basketball career with the Lakers in 1976.

Glen Combs was a 6-2 guard from Kentucky who played at Virginia Tech. In March 1968, he was drafted by the Dallas Chaparrals and signed with them before also being drafted by the San Diego Rockets in the fifth round. Combs became an All-Star in his second season and even received MVP votes. Just like Freeman, Combs was named to the 1971 All-Star Game two days before being traded. Combs didn’t have the same all-around game that Freeman had, but he was a much better 3-point shooter and he still averaged 20.1 points per game in his first season with the Stars.

Ron Boone is a name very familiar to Utah basketball fans. He was born in Oklahoma City, but grew up in Omaha, Nebraska. Standing just 5-foot-7 after graduating from high school, he initially enrolled at Clarinda Community College in Iowa. He suddenly had a growth spurt that brought him up to 6-foot-2, which helped him earn a scholarship at Idaho State. After making the All-Big Sky First Team twice, he was drafted by the Dallas Chaparrals in 1968 before being picked by the Phoenix Suns in the 11th round.

Despite leading the ABA in turnovers as a rookie, he still had a strong debut and earned a spot on the ABA All-Rookie First Team. But he didn’t become an All-Star until 1971. Like Combs, he was honored for his work in Dallas, but ended up representing Utah at the ABA’s mid-season break. However, Boone was relegated to the bench in his season as a Star, putting up 15.8 points and 5.8 rebounds per game. He also prided himself on never missing a basketball game and ended up playing 86 regular season games this season because of the trade.

Now, before I can go on with the season, I need to talk about the 1971 ABA Draft. From the very beginning, the ABA had held their draft months ahead of the NBA Draft in an attempt to lock down their new rookies long before the NBA came calling. Of course, this didn’t work with the most elite prospects like Lew Alcindor, but that didn’t stop the ABA from trying. In fact, they just kept bumping up the date. Their first draft was in April, the next year March, then February. By 1971, the ABA Draft was in January, held one day before the All-Star Game.

This year, the ABA decided to get rid of the territorial pick system, which had allowed teams to acquire local college players before the draft officially began. The league also finally ordered its draft based on teams’ records — simply giving the top pick to the worst team. Of course, a mid-season draft meant they had to off whatever the records were at the time. This worked out marvelously for Utah, though, as the Chapparals’ first-round pick ended up being No. 1 overall. And there was only one player Vince Boryla had his eye on.

Jim McDaniels was a budding superstar from Western Kentucky. The 6-11 big man averaged 27.6 points and 13.8 rebounds over his three-year college career and was considered a can’t-miss game-changer. Some said he was as good a defender as Bill Russell. One of his coaches said he could score even if he was lying down on a stretcher. So Boryla didn’t hesitate to make McDaniels the first No. 1 pick in Utah Stars history. However, even before the draft, it was common knowledge that the Carolina Cougars were aggressively working to add McDaniels to their team. More on that later.

So one day after making the top selection in the draft, Utah sent four players to the All-Star Game in Greensboro, North Carolina. This strong roster guided the Stars to a 57-27 record, just one game behind the league-leading Indiana Pacers. In the first round of the playoffs, Utah was matched up against Texas. Although Don Freeman played well against his former team, the Stars still easily swept the Chaparrals.

Due to realignment, the rematch with the Pacers took place in the Western Division Finals. The two teams were evenly matched, ultimately ending up in a Game 7 in Indianapolis. Many years later, coach Dick Sharman said this game was his favorite memory of this season — gaining revenge on the Pacers’ home court, largely due to the inspired play of Red Robbins (25 points, 14 rebounds, and 11-for-13 shooting from the field).

The Stars met the Kentucky Colonels in the ABA Finals and we forced once again to play the full seven games. But this time, Utah had home court advantage and earned a 131-121 victory in front of a sold-out Salt Palace. Kentucky’s Dan Issel had a game-high 41 points, but the Stars got brilliant performances from each of their starters. Zelmo Beaty naturally led the way with 36 points and 16 rebounds, while Willie Wise added 22 points, 20 rebounds, and six assists. Red Robbins came up big again with 13 points, 15 rebounds, and five assists, while Glen Combs chipped in 20 points and five assists. And let’s not forget Merv Jackson’s 19 points, seven rebounds, and seven assists. This was a team with a lot of weapons, good ball movement, and even better rebounding. Although they lacked the raw power of superstar-led teams like Indiana and Kentucky, Utah had just enough of the right ingredients to pull off this most impressive feat.

The ABA rewarded the Stars with $48,000, which was split evenly between the players and coaches. Frankly, I find that prize money embarrassingly small — even by 1971 standards. Utah’s governor declared the month of May to be Stars Month, and they did unofficially rename the road in front of the Salt Palace as Stars Avenue. But Salt Lake City didn’t throw an official parade for them. At least the players did get from fairly decent-looking championship rings.

Unfortunately, the good times didn’t last very long. The 1971 offseason proved to be little more than a series of misfortunes for the Stars. I’ll start with the least egregious one: the failed NBA merger. There had been serious talk of merging the ABA with the NBA since the formation of the ABA in 1967. By 1971, the NBA appeared to have been ready to welcome every ABA team into their fold with open arms (except for the Virginia Squires because they were too close to the Baltimore Bullets). But at the last minute, the courts put an indefinite hold on the merger due to a landmark lawsuit filed by Oscar Robertson against the NBA. That lawsuit would (eventually) overhaul free agency in the NBA and give the players more rights. It also illustrates the high level of uncertainty the courts had with professional basketball in the ‘70s. The sport had never had this much money flowing around and the complications caused by the rival league fighting for the same players’ rights left everyone scrambling. Teams were constantly suing other teams, and players frequently had to sue their team owners to reclaim their paychecks. Everything was quite dubious from a legality standpoint. And unfortunately for the Stars, the courts took a little too long to resolve everything. Had the 1971 merger been able to proceed, I think there’s a high probability the Stars would still be in Utah today.

The next big misfortunate was Jim McDaniels. The ABA’s No. 1 pick refused to play for the team that drafted him. That in itself wasn’t unusual, as all the ABA’s previous top picks also turned their team (Elvin Hayes, Lew Alcindor, and Pete Maravich). But McDaniels was unique in that he didn’t leave the ABA for the NBA — he simply wanted to play for a different ABA team, the Carolina Cougars to be specific.

McDaniels may have been the first basketball superstar to turn down Utah. He said that if he had to even dribble a basketball for Utah then he wouldn’t play in the ABA. So Carolina quickly signed him to what they boldly proclaimed the biggest basketball contract ever. The newspapers of the day knew how much Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was making, so they logically assumed that McDaniels’ contract was close to $3 million. Because all this happened before the NBA Draft, McDaniels fell to the second round, where he was picked up by the Seattle SuperSonics.

Vince Boryla was furious. He accused Carolina of stealing his property and sneered at their pitiful compensation offers. Boryla hyperbolically claimed that even an unlimited amount of No. 1 picks wouldn’t suffice because there’d be no guarantee any of them would be as good as McDaniels. I don’t think he fully believed that last bit, but I do think he was justified in his outrage. A fellow team just flat out stealing a draft pick completely undermines the integrity of the league. Unfortunately for Utah, no recourse was available. The ABA commissioner publicly downplayed the importance of the draft, saying all that mattered was a team’s ability to sign the player. And the Stars knew they wouldn’t be able to count on the courts to help them out. So in the end, they had no choice but to accept Carolina’s pitiful compensation: an inconsequential center named George Peeples, who the Stars quickly traded to the Chaparrals for a washed-up former All-Star named John Beasley.

McDaniels happily began his career with the Cougars and tried to smooth things over with Utah fans by diplomatically claiming that he only turned down the Stars because they had just won the championship and he preferred the challenge of bringing a title to Carolina. I don’t know if anyone actually bought this nonsensical reasoning, especially as it didn’t line up with the timing of any of this saga. I don’t know if it was ever proved, but many speculated that McDaniels actually signed his contract with Carolina as early as November 1970. But what we do know for sure is that his contract was nowhere near the speculated $3 million.

Turns out that Carolina had signed McDaniels to a six-year, $1.35 million contract. That wouldn’t have been so bad if it weren’t for the payment plan, which stretched out that $1.35 million over 25 years. McDaniels played brilliantly — putting up 26.8 points and 14.0 rebounds per game and making the All-Star Game — but that bad contract quickly began to weigh on him. He requested to shrink that 25-year plan to 15 years, but was denied. So, after just 58 games with Carolina, McDaniels made the shocking decision to join the Sonics.

It is my personal belief that the mental stress of this whole episode caused irreparable harm to McDaniels’ psyche. Once he arrived in Seattle, he was a shell of his former self, struggling to make any impact on the game he once so effortlessly dominated. I couldn’t find any reports of him suffering a major injury, so I think all his problems stemmed from the financial concerns and the feelings of both being betrayed and betraying others. Later in his life, McDaniels regretted his decision to leave Carolina, saying he should have given the ABA a few more years to sort things out. The rest of his basketball career was a bleak disappointment, bouncing back and forth between the NBA and ABA and overseas. He retired in 1978 and died in 2017 at age 69.

In hindsight, Artis Gilmore would have been the better pick, as he actually ended up having the type of career everyone thought McDaniels would have had. Even better would have been the greatest ABA player of all time, Julius Erving, but he hadn’t decided to leave college early at the time of the draft, so he wasn’t available. (This is why the NBA doesn’t hold the draft in January!)

And now for the final misfortune of the offseason. (This is starting to sound like a witch’s curse. “You will win the title, but then be betrayed thrice in the summer!”) Bill Sharman’s dream job of coaching the Lakers opened up. Just as he ditched the Warriors to coach the Los Angeles Stars, Sharman wasted no time in returning home.

This was a profound loss for Utah. He was a Coach of the Year and now an ABA champion. He brought credibility and stability to the club. And — more importantly from a legal perspective — he was still under contract with the Stars. This time Bill Daniels got involved and he filed a lawsuit against both Sharman and the owner of the Lakers. At first, the judge ruled in Utah’s favor. But after Sharman appealed, the Lakers emerged victorious and didn’t even have to pay Utah any damages.

Sharman promptly guided the Lakers to another championship, becoming the only coach to win titles in the ABL, ABA, and NBA. He then helped L.A. win five more titles as their general manager. He was elected to the Hall of Fame as both a player and a coach, ultimately collecting 17 championship rings. Even after he retired, the Lakers kept giving him rings up until 2010. He died in 2013 at age 87.

Anyway, back in 1971, the Stars had to scramble to find a new head coach. Wisely, they chose someone local. Not only so the fans would like him, but also so he wouldn’t pull a Sharman and seek to return home.

LaDell Andersen was born in Malad City, Idaho, and attended nearby Utah State University. He was just a good enough player to be invited to the Olympic tryouts, but not good enough to make the team. Or play professionally, for that matter. But he did discover he had a knack for coaching. He started as an assistant at the University of Utah in 1956 before taking the head coaching job at Utah State in 1961. He took the Aggies to the NCAA Tournament five times and the NIT once during his 10-year career there. So it seems like he was certainly ready and prepared to take the leap to the professional level. Next time we’ll explore how well Andersen adapted to the ABA and how the reigning champions overcame their summer of heartache.

Before Watchmen: One step forward, two steps back

Our cover by Adam Hughes is a haunting image of Dr. Manhattan serenely observing a nuclear explosion, while people burn and die all around him. What really makes this a frightening image is that it seems like he’s actually enjoying this carnage. For better or worse, J. Michael Straczynski is really challenging Alan Moore’s portrayal of Dr. Manhattan as an uncaring personification of passivity.

The variant cover is by Neal Adams and it’s just … fine. Nothing terribly interesting going on here. I’m not sure what all the dots on Dr. Manhattan are supposed to be. I guess Adams was attempted a transparent look? I don’t know. And I don’t really care.

The second issue of this series really blew me away — it was everything I could have hoped for in a Dr. Manhattan story. But the first issue left me flat. Unfortunately, so did this third issue. It brought back everything I hated from issue #1 and many elements that I hate from the broader Before Watchmen project. I guess I should have known that amazing issue #2 was just a fluke.

Anyway, this story begins with Dr. Manhattan fretting over the infinite realities he has discovered. For some reason, he has determined that he was the one who created all these realities, and that if he doesn’t get rid of them, then all of existence would be destroyed. And he believes that this all began at that fateful Crimebusters meeting when he changed Captain Metropolis’ paper so he could be paired up with Silk Spectre instead of Rorschach. Dr. Manhattan concludes that by altering reality in this way, he inadvertently created two versions of himself — one that went on patrol with Rorschach, and one that went out with the Silk Spectre. Of course, neither one of those realities happened in the original story, but Straczynski doesn’t care about that.

Straczynski also decided that Jon Osterman really needed a tragic backstory because heaven forbid a boring, ordinary person become the main character. So now, all of a sudden, Osterman is a Holocaust survivor. He fled Germany with his father and mother in 1939, but his mom was killed during their escape. She had a rather depressing motto she repeated during this ordeal: “You cannot make the world what you want because you want it.”

Dr. Manhattan decides to take his mom’s motto to heart and he begins to travel through time to undo all the changes he made to reshape reality into the way it’s “supposed” to be. He makes sure his mom is killed by Nazis and his grieving father becomes an obsessive watchmaker. He prevents his dad from taking a 17-year-old Jon to a baseball game, so he’d be in a bad mood when he learned about the atomic bombs and would subsequently force Jon into a career of science. Dr. Manhattan made sure a research scientist at Gila Flats would die of cancer so that Jon would be able to take his place.

He then carefully guides the pacing of people’s footsteps so that Janey’s watch would be stepped on and that Jon would forget the repaired watch in the particle chamber and that the door would lock him inside before he left. Dr. Manhattan then watches with satisfaction as Jon is gruesomely torn apart atom by atom — an image that transition thematically into the grotesque Crimson Corsair backup.

One of the most disturbing things about the original Watchmen story is how little Dr. Manhattan chooses to interfere in the affairs of men — even allowing the Comedian to kill a pregnant woman right in front of him. I think Moore deliberately made this disturbing. Here was a man who could literally do anything, but chose not to because he didn’t care. But that wasn’t good enough for Straczynski. He needed Dr. Manhattan to covertly be acting altruistically all this time — carefully choosing when and when not to act in order to guide the events of mankind in the best way possible. I hate this. And I also hate that he — and Nite Owl — suddenly have cliché tragic backstories. In my opinion, changes like that really undermine Alan Moore’s original intentions.