1976: The rise and fall of the Utah Rockies

Who wants pro basketball back in SLC? Well, I suppose there were quite a few people in early 1976 who would have loved to replace the recently folded Utah Stars. But Earl D. Walters was the only one trying to do something about it. Walters, the former president of the United States Ski Association, didn’t get involved in any of Bill Daniels’ attempts to sell the Stars in 1974 or 1975. But as soon as the merger between the Stars and the Spirits of St. Louis fell through, Walters began working to bring a different ABA team to Salt Lake City.

Walters first approached the financially struggling Virginia Squires. He helped cover their payroll one week and even arranged for Zelmo Beaty to become their new head coach. But he ultimately failed to convince the Squires to relocate to Salt Lake. So he turned his attention to the Spirits and their owners, brothers Daniel and Ozzie Silna.

One of the reasons why the Silnas refused to merge with the Stars was because the mayor of St. Louis had vowed to do everything in his power to keep the Spirits in Missouri. But it only took a few months for them to realize that the mayor’s promises were little more than empty words. Claiming to have lost $4 million during their tenure as the Spirits’ owners, the Silnas were now ready to do just about anything to try to recoup their losses. But they still weren’t entirely sold on the idea of actually running their team in Salt Lake.

Walters didn’t have enough money to purchase the Spirits outright, but he was able to put together a group of investors who cobbled together $600,000 to buy a sizable chunk of the franchise. Curiously, Walters never revealed the names of any of these investors. I would normally call that a pretty big red flag, but I know that it ultimately didn’t matter in the long run. I also find it somewhat amusing that none of the previous would-be buyers of the Stars were involved in this. James A. Collier, Snellen Johnson, and even the West Am corporation all completely disappeared from our story. In hindsight, had all these separate forces combined powers from the start, the Stars might have survived.

Anyway, the Silnas eventually agreed to move the Spirits to Salt Lake on the condition that this group of local investors would quickly assume full control of the team. Walters announced the good news at the end of March and the newspapers immediately praised him as the hero who would bring Ron Boone, Moses Malone, and all the fun of the ABA back to the Salt Palace. By May, the ABA officially approved the relocation and team president Harry Weltman held a joyous press conference in Salt Lake with his wife.

Weltman immediately announced a contest to pick a new name and logo for the Spirits. I guess he thought that Spirits was a name that only made sense in St. Louis, and the sting of the Stars’ demise was too fresh in everyone’s minds to consider reviving that name. Unfortunately, Utah’s joy was short-lived. 

In June, the long-awaited NBA-ABA merger was finally announced. Of course, “merger” isn’t quite the most accurate word here, as the NBA actually absorbed the ABA. But despite all the ABA’s efforts to carefully present a six-team package to the larger league, the NBA decided to only admit four teams. And the St. Louis/Utah franchise did not make the cut. Weltman hastily settled on the name Utah Rockies, but he never had a chance to design a logo. And most news outlets didn’t catch on to the name change, confusingly alternating between the Spirits of St. Louis and the Utah Rockies in all the stories that came out during this period.

There were quite a few people who tried to fight against the NBA’s exclusion of two ABA teams. The Silnas even proposed a complicated deal at the last minute wherein they would sell off the Rockies to local investors, then buy the Kentucky Colonels (the other excluded team), and move the Colonels to Buffalo to replace the Braves, who were threatening to move to Florida at this time. This desperate deal fell apart for three reasons: One, there weren’t any local investors who could actually afford the Rockies; Two, the Braves’ proposed move to Florida fell through; and Three, the NBA made it abundantly clear that they only wanted Indiana, San Antonio, Denver, and New York.

So the wonderfully named Utah Rockies folded just as quickly as they were formed. Ron Boone ended up in Kansas City, Moses Malone (eventually) landed in Houston, and the Silnas surprisingly came out as the ultimate winners in all this. Rather than accepting the initial $3.3 million buyout offer, the Silnas negotiated for $2.2 million up front plus a share of the four remaining ABA teams’ broadcast revenue in perpetuity. Apparently the Silna brothers had envisioned this deal initially as a way to fairly compensate the Virginia Squires when it looked like they’d be the only ABA team left out of the merger. But when the Squires folded in May, they became ineligible for any type of buyout from the NBA. So the Silnas used this unusual deal for themselves, which initially appeared to be a rather modest stipend that the NBA was willing to pay.

But then the NBA’s popularity exploded in the ‘80s and ‘90s, resulting in some massive broadcasting deals. And the Silnas’ contract was written broadly enough to ensure those checks kept coming in, even as the amount on them rose exponentially. The NBA tried to get out of the deal in the 1980s by offering a $6 million buyout, but the Silnas wisely refused. In 2012, the NBA tossed around another complex deal that would involving buying out the Silnas in exchange for the Spirits name to be used by the New Orleans Hornets (this happened around the same time that New Orleans had asked Utah for the Jazz name back). I don’t know how much money was on the table for this offer, but the Silnas again shot down the NBA.

By 2014, Ozzie and Daniel Silna had earned over $300 million for doing absolutely nothing. If it’s any consolation, they did lose a fair amount of that in the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme. And that fact may have been what enabled the NBA to finally work out a deal to end this ruinous contract. Granted, it cost the league over $500 million, but at least they didn’t have to keep sending checks to those Latvian-descended textile merchants. Ozzie passed away in 2016 at the age of 83, but his younger brother, Daniel, is still alive, presumably living very comfortably off his fortune.

And as for Earl D. Walters, the man who started this post? He retreated into obscurity, never again to enter the picture of professional basketball in Utah — just like James A. Collier, Snellen Johnson, and even Bill Daniels. And the poor people of Utah, who just had their hopes raised only to be dashed so quickly, had to keep waiting for a pro team to return.

Meanwhile, down in New Orleans …

Pete Maravich shaved off his goofy goatee and switched his number from 44 to 7, which may have brought him some good luck. Despite missing 20 games to injury, he brought his numbers back up to 25.9 points, 5.4 assists, and 1.4 steals per game. Although he missed the All-Star Game, he did earn a spot on the All-NBA First Team for the first time in his career and he finished 15th in MVP voting. He helped the Jazz improve to a 38-44 record, which was substantially better than Atlanta’s 29-53 mark. So yeah, I think we really need to squash that false narrative that the Hawks fleeced New Orleans in the Pistol Pete trade.

Nate Williams, the former Utah State Aggie, was second on the Jazz with 12.8 ppg and 1.3 spg. I’m a bit surprised that he didn’t step up more during Maravich’s extend absence — but then again, all these games were played long before I was born, so I don’t know exactly what went on.

Mel Counts joins the long list of people from the 1969 Laker team who ended up in New Orleans. Counts was a true 7-footer from Coos Bay, Oregon, who put together a solid career at Oregon State. In 1964, he helped Team USA take gold at the Tokyo Olympics before joining the Boston Celtics, who had drafted him with the No. 7 pick. Counts won two championships as Bill Russell’s backup, but then he was traded to Baltimore, who quickly sent him to the Lakers. Counts played the best basketball of his life behind Wilt Chamberlain. Remember that controversial Game 7 in 1969? Butch van Breda Kolff sat Chamberlain after he picked up his fifth foul and refused to put him back in the game. Partly because he didn’t like Chamberlain, but also partly because Counts was playing well enough to stay on the court. Of course, the Lakers lost by two points and van Breda Kolff resigned in disgrace, and Counts was traded to Phoenix for Gail Goodrich (remember that name).

Counts was later traded to Philadelphia, who promptly sent him back to L.A. In the 1974 expansion draft, the Jazz probably could have taken Counts, but instead opted for a Laker guard named Nate Hawthorne. He never played for New Orleans, as he was packaged in a disastrous trade that also sent the Jazz’s 1976 first-round pick to Phoenix for a big man named Neal Walk. Walk had averaged 20 and 12 in 1972-73, so it stands to reason that the Jazz had envisioned him as their starting center. And to acquire a solid backup for Walk, New Orleans simply purchased Counts’ contract from the Lakers.

Well, that purchase may have been considered another bit of the reckless spending that forced team president Fred Rosenfeld out of the organization. Counts put up 6.9 points and 5.9 rebounds per game in his first season with the Jazz, then saw those numbers drop to just 3.0 ppg and 3.3 rpg in 1975-76. New Orleans waived him in February, after he had played in only 30 games. Counts retired and returned to his home in Oregon, where he became a real estate agent.

Louie Nelson was one of the few expansion draft picks that the Jazz kept for more than one season. Nelson was a 6-3 guard from Los Angeles, who attended the University of Washington. In 1973, he was drafted by the Bullets in the second round. After a quiet rookie season, he had a very solid debut for the Jazz with 11.2 points per game. In 1975-76, he became the team’s third-leading scorer with 12.5 ppg and 1.2 spg.

Sadly, that ended up being the highlight of his career. After this season, the Jazz waived Nelson to make room for Goodrich (more on him next time, I promise!) and Nelson failed to land a solid home in the NBA after that. He played sparingly for the Spurs, Kings, and Nets before falling out of the league in 1978. He later became a high school girls basketball coach, apparently.

Henry Bibby didn’t have much of an impact for the Jazz this season, but he is an interesting character in this story. The 6-1 point guard was born and raised in North Carolina, but chose to play college ball under legendary coach John Wooden at UCLA. After helping the Bruins win three NCAA titles, Bibby was drafted in the second round of the 1972 ABA draft by the Carolina Cougars. But he chose to play for the Knicks, who picked him in the fourth round. Bibby didn’t play much in New York, but he did pick up a shiny 1973 championship ring.

Now let’s briefly return to that disastrous Neal Walk trade. Despite being a well-rounded double-double machine in Phoenix, Walk struggled in New Orleans, putting up 9.9 ppg and 7.1 rpg. After just 37 games, the Jazz became so frustrated with Walk that they packaged him in a trade to New York for Bibby and a 1975 first-round pick. (Of course, New Orleans didn’t keep that pick, as they packaged it another trade to the Kings. I mean, why should this organization suddenly start caring about draft picks?)

Bibby only appeared in 28 games for the Jazz in 1974-75. In his first full season with New Orleans, he averaged 9.3 points per game, which was a career high for him at the time. And he did even better the next season after the Jazz sold his contract to the 76ers. Bibby played four years in Philadelphia and one in San Diego before he headed to the CBA, where he helped the Lancaster Lightning win the 1982 title. He was also an assistant coach for the Lightning, which helped him seamlessly transition into his new career.

Bibby spent three seasons as an assistant at Arizona State, then became head coach of the Baltimore Lightning and then the USBL’s, where he was named Coach of the Year. He kept bouncing around between various minor league teams — the New Jersey Jammers, the Savannah Spirits, the Tulsa Fast Breakers (where he won the 1989 CBA title), the Oklahoma City Cavalry, and the Winnipeg Thunder. He returned to college basketball in 1995, becoming first an assistant and then the head coach at USC.

Unfortunately, Bibby’s frequent moving was not easy on his family. He divorced his wife and became estranged from his son, Mike. This became rather awkward when Mike grew into a high school star and committed to one of USC’s rivals, Arizona. In 1997, Henry led the Trojans to a first-round exit from the NCAA Tournament, while Mike guided the Wildcats to win the championship. Mike went on to have a very solid NBA career, and he apparently reconciled with his dad in 2002.

Henry spent nine years as USC’s head coach, but only took them to the Big Dance three times, and he was fired in 2004. In 2005, he became the head coach of the WNBA’s Los Angeles Sparks, but was fired after just 28 games. From 2006 to 2014, he worked as an NBA assistant for Philadelphia, Memphis, and Detroit. After a six-year break, Bibby randomly became the head coach for the Tijuana Zonkeys in Mexico just for the 2020 season.

Anyway, it’s time for me to keep ranting about that Neal Walk trade. New Orleans’ big improvement earned them the No. 6 pick in the 1976 draft, which they had sent to Phoenix, who later moved it to Buffalo. The Braves used that pick on future Hall of Famer (and Jazz legend) Adrian Dantley. New Orleans’ second-round pick (No. 23 overall) belonged to Atlanta because of the Maravich trade. The Hawks later sent this pick to Milwaukee, who used it to draft another future Hall of Famer, Alex English.

Desperate to have at least one pick before the third round, the Jazz sent Portland their 1977 second-round pick for the 26th pick of this draft. And they used it on a 6-7 forward from Georgia.

Jacky Dorsey was born and raised in Atlanta and became a star player at the University of Georgia, averaging 23.7 points and 10.6 rebounds across his two seasons with the Bulldogs. However, he failed to make the Jazz roster and was relegated to the Hartford Downtowners of the Eastern Basketball Association. From 1977 to 1981, he bounced back and forth between the NBA and various minor leagues, ultimately finishing with 60 NBA games between the Nuggets, Blazers, Rockets, and Sonics. Dorsey died in Houston in 2022 at age 71.

So … it was another disappointing draft for the young Jazz. But things were looking up with the Superdome solidified as their home court, Pistol Pete playing up to his full potential, and the front office/ownership situation stabilized. Sadly, it will all start to go down next season. Of course, we should always keep in mind that any misery experienced in New Orleans only made future happiness in Utah possible.

1975 Part One: No miracles for this Moses

Here it is, folks. The end of the Utah Stars. The Deseret News headline, “Stars perish in sea of red ink,” is a nice reference to Moses Malone and the incredible debt the franchise had racked up by the end of 1975. But I’m getting ahead of myself. First, we need to go back to the start of the 1974-75 season.

After sheepishly admitting that he had lied about having sold the Stars, Bill Daniels committed to keeping the franchise in Salt Lake for at least one more season. James A. Collier was quietly phased out of his role as team president. (Sadly, Collier died of leukemia in 1980 at age 48.) With Arnie Ferrin also out of the picture, the Stars began the season without a general manager. Daniels quickly realized that he wasn’t up to handling the day-to-day business his basketball team, which was apparently bleeding money. It took a couple of months for Daniels to find his man, and in January 1975, he finally announced his new GM.

Bill Orwig Jr. was the son of a former basketball and football star, who had a long career in coaching and sports administration. Orwig Sr. was serving as the athletic director at Indiana when the ABA was formed, and it seems like his connections enabled his 29-year-old son to become an assistant manager for the Pacers. Orwig Jr. helped build the Pacers into the ABA’s best team, which won three championships between 1970 and 1973. However, he failed to convince his team to draft Moses Malone — which turned out to be the main selling point for him to take the Utah Stars job.

In announcing Orwig, Daniels reiterated that he owned the Stars 100%. He claimed that he was no longer actively seeking any buyers and that he was committed to keeping the team in Salt Lake beyond the 1974-75 season. Of course, he did quickly add the caveat that an amazing offer could change his mind. It’s hard for me to tell if Daniels was being completely honest here since I know how this story ends. I also have evidence of him being dishonest in 1974. But I will concede that everything about the Stars and the ABA drastically changed month to month. So the only tangible thing we can take away from this was that Orwig was now in control of the Stars.

The first thing Orwig did was convince Daniels to finally sell off Willie Wise’s contract. Despite all the legal threats and fines, Wise held true to his philosophy of seeking happiness over wealth, and refused to play for Utah. Although Daniels had developed a reputation as being incredibly kind and generous, he notoriously hated the idea of anyone failing to live up to their contract (which is why he spent years dragging Bill Sharman through the courts). But Orwig brought Daniels to his senses that it would be much better to cut their losses than to stubbornly hang on to try to prove a point. So in the end of January, Orwig began negotiating a deal with the Virginia Squires to buy out Wise’s contract.

The deal hit an unexpected snag. According to the Stars, Wise refused to go to Virginia. But Wise denied the claim, saying he was happy to play anywhere outside of Utah. I suspect the real holdup may have been on Virginia’s side, as the Squires were also struggling financially at the time. Ultimately, Wise did become a Squire at the end of February, and he stayed with them until they folded in 1976. Unfortunately, his holdout seemed to hurt his career, as he was never again able to recapture his All-Star form. After the ABA-NBA merger, Wise played one season in a reserve role for the Nuggets before being traded to Seattle in 1977. Sadly, he only appeared in two games for the Sonics before he suffered a career-ending knee injury.

Orwig’s second big move was nowhere near as sensible. In fact, it was downright controversial. Disgusted by Utah’s lackluster record at the time (24-32), Orwig decided that Bucky Buckwalter should not be the head coach anymore. After spending more than a week in secret discussions, Orwig announced Utah’s new head coach, who just happened to be Buckwalter’s old boss.

Tom Nissalke was born in Wisconsin but went to college at Florida State. After graduating in 1957, he became the coach of a high school in Wisconsin called Wayland Academy. In 1962, he became an assistant at the University of Wisconsin, then took that same role at Tulane a year later. In 1968, he upgraded to the professional level by becoming an assistant with the Milwaukee Bucks. In 1971, he finally became a head coach again by taking over the ABA’s Dallas Chaparrals. After winning the 1972 ABA Coach of the Year award, he jumped ship to the NBA’s Seattle SuperSonics. But Nissalke was fired after just one year and was replaced by his assistant, Buckwalter.

So in 1973, Nissalke returned to his old ABA franchise, which was now the San Antonio Spurs. But they fired him in December 1974. I don’t know why Orwig was so keen to hire Nissalke, and it apparently wasn’t easy. Nissalke had turned down the head coaching job at San Diego, choosing instead to become a scout for the Houston Rockets. He was in the process of planning a trip to Portugal when Orwig (and apparently Daniels) began wooing Nissalke. After 10 days of secret discussions, Nissalke said he was finally won over by Orwig and Daniels (which indicates that Daniels was taking a more hands-on approach than he had in previous years). Nissalke was naturally worried about being unable to install his system this late into the season, and he was a bit dismayed that he didn’t get a chance to talk to his friend Buckwalter before the announcement.

Insultingly, Orwig offered Buckwalter a spot as an assistant coach. Buckwalter naturally refused. He was equally furious with Orwig’s insistence that the Stars were not living up to the potential of their roster. Buckwalter pointed out that Orwig had only observed two practices before reaching this conclusion, and never stayed for more than 30 minutes. Left unsaid was the obvious fact that no one should have expected the Stars to win as many games as they had in years past after losing Zelmo Beaty, Jimmy Jones, and Willie Wise.

Buckwalter was a former Ute and was rather popular in Utah. The local columnists decried his firing, saying Daniels and Orwig were being unfair and underhanded. I almost wonder if this was part of a greater ploy to intentionally weaken the Stars in order to justify folding or moving the team. Or maybe it was just a byproduct of 35-year-old Orwig’s inexperience and a good demonstration of why Daniels had always had a hands-off role in the past. Anyway, Buckwalter later became an assistant coach for the Portland Trail Blazers in 1979 before taking a job in their front office in 1986. In 1991, he was named NBA Executive of the Year and retired in 1997. As painful as it was to be pushed out of Utah, I think it served him better in the long run.

In the meantime, Nissalke did help the Stars … a little bit. He went 14-14 for the rest of the season and helped Utah limp into the playoffs. But Utah was soundly defeated by Denver 4-2 in the opening round. The one bright spot was Moses Malone’s monster 30-point, 32-rebound performance in Utah’s Game 3 victory. Speaking of which, let’s take a look at the five most interesting players this season.

Ron Boone thrived in his role as the new team leader, putting up a career-high 25.2 points per game, as well as 1.5 steals per game. He returned to the All-Star Game for the third time and maintained his impressive streak of consecutive games played. Of course, he was nowhere near enough to fill the void left by Beaty, Wise, and Jones, but he tried his best.

Moses Malone proved to be every bit worth the hype he received in the offseason. He put up 18.8 points per game, 14.6 rebounds per game (including a league-high 5.5 offensive rebounds), 1.5 blocks, and 1.0 steals. He was Utah’s only other All-Star this season, and he finished third in voting for Rookie of the Year. Unfortunately, he was unable to pull off the miracle needed to keep the Stars in Utah. For example, his remarkable Game 3 performance was witnessed by about 5,600 people in the Salt Palace (less than 50% of capacity).

Jim Eakins was Utah’s other big offseason acquisition. The 6-11 center was born and raised in Sacramento and then played at BYU. He was drafted by the Oakland Oaks in 1968 and signed with them about a week before the San Francisco Warriors picked him in the fifth round. After helping the Oaks win the 1969 ABA championship, Eakins followed the franchise to Washington, D.C., where it became the Washington Caps and then the Virginia Squires.

After finally reaching the All-Star Game for the first (and only) time of his career in 1973-74, Virginia packaged him in a trade to Utah in the 1974 offseason. Stars fans were thrilled to see a former BYU Cougar on their roster, but Eakins only put up an average 12.5 points, 7.2 rebounds, and 1.0 blocks per game. If I had to wager a guess, I’d say he struggled finding a role in the front court next to Malone.

Larry Miller was a familiar face (of sorts) to be included in the Eakins trade. The former North Carolina standout had been drafted by the Anaheim Amigos and put together an impressive rookie season for the Los Angeles Stars before being traded to Carolina. He had a couple of strong years for the Cougars, but suddenly saw a steep decline in his production once he turned 27. Perhaps there was an injury involved? In any case, he was picked by the San Diego Conquistadors in their expansion draft, then traded to Virginia a year later. And a year after that, he was sent to Utah.

In the turmoil of the 1974 offseason, Miller was initially another one of the holdouts for training camp. But he soon realized that he didn’t have any leverage, so he obediently reported for duty. However, he quickly realized that all of his athleticism was gone by this point. After just five games with averages of 5.2 minutes and 1.8 points per game, Miller retired from basketball. He returned home to Pennsylvania, where he found work in real estate construction. And he died there in 2025 at the age of 79.

 Roger Brown was signed by the Stars on the same day Miller announced his retirement. The 6-5 small forward from Brooklyn was unfortunately banned by the NCAA and NBA in 1960 for associating with a known gambler and point-shaver. Even though there was never any evidence that Brown himself engaged in point-shaving, he had to wait seven long years of working at General Motors and playing amateur basketball before he became the first member of the brand-new Indiana Pacers. 

As a member of the Pacers, Brown was a four-time All-Star and a frequent thorn in Utah’s side. In addition to winning three championships, Brown was named the 1970 Playoffs MVP. But knee and back injuries left him a shadow of his former self by 1974 and he was traded to the Memphis Sounds. Seven games later, the Stars bought out his contract. I don’t know if this was done by Collier, Daniels, or even Buckwalter, but I think it’s safe to say that Utah was a bit underwhelmed by Brown’s production. In just 39 games, Brown only put up 9.2 points per game. Orwig eventually released Brown, enabling him to finish out the season in Indiana and retire as a Pacer.

Interestingly enough, Brown managed to serve on the Indianapolis city council from 1972 to 1976. In 1985, he coached in the Continental Basketball Association for two seasons. In 1996, he died of colon cancer at age 54. In 2013, he was posthumously inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.

So yeah … it wasn’t the best season for the Stars. In fact, it was the worst. Which is a shame because Moses Malone had shown such tremendous potential. But after the chaos of 1974, there really was no redeeming this franchise. The fans had pretty much turned against the team and Bill Daniels was losing money like crazy. By the spring of 1975, Utah needed a miracle to keep its professional basketball team.

Snellen Johnson and his brother, Lyle, suddenly swooped in to save the Stars in June. The brothers were local businessmen in their 30s, who dabbled in a wide variety of ventures including a satellite system for the navigation of ships and a real estate company targeted toward helping German investors set up tax shelters. I find that one ironic, as most ABA owners, including Daniels, primarily used their teams as tax shelters, as well. Anyway, the Johnsons had been asked to join Collier’s group of investors in 1974, but they were unwilling and/or unable to at the time. But in 1975, their navigation satellite had just signed a huge deal, promising a massive windfall for the Johnsons, who agreed to purchase the Utah Stars for approximately $2 million. Plus, they promised some of their German investor buddies would also buy a piece of the franchise.

Obviously this purported price was less than the $3 million Daniels was asking for in 1974. So despite all his promises of being here to stay unless an amazing offer knocked his socks off, the evidence suggests that Daniels was actually quite desperate to offload this money-loser. Especially when you consider just how shady the Johnsons were right from the beginning. By the age of 35, Snellen Johnson already had a checkered past of bankruptcies and lawsuits. So it should be no surprise that the negotiations for this sale dragged on all summer.

And, as to be expected, the new prospective owners brought all the usual bold promises along with them. My personal favorite was how Snellen Johnson mocked Collier’s failed “Save Our Stars” effort. Snellen’s grand plan was to literally go door to door to sell season tickets. I don’t know how much door-knocking the Johnsons actually did, but I do know that the Stars didn’t gain any new season-ticket holders.

It was a relatively quiet offseason for Utah this year, as there weren’t any high-profile rookies to woo or holdouts to negotiate with. But an air uncertainty hung over everything as weeks turned into months without any official agreement from the Johnsons or approval from the ABA. And the ABA was dealing with its own issues. The Memphis Sounds had relocated to Baltimore, but promptly folded before it could get up and running. The San Diego Sails were on the brink of collapse, and the Virginia Squires weren’t looking so hot, either. In other words, the Stars wouldn’t be able to count on any help from the league.

Suddenly, the 1975-76 season was about to begin. Even though the ownership situation hadn’t been resolved, the team still had a contract with the Salt Palace, Tom Nissalke was still the head coach, and Bill Orwig was still the general manager and team president. So they suited everybody up to play one more season with the hope and prayer that the Johnsons could cobble together enough cash quickly enough. Oh, and for some reason they brought in new uniforms.

I do miss the daring swoop, but it looked really bad in the back with the player’s name awkwardly patched over it. Those jerseys were also a little too similar to Utah’s rivals, the Pacers. So we got brand new uniforms for the last hurrah of this franchise. And I think they are the most solid, classic look the team ever had. One little tweak I would have made would be to extend those red stripes on the side of the shorts all the way up. Sadly, one of Utah’s best players never got to wear these fancy jerseys.

Moses Malone broke his foot in September, essentially leaving Ron Boone all alone. Boone did increase his scoring up to 26.2 ppg, but it wasn’t near enough. The Stars were downright dismal, racking up loss after loss. Including the bombshell news on November 11 that the Johnsons’ deal had fallen through. Their satellite navigation system had collapsed and none of their promised German investors showed up. Making matters worse, Daniels announced that he would not continue to operate the franchise, no matter what. He was done.

By this point, the San Diego Sails had already folded after playing just 11 games of the season. And rumors of an NBA-ABA merger were stronger than ever, even though the Oscar Robertson lawsuit was still a year away. ABA officials began enacting a plan to whittle down their league to just six teams, believing that would increase their chances of merging with the NBA. With that in mind, a wild, last-ditch scheme was hatched between Daniels and Ozzie Silna, owner of the Spirits of St. Louis.

For about two weeks in November, Daniels and Silna discussed an unusual merger of the two teams. Silna would own 70% of the team, Daniels 20%, and the remaining 10% would go to local investors in Salt Lake. Silna was upset that the NHL’s St. Louis Blues got all the best dates over his Spirits, which apparently had lost $1 million last season and were on pace to lose $2 million this season. Likewise, Daniels claimed that he had lost over $3 million during the time he owned the Stars. So a consolidation of resources seemed like a logical — if unique — move. Even with the slightly awkward outcome of needing to release 11 players, several coaches, and who knows how many staff in the front offices.

However, this plan died almost as soon as it began. Daniels couldn’t quite put his finger on the reason for Silna backing out of talks. He speculated Silna may have felt Salt Lake was too small a market, or that he realized it would have been too costly to break his contract with his arena in St. Louis. Others reported that the mayor of St. Louis had pledged to give the Spirits everything they needed to stay in Missouri. Daniels, meanwhile, was bemoaning the lack of local support. He did appreciate the $100,000 offer from Bonneville Corp. (owned by the LDS Church), but that figure was only a fraction of what he needed. 

On the first day of December 1975, Daniels found himself unable to cover payroll for the team. With no other options available to him, he uttered these dire words: “It would take a miracle to keep us from going down the tube.”

That miracle didn’t come.

I really appreciate the Salt Lake Tribune’s coverage of this disastrous event. From the emotional photo of a distraught Bill Orwig to the heart-breaking stories of the lowly staffers who had to hastily clean out their office just two hours after learning the news. As inconceivable as it sounds, the Utah Stars, one of the ABA’s best teams, had folded after just 16 games into the 1975-75 season. They had a 4-12 record.

Most of Utah’s players were sold off to other ABA teams, with the Spirits acquiring the top four, including Ron Boone and Moses Malone. So in the end, Silna did sort of get his merger — he just had to stay in St. Louis. Boone’s scoring dipped to 21.0 ppg, but he still made the All-Star Game (for the fourth and final time of his career). Malone managed to play in 43 games for St. Louis, putting up 14.3 ppg and 9.6 rpg. Ironically, former Stars coach Joe Mullaney was brought in for the Spirits’ final 37 games, but he was unable to lead them to the playoffs.

As Utah sorted through the emotions of losing their first professional basketball team, the newspaper writers seemed to direct most of the blame on Bill Daniels. Some joked that he had spent millions of his own money to become Colorado’s governor and came in fourth place in a race of four people. Others mocked Daniels for saying his proudest accomplishment during his tenure with the Stars was winning his lawsuit against Bill Sharman. This tidbit became even funnier a year or so later when a higher court actually reversed the ruling, giving Sharman the victory over Daniels.

I find myself agreeing with the complaints against Daniels. His run for governor was ill-timed and ill-conceived. At the very least, he should have tried to sell the team long before he announced his intentions to run. Because the way he handled it only created an inordinate amount of uncertainty that turned fans against the franchise and compounded every problem it had exponentially. I’m also completely baffled by how he struck out three times in two years. Did he just not do his due diligence before entering an agreement? Was he the victim of conmen? Or was he truly so desperate that he just chose to ignore all the red flags?

In later years, Daniels was able to not only reclaim his fortune, but also his reputation as a kindly, generous businessman. In 1980, he returned to Utah to repay more than 3,000 former season ticket holders the money they had lost plus interest. Daniels continued expanding his business empire, purchasing a chunk of the Los Angeles Lakers at one point and becoming an investor in the United States Football League. He seemed to have learned his lessons from his time in the ABA, as he managed to cash out on his USFL stock of over $8 million before that league collapsed. Daniels also wisely refrained from seeking public office for the rest of his life, which ended in 2000 at the age of 79.

The Daniels Fund has assets of over $1 billion and is still providing scholarships to kids in Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico. The Utah Stars 1971 ABA championship trophy still resides in their Denver office, far from the city that earned that title. Salt Lake City quietly removed the street signs for “Stars Avenue” and the championship eventually disappeared after the Utah Jazz felt silly honoring a team it had no connection to. But the Stars were never quite forgotten. And as we all know, professional basketball would return to Utah before too long.

1974 Part One: The beginning of the end

What does it mean for your team when the owner decides to run for governor? Well, in the case of the Utah Stars, it meant nothing but bad news. The year of 1974 was the beginning of the end for the ABA in Utah. But it also was the beginning of the NBA’s arrival to Utah.

As if it wasn’t bad enough that the Stars had to spend most of the 1972-73 season knowing they’d soon lose their head coach, Utah then spent much of the 1973-74 season with the knowledge that owner Bill Daniels would be selling the team. In January 1974, Daniels announced his candidacy for the Colorado governorship. He promised to hold on to the Stars until the season ended, and he vowed to do everything he could to keep the team in Utah. Unfortunately, it proved enormously difficult for him to find someone willing and able to purchase the club.

And then in February, the Stars were hit with a bombshell. Their top player, Zelmo Beaty, had filed a lawsuit for more than $1 million. This all began in October 1973, with Beaty holding out of training camp to try to get a better contract. The Stars responded by suing him, but he quickly agreed to pay a fine and return to the team in order to have that lawsuit dropped. But a few months later, Beaty decided to sue his team partly for that training camp fine, but mostly for failing to honor all the terms of the contract he had originally signed with Jim Kirst back with the Los Angeles Stars. For better or worse, Beaty agreed to continue playing for Utah while the lawyers battled it out in the courts.

So with all that looming over Utah’s head, the players tried to stay focused on winning basketball games and the front office of Vince Boryla and Arnie Ferrin tried to prepare for the draft. Everybody apparently hated the ridiculous format of four separate drafts in 1973, so the ABA wisely pared it down to a more standardized system. Of course, they still continued their practice of beating the NBA to the punch, holding the first two rounds of their draft in March, then the next seven rounds in April. Neither of Utah’s first two picks — Joe C. Meriweather and Len Kosmalski — joined the team, which sadly was all too commonplace in the ABA.

Between the second and third rounds of the draft, Daniels finally ended his months-long search for a buyer. Daniels had allegedly asked for $2.5 million for anybody willing to keep the team in Salt Lake City and $3 million for out-of-state offers. On April 1, Daniels announced that a Salt Lake-based corporation called West Am agreed to purchase the Stars. (Is it really wise to make such important announcements on April Fools’ Day?)

Keith Howick, president of West Am, promised to not only keep the Stars in Salt Lake, but also to keep the team’s front office in place. Although the purchase of the team (which was scheduled to be finalized on August 1) included Vince Boryla’s minority share, Howick hoped to keep Boryla on board as team president for at least two more seasons. Daniels perhaps felt a little strange selling the team to a company, but he acknowledged that the prices of professional sports teams had risen to the point where individuals couldn’t afford them by themselves. But could West Am actually afford the Stars? The company owned a small ski resort, a motorhome manufacturer, and various real estate properties throughout the state. Nowadays, it doesn’t seem like too big of a hurdle for such a corporation to come up with $2.5 million. But back then? Well, I consider it a bit of a red flag that West Am immediately began calling on the government’s help to enable them to sell off 80% of the team as public stock options. West Am claimed this was because they wanted to let local Utahns have a more direct ownership in the team. But I (with the benefit of hindsight) can only see this as an admission that West Am did not have the required capital.

Regardless, this was an exciting time for the Stars. And it may have been the allure of new owners that prompted Boryla and Ferrin to make a massive gamble in the third round of the draft.

Moses Malone was a high schooler from Virginia, who had been considered by many to be the next Wilt Chamberlain. He was also intrigued by the idea of becoming the first basketball player since the 1940s to completely skip college and go straight to a professional league. The NBA forbade this, but the ABA was willing to set a new precedent. And the Stars were willing to take that risk. Of course, this pick was incredibly polarizing at the time, with many people — including in the local media — criticizing the Stars for seeking to exploit a teenager.

Of course, there was no guarantee that Malone would actually join the Stars. That saga would take months to resolve. In the meantime, there was still plenty of basketball left to play! So let’s take a look at the five most interesting players this season.

Zelmo Beaty’s legendary career had finally begun to approach its end. Although the 34-year-old managed to appear in 77 games, he only put up 13.4 points and 8.0 rebounds per game. And he missed the All-Star Game for the first time in his ABA career. But he was still regarded as the leader of the team and many envisioned him as the ideal mentor to young Moses Malone (should he choose to join the Stars).

Willie Wise once again was Utah’s best player, putting up 22.3 points, 7.6 rebounds, and 1.4 steals per game. He made his third straight All-Star Game and was on the All-Defensive First Team for the second year in a row.

James Jones also had another strong season with 16.8 points, 5.2 assists, and 1.9 steals per game, along with an ABA-high .884 free throw percentage. He made his second-straight All-Star appearance, which was his sixth overall.

Ron Boone continued to thrive in his starting role, averaging 17.6 points, 5.2 rebounds, 5.0 assists, and 1.5 steals per game. He also was named an All-Star for the second time of his career, his first time as a member of the Utah Stars.

Gerald Govan was acquired by the Stars in 1972, when Utah sent former Ute Merv Jackson to Memphis. Govan was a 6-10 center from Jersey City, who played college ball at St. Mary of the Plains in Kansas. He was drafted by the St. Louis Hawks in the 11th round in 1964, but he didn’t make the team. So he went to Italy until he signed with the New Orleans Buccaneers in 1967. In 1969, he made his first and only All-Star appearance. His numbers dipped by the time he reached Utah — just 7.0 points and 8.8 rebounds per game in 1973-74 — but he was a reliable player who helped ease the pressure off the oft-injured Beaty.

New coach John Mullaney kept the Stars on their winning ways, finishing with a 51-33 record to win the Western Division for the third-straight year. Utah needed six games to eliminate San Diego in the first round, before facing off against Indiana for the fifth consecutive season. Once again, the Western Division Finals went a full seven games. Fortunately, Game 7 was played in the Salt Palace. Unfortunately, Zelmo Beaty was unable to play.

However, James Jones stepped up big time with 29 points, nine assists, seven rebounds, and two steals as Utah cruised to a shocking 109-87 victory. This put the Stars back in the Finals for the third time in franchise history, this time pitting them against superstar Julius Erving and the New York Nets. Utah dropped the first two games in New York before returning to Salt Lake for Game 3. Despite Jones’ 28 points and Beaty’s 22 points with 16 rebounds, the Stars lost by three points in overtime. (Willie Wise’s 7-for-20 shooting performance certainly didn’t help matters.)

The Stars did avoid a sweep, thanks to Jones’ 24 points and Gerald Govan’s monster 23 rebounds in Game 4. But the Nets claimed the title with a 111-100 win in Game 5. Sadly, Zelmo Beaty (who apparently had the flu) only had four points and zero rebounds in what turned out to be his final game for the Utah Stars. It also ended up being the final game for Willie Wise and James Jones in Utah uniforms, though they both performed much better. Wise had 34 points and Jones scored 20. Whether anyone involved knew it at the time, it was the end of an era.

Just 11 days after losing the championship to the Nets, Bill Daniels was forced to make an unhappy announcement. The proposed deal with West Am Corporation had fallen through. Daniels refused to go into much detail of why the agreement was canceled or what happened to the down payment West Am had given him of more than $50,000 and 350 acres near Heber City. From what I can tell, it seems the biggest sticking point was West Am’s inability to guarantee a full sale of 80% of the team through stocks by September 1.

In a tense press conference, Daniels vowed to sell the Stars by August 1, saying that date would give the new owners time to relocate the franchise in time for the 1974-75 season, if necessary. Although he prioritized keeping the Stars in Salt Lake, Daniels did raise his asking price from $2.5 million to $2.8 million to offset the losses he had sustained since April. The sad fact was that the Stars were bleeding money. Despite being one of the winningest teams in the ABA, attendance at the Salt Palace had been in a steady decline since their 1971 championship. And nobody really knew why. Even the league’s biggest star, Dr. J, couldn’t sell out a Finals game in Salt Lake. Was it because the Stars didn’t have any local talent on the roster by this point? Was it because basketball fans had come to regard the ABA as an inferior product to the NBA? Was it because Ron Boone was so boring to watch?

Vince Boryla went on the offensive during the May 21 press conference. He placed all the blame on the media for driving fans away. He claimed the Stars only received negative attention from the papers — even after they reached the Finals. Daniels hastily distanced himself from Boryla’s remarks, and he put out another concrete number that would serve to guide the next potential buyer. He set the Stars’ break-even point at 5,000 season tickets, but in 1974, they had less than 3,500.

Enter financial consultant James A. Collier. He launched an ambitious “Save Our Stars” campaign to drive up season ticket sales. By July 24, the Stars had reached 5,000, but their goal was actually 7,000. Both he and the local government didn’t just want the Stars to break even — they wanted the team to actually be profitable. They worked out a complicated deal involving escrows and stock options and tax rates that went way above my head. But from what I can tell, that 7,000 goal was never met. But that didn’t stop Collier from trying to purchase the Stars. He spent all summer quietly negotiating with his team of 20 investors. That number soon dropped by half, then finally six by the time August rolled around. Which then set up a rather unusual press conference.

Without ever actually saying that he had purchased the Utah Stars, Collier indirectly implied that he and his five fellow investors were now in control of the franchise. If you think that sounds fishy, you’re not alone. One of the first people to jump ship at this news was head coach Joe Mullaney. In his lone season with the Stars, he not only took them to the Finals, but he was named co-Coach of the Year. But even though he had two years left on his contract, he decided he didn’t want to risk missing any paychecks (as so many people involved in the ABA did). So Mullaney went to Memphis, then St. Louis, before returning briefly to the NBA with Buffalo. But he was out of the big leagues by 1978, finding work in Italy, at Brown, and then finally back to Providence, where he retired in 1985. He eventually passed away in Providence, Rhode Island, in 2000 at the age of 75.

It was pretty much an open secret that Mullaney was headed out the door by the time Collier and associates held their odd press conference. So Collier came prepared, using the opportunity to announce the hiring of former Ute Bucky Buckwalter as director of player personnel. Although Collier didn’t explicitly say it, everybody naturally assumed that Buckwalter would also be named the head coach. Of course, the Stars did officially make an offer to Zelmo Beaty, who was still interested in becoming a player/coach. But he was insulted by their offer of $25,000 when the average salary for ABA coaches was $50,000.

Morris “Bucky” Buckwalter was born and raised in Oregon, but played for the University of Utah, leading them to the NCAA Tournament quarterfinals in 1956, only to lose to Bill Russell and the San Francisco Dons. Buckwalter wasn’t good enough to go pro, so he got involved in coaching, joining the Ute staff as an assistant in 1959. He served under the legendary Jack Gardner until 1967, when he got his first head coaching job at Seattle University. He stayed there until becoming an assistant for the NBA’s Seattle SuperSonics in 1972. In 1973, he was named the interim head coach to replace Tom Nissalke (remember that name). 

After a 13-24 record, Seattle wasn’t too interested in keeping Buckwalter, but the Utah Stars were happy to have him for two reasons. One, he was a connection to Utah — something the Stars hadn’t had since LaDell Andersen left. And two, he promised to play an up-tempo game. Even though Joe Mullaney’s slowed-down isolation offense worked well with Utah’s aging roster, the fans hated him for it. Apparently reaching the Finals didn’t matter if it wasn’t fun to watch. In any case, no one was too sad to see Mullaney leave.

And it seems like very few people lamented Vince Boryla’s departure, either. His shares in the team had (allegedly) been purchased by Collier and associates, and Collier himself had claimed Boryla’s position as team president. Boryla had been an effective general manager, making big, bold moves that helped the Stars win the 1971 title and remain a contender for the following three years. But he had also been a brash, contentious figure, constantly complaining about the media and the ABA’s ineffectual commissioners. 

I don’t think his criticisms of the sports reporters was warranted, but I do empathize with his complaints about the ABA. I find it completely outrageous that the league allowed another team to essentially steal Utah’s No. 1 draft pick. I also have a bit of sympathy for Boryla being forced to make all the hard decisions for the franchise. While Daniels seemed to do little more than write checks from Colorado, Boryla was the one dealing with Utah’s constantly rotating coaching carousel and the increasing cost of the players’ contracts. Yeah, Daniels did have deep pockets, but it became harder to justify his spending when the team kept losing more money each year.

Boryla kept busy by becoming the agent for his quarterback son, Mike, who was drafted in fourth round in 1974 by Cincinnati. Mike Boryla was a Pro Bowler in 1975, but a knee injury ended his career in 1978. Vince Boryla returned to the NBA as the general manager of the Denver Nuggets. In 1985, he was named Executive of the Year. In 2016, he died in Denver at the age of 89.

With Boryla and Mullaney out of the picture, that left Arnie Ferrin, James Collier, and Bucky Buckwalter to try to convince Moses Malone to sign with the Stars. Shortly after announcing his “takeover” of the team, Collier led the way of wooing the 19-year-old phenom. Wisely, Zelmo Beaty was not involved in these efforts. I imagine his frustrations with the Stars would have turned Malone away faster than Robert Parish. But convincing Malone to join still took an enormous amount of work, mainly because he had already signed a letter of intent with the University of Maryland. For one wild week in August, Malone dominated the headlines, seemingly changing his mind back and forth each day. And the amount of money Utah was offering him also varied widely. But finally, the intense negotiations paid off for the Stars’ new management. Partly because Malone was worried the NCAA would punish him for receiving money from college recruiters.

After initially seeking a 15-year contract worth over $3 million, the Stars signed Malone to a five-year deal worth approximately $1 million. The team was notoriously cagey about revealing any financial details, especially at this time, when Collier wouldn’t even explicitly say whether he purchased the team. Regardless, it was an enormous amount of money for a team with cash flow problems to dedicate toward one player. This deal reminds me eerily of the Los Angeles Stars signing Zelmo Beaty. It was the right move for the team, but the wrong move for the franchise.

This was supposed to be an exciting moment for the Stars. They had returned to the Finals, secured a new owner who would keep the team in Utah, and they added one of the nation’s top prospects. But everything continued to crumble down around the franchise. And for Bill Daniels, too. Despite pouring approximately $300,000 of his own funds into his political campaign, Daniels lost in September’s Republican primary to incumbent John Vanderhoof, who went on to lose to Democrat Richard Lamm in the general election. Perhaps he was distracted by endless negotiations of the sale of the Stars, or his still on-going lawsuit against his first coach, Bill Sharman.

The bad news continued when general manager Arnie Ferrin resigned just one week after Daniels’ gubernatorial defeat. Ferrin took a position in the University of Utah’s athletic department, but he made it clear that he was worried about the financial stability of the Stars and the ABA as a whole. He admitted that he (and perhaps others in Utah’s front office) had really been counting on the long-promised merger with the NBA. But that Oscar Robertson lawsuit still hadn’t been resolved, putting the future of the ABA in serious jeopardy. Ferrin quickly was promoted to athletic director for the Utes and held that position until 1985. In 2022, he died at age 97.

Just three days after Ferrin announced his resignation, the Stars released Zelmo Beaty, while Willie Wise and Jimmy Jones announced their intentions to hold out of training camp. Talk about everything happening at once! Of course, each of these decisions had slowly been building all summer long, so let’s break them down one at a time.

Despite Beaty’s frustration with the Stars, he insisted that he wanted to retire in Utah. He had received an offer from the Lakers in August, but decided to give the Stars a month to try to match it. In explaining how the negotiations broke down, Beaty casually dropped what I consider a huge bombshell: “I don’t think the fans are aware of the fact that Bill Daniels still owns the Utah Stars.” That’s right. Everyone had spent all summer referring to Collier as the owner, and Daniels and Collier played along with it, even though they both knew full well it wasn’t true.

This was particularly troubling for Beaty, who seemed like he had been hoping for a fresh start with Collier. Beaty realized he would never be able to get a fair deal from Daniels after he had sued his employer in February. So Utah decided to cut their losses with Beaty and allow him to reunite with Bill Sharman in Los Angeles. Beaty didn’t play particularly well in his lone season as a Laker and retired in 1975. He then finally fulfilled his dream of becoming a coach, by taking over the Virginia Squires. But he only put up a 9-33 record in that hectic final season of the ABA. 

Beaty never held another coaching job after that. And it seems like he largely disengaged from basketball, apart from a couple of brief gigs with the Utah Jazz broadcasting team. In 2013, he died of cancer at age 73. Three years later, he was posthumously enshrined into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. His wife of 50 years, Ann, delivered an extremely brief prerecorded speech. She and her two children were then officially welcomed into the Hall of Fame by Lenny Wilkens, who had played with Zelmo on the St. Louis Hawks.

In an October press conference, Daniels sheepishly apologized for pretending he had sold the team. He also admitted that Collier had only sold 5,600 season tickets — well short of the promised 7,000. Even worse, many of the people who had purchased tickets had backed out. But Daniels remained adamant that Collier would still become the owner of the franchise by the end of October — they just needed to finalize the details, which apparently included a massive drop in price to $1.8 million. Unfortunately, Daniels chose to use Jones and Wise as scapegoats, arguing that the holdouts were preventing the sale.

While Beaty’s departure hurt, it wasn’t terribly surprising. Nor was Jimmy Jones’. Back in June, after his contract expired, Jones made it quite clear that he would leave unless he got a pay raise. Jones asked for a four-year deal worth $250,000. He said that Utah had offered him only $80,000, while Collier claimed the deal was for $150,000. In any case, Jones made the argument that because the new offer was more than 10% less than his current salary, he was now legally a free agent. This was another case where Utah’s secrecy with financials came back to hurt them.

In October, Jones signed with the NBA team that had originally drafted him back in 1967, the Washington Bullets. The Stars tried to prevent this with a legal injunction (not that they didn’t have enough lawsuits on their hands), but were ultimately unsuccessful. Unfortunately, Jones’ NBA career turned out to be a dud. He tore the ligaments in his knee in 1975 and had to retire in 1976. Sadly, he was recently seen working as an 81-year-old Uber driver in Las Vegas.

While the Stars had all summer to deal with Beaty and Jones, Willie Wise’s trade request caught them completely off guard. And they did not take it well. In addition to fining him $300 a day, Daniels refused to trade Wise or even sell his contract — even though he publicly admitted that seven other teams had made serious offers for the valuable two-way forward. Wise could have ended the standoff at any time by simply rejoining the Stars, but he was just as stubborn as Daniels, saying he’d rather be poor and happy than rich and miserable.

And why was Wise so miserable? He had learned that Vince Boryla (and/or Wise’s agent) had secretly altered his contract, which had included a substantial amount of money to be deferred until 1975. But without Wise’s consent, that deferment had been pushed back to 1979. With the turmoil of Daniels struggling to sell the Stars to Collier, Wise rightly worried that his contract would never be paid in full. He was also quite distressed with how the team treated Beaty and Jones. After spending years propping Beaty up as the face of the franchise and Jones as the best guard in the league, Utah was loath to pay them what they were worth and quick to demonize them as disloyal and selfish. 

Wise aptly put it thusly: “They say they are tired of players who don’t live up to their contracts, but why can’t we get tired of them making promises and not living up to them or fulfilling clauses in specific times? Or doing things underhanded that we’re not aware of? We have no recourse? We have to take it and the abuse dished out in the papers?”

Can you believe that Zelmo Beaty was named president of the players union ahead of this guy? Seriously, every interview I’ve watched or read from Willie Wise has blown me away with how articulate and thoughtful he was. Anyway, Wise’s contract was eventually sold to Virginia, but not until January 30, 1975. Wise spent two seasons with the Squires, which meant that he was coached by Beaty, but only for a little bit. Beaty wasn’t hired until January 26, 1976, and Wise went down with a season-ending injury on February 24. After the ABA collapsed, Wise signed with the Denver Nuggets, but was limited to a reserve role. The next year, he joined the Seattle SuperSonics, but only appeared in two games before another injury forced his retirement. Today, Wise is working with Jimmy Jones to advocate for higher pensions of former ABA players.

So, to recap, in one year, Bill Daniels …

• Spent months negotiating a sale of the Utah Stars to West Am Corporation, which ultimately fell through

• Spent even more months negotiating a sale to James A. Collier and his associates, which never fully materialized

• Spent a sizable chunk of his personal fortune on a failed run for governor of Colorado

• Spent quite a bit of time and money in court, battling lawsuits against his former coach and two of his players

• Lost his current coach, team president, and general manager

• Lost the three best players of his team

But he did gain Moses Malone … a transaction that only cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars that he didn’t really have. As October turned into November and then December, Daniels was forced to finally admit that Collier would never be able to purchase the Stars. Daniels promised to keep the team in Salt Lake through the 1974-75 season, but beyond that was anyone’s guess. For the first time all year, he actually publicly began musing about moving the team to Cincinnati, Toronto, or even back to Los Angeles and Anaheim. He also expressed interest in owning the Denver Nuggets, since their owner lived in San Diego and would have rather owned the Conquistadors. The only thing snagging up this potential trade of franchises was Daniels’ inability to sell the Stars.

So, things were looking pretty grim at the end of 1974. But I’ll leave on a high note. One good thing brought about by James Collier was the introduction of fresh new jerseys.

Collier replaced that obnoxious giant star in the middle of the jersey with a fun, dramatic swoop, reminiscent of the controversial Atlanta Hawks jerseys of the day. Obviously these new uniforms weren’t enough to save the Stars, but they were a welcome change of pace.

I had originally planned on adding the formation of the New Orleans Jazz to this post, but I decided it was already long enough. (There was just so much drama this year!) So next time, we’ll explore the origin of the franchise that eventually became Utah’s preeminent professional basketball team.

1973: All-Stars on Stars Avenue

On Feb. 6, 1973, Salt Lake City hosted the ABA’s 6th Annual All-Star Game. But before I can get to that, I have to talk about the 1973 ABA Draft, which was more complicated than ever before!

This year, the ABA decided to hold four separate drafts spread out from January to May — a Special Circumstances Draft, a Senior Draft, an Undergraduate Draft, and a Supplemental Draft. I suspect the ABA may have created this Special Circumstances Draft to avoid missing out on the next Julius Erving, who wasn’t drafted by the ABA because the league didn’t know he wanted to leave college early. Regardless, the ABA selected a pool of players they believed needed to be picked in January and couldn’t wait till the main draft. Some of these players were seniors, some were underclassmen. I don’t know why. The ABA was quite weird. Anyway, the Stars had the eighth pick in this draft, and while they foolishly passed on George Gervin, they did actually pick a future Hall of Famer.

Robert Parish was a 7-1 center from Shreveport, Louisiana. When he enrolled at Centenary College in 1972, he was one of several players who submitted an ACT score instead of an SAT score. The NCAA accused Centenary of using an illegal test score conversion formula to land the star freshman and they placed the college on probation for six years — barring them from postseason play and refusing to acknowledge their records or statistics during that time.

Naturally, the ABA and the Utah Stars felt that Parish would not want to continue playing college ball under such harsh restrictions. But, as was always the case in the ABA, drafting the player was only half the battle. To convince Parish to sign with the Stars, general manager Arnie Ferrin flew to Parish’s home with Utah’s best player, Zelmo Beaty. This was Ferrin’s first big test and … he blew it. From the way Parish told the story, it almost sounds like Beaty actually discouraged Parish from joining the ABA. I wonder if Beaty was secretly seeking to sabotage the Stars at this point. You see, by the time he and Ferrin made this trip out to Louisiana in May, Beaty had been denied the chance to become a player-coach for the Stars (more on that later) and he was having issues with his contract (more on that much later).

Anyway, Parish felt that Centenary did nothing wrong and he chose to stay with them for all four years and appeal the NCAA’s decision. The court ruled against the small college, but that didn’t prevent Parish from becoming a top NBA prospect. He eventually put together a remarkable career that included nine All-Star appearances, four championships, and a new record for most games played (LeBron James has since passed him).

Now it’s time to put that heartbreaking draft behind us and focus on the fun part of 1973 — the All-Star Game! The ABA hadn’t invented the dunk contest or anything like that yet, so the All-Star “weekend” only consisted of a Bill Cosby appearance the night before the game. The game itself was naturally held in the Salt Palace. LaDell Andersen coached the West, which had three Utah players on its roster: Zelmo Beaty, Willie Wise, and James Jones. (He’s listed pretty much everywhere these days as Jimmy Jones, but the newspapers I read from 1973 called him James.)

Andersen did everything he could to let his players shine, giving Wise and Jones the most minutes on the team. (Beaty was already beginning to succumb to his old age and only played 15 minutes.) Wise arguably had the best game on the West’s winning squad, putting up a game-high 26 points and six rebounds. Shockingly, he was not chosen as the game’s MVP. That honor instead went to Denver’s Warren Jabali, who had 16 points and seven assists. The sold-out Salt Palace booed as Jabali was named the winner of a free trip to Europe instead of Wise. Ironically, Jabali didn’t even want to go to Europe, saying he much rather would have preferred a cash prize.

Even though Wise got robbed of the game MVP, the All-Star Game was still a special moment for Salt Lake City. Now let’s take a quick look at the five most interesting players for Utah this season.

Zelmo Beaty did make his third-straight ABA All-Star team and he only missed two games in the regular season. But his bad knees had begun to catch up to him. His production level had dipped down to 16.4 points and 9.8 rebounds per game. And for the first time since joining the ABA, Beaty did not receive any MVP votes. Luckily, the Stars had someone else ready to pick up the slack.

Willie Wise had a career year with 22.0 points and 8.2 rebounds per game. Not only was he an All-Star, but he also earned a spot on the ABA All-Defensive First Team and received an MVP vote for the first time since his rookie season. Wise stepped up even more in the playoffs, raising his scoring to 25.0 ppg.

James Jones made the All-Star Game for the first time as a member of the Utah Stars, but it was his fifth All-Star appearance overall. He put up 16.7 points and 5.6 assists per game, but saw his numbers dip slightly in the playoffs.

Glen Combs led the ABA in 3-point percentage for the second-straight season, making 38.1% of his long-distance shots. Unfortunately, he suffered a career-altering injury that limited him to 50 games. He finished the regular season with a 13.2 ppg average, but he was a shell of his former self by the time the playoffs began. Combs could only play 6.7 minutes per game in the postseason, averaging a dismal 2.7 ppg. Utah would trade him away partly through the 1973-74 season and he retired in 1975.

Ron Boone was the greatest beneficiary of Combs’ injury. He put. Up 18.5 points and 5.1 rebounds per games and even received a vote for MVP (for the first and only time of his career). Unfortunately, Utah really needed Boone to also step up in the playoffs, but his scoring dipped to 16.9 ppg.

The Stars went 55-29, claiming their second-consecutive Western Division title. After sweeping the San Diego Conquistadors in the first round, Utah faced the Indiana Pacers in the Western Division Finals for the third-straight year. This time, the Pacers won in six games. Perhaps the most painful loss was Game 5 in Salt Lake City. Willie Wise scored 34 points, but Zelmo Beaty only had nine, and the Stars lost 104-102. Indiana then cruised to a decisive 107-98 win in Game 6, as Wise was held to just 17 points. Former Star Donnie Freeman came up big for the Pacers, filling in nicely for the aging Roger Brown.

Oddly, Stars coach LaDell Andersen seemed almost relieved by the loss, simply saying, “Now we don’t have to try to win on Saturday.” You see, he had spent most of this season knowing it would be his last. In January, Utah State had offered him their Athletics Director job, and he agreed to take it as soon as the Stars season ended. Andersen admitted that he had always wanted to be Utah State’s AD, but he had originally planned on staying with the Stars for five years. He went out of his way to praise the team’s front office, and conceded that he liked “most of the players.” Which, to me, means that he didn’t quite like all the players. I know it was quite common in this era for college coaches to struggle with professional players’ desire to make money and maximize their earnings. I’m not certain if that was Andersen’s problem with the ABA, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it played a factor in his early departure.

While Andersen appeared to be at peace with his decision, he created a cloud of uncertainty that hung over the Stars for most of the season. And it took Vince Boryla and Arnie Ferrin quite a long time to find a new head coach, which is rather odd, considering how they literally had people begging for the job. Zelmo Beaty, entering the final years of his career, asked to be the player-coach. Tom Nissalke, who had recently been fired from Seattle after he foolishly traded away Lenny Wilkens, also asked for the Utah. But Boryla turned them both down. A full eight months passed from Andersen’s announcement before Boryla’s ideal candidate fell into his lap.

Joe Mullaney was a 6-0 guard from New York, who helped Bob Cousy and Holy Cross win the 1947 NCAA Championship. He was drafted in the third round by the Boston Celtics in 1949, but he only played 37 games for them. After working with the FBI for a while, Mullaney got into coaching at Norwich University in 1954. The next season, he joined Providence College, where he thrived, winning two NIT Championships. In 1969, he took the leap to the professional world, taking over none other than the Los Angeles Lakers. In his first season, he guided Los Angeles to the NBA Finals, only to lose to New York in seven games. After failing to return to the Finals the next season, the Lakers fired Mullaney in 1971 and replaced him with Utah’s Bill Sharman.

Ironically, Vince Boryla initially wanted Mullaney to replace Sharman, which would have basically ended up as a funny inter-league coaching swap. But as Utah’s lawsuit against Sharman drug out, Mullaney chose instead to coach the Kentucky Colonels. He took the Colonels to the 1973 ABA Finals, but lost to Indiana in seven games. He probably would have stayed in Kentucky had the franchise not gained a new owner, who clashed with Mullaney and threatened to move the team to Cincinnati. Mullaney strongly considered returning to Providence, but Boryla quickly swooped in and convinced him to lead one of the ABA’s best teams.

Could this new coach help the Stars continue their winning ways despite their aging and disgruntled captain, their injured sharpshooter, and their continued streak of bad luck in the draft? We’ll find out next time.