A brief history of pro basketball in Utah: 1968

On December 30, 1967, Art Kim named Harry Dinnel as the new coach of the Anaheim Amigos. But Dinnel failed to the team around, guiding the Amigos to a 25-53 record in their one and only season in Anaheim. One of the many problems facing Kim’s team was his roster. Between injuries and Kim’s penchant for quickly releasing players, 20 different people suited up for the Amigos. Coincidentally, four of them had ties to BYU and one came from Utah State. Anyway, I want to quickly highlight five of these Amigos.

Ben Warley was a 6-foot-5 small forward who averaged 17.4 points and 8.6 rebounds per game, which was good enough to earn him a trip to the ABA’s inaugural All-Star Game. At 31 years old, he was the eldest Amigo and one of the few who actually had NBA experience. The Tennessee State star was drafted in the fourth round by the Minneapolis Lakers in 1960, but he failed to make the team and had to sign with the Cleveland Pipers instead. Warley thrived there and helped the Pipers win the 1961 National Industrial Basketball League championship. This caught the attention of the Syracuse Nationals, who drafted Warley with the sixth overall pick of the 1961 draft. But they didn’t call him up until 1963, giving Warley time to help the Pipers win the 1962 American Basketball League championship under head coach Bill Sharman (remember that name).

Warley joined Art Kim’s Long Beach Chiefs for the 1962-63 season, but the entire ABL abruptly folded on December 31, 1962. So he finally got to begin his NBA career in January 1963. Unfortunately, he didn’t make much of an impact for the Nationals (later renamed the Philadelphia 76ers). He averaged a career-high 8.2 points per game in 1963-64, but his contract was sold to Baltimore in 1965. In 1967, he was picked up by Seattle in the expansion draft, but he chose to return to Art Kim instead. 

His one season in Anaheim was the best of his professional career, and he was one of the few Amigos to remain on the roster after they moved to Los Angeles (although he was traded away to Denver in January 1969). Warley was out of the ABA by 1970, but he did excel in the Eastern Basketball Association, making the 1971 All-EBA Team while playing for the Camden Bullets. He bounced around in the minor leagues until 1974, when he became an assistant coach for the Philadelphia Kings of the Continental Basketball Association. In 1980, a player shortage forced him to suit up for one final time and he scored four points in his last game as a semi-professional basketball player. In 2002, he died of liver cancer at the age of 65.

Larry Bunce was Anaheim’s second All-Star — a feat that’s less impressive when you factor in the fact that the league only had 11 teams at the time. And Bunce’s selection may have been more a factor of his size than his production (12.1 points and 8.3 rebounds per game). At 7 feet tall, Bunce was the tallest player in the ABA. And I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to suggest that ABA officials were desperate to show off at least one 7-footer in their first All-Star Game.

In 1966, Bunce transferred from Riverside City College to Utah State. In 1967, he was drafted in the fourth round by Seattle, but chose to follow Ben Warley down to Anaheim. Bunce was part of the purge when the Amigos moved to Anaheim, being traded to Denver for a draft pick. Denver sent him to Dallas after 23 games, and Dallas cut him after 24. Houston picked him up for the final 11 games of the season, and Bunce’s ABA career came to an end. He then apparently tried to use his massive size to earn money through illegal ways. He was arrested in 1970 for extortion and placed on five years probation. Once that ended, he tried to revive his basketball career in Sweden in 1975.

Les Selvage was one of professional basketball’s first 3-point specialists. He led the ABA in 3-pointers made (1.9 per game) and attempted (5.9 per game, for a .319 percentage). In one game against Denver, he attempted a dizzying 26 3-pointers, making 10 of them to finish with 38 points (while the Amigos lost 142-108).

Selvage was a standout point guard at Kirksville State Teachers College and made the First Team for the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association in 1963. But that wasn’t impressive enough for any pro teams to come calling, so Selvage got a job at Douglas Aircraft in California. He continued to play amateur ball on the side, and was discovered by the Amigos. He was waived as part of the Los Angeles purge, but the Stars re-signed him for four regular season games and one playoff game in 1970. In 1991, Selvage got sick and died at the young age of 48.

Dick Lee has perhaps the funniest story of this roster. Although this 6-foot-6 forward did play three seasons at the University of Washington, he was never good enough to play professional basketball and joined the Amigos as a public relations worker. But as the season progressed and injuries mounted, the cash-strapped Kim didn’t want to sign any more players. So he asked Lee to suit up just to give Anaheim the minimum required active players. Lee was never intended to actually play any minutes, but foul trouble forced him off the bench in two separate games. He recorded one rebound and one assist and zero points in his ABA career.

Bill Crow may have the saddest story of the Amigos. In 1961, he transferred from Cerritos College to BYU, but only played in five games for the Cougars and scored a total of 10 points. So he transferred to Westminster College in Salt Lake City. Like Dick Lee, Crow was never professional basketball material, but the 6-foot-1 point guard did prove useful on Art Kim’s Washington Generals, who were specifically designed to lose to the Harlem Globetrotters. It really shows how desperate Kim was to fill his roster that he called up some of his old Generals players.

Crow played in only one game for Anaheim, scoring three points of 1-for-8 shooting from the field and 1-for-4 from the free throw line in 16 minutes of action. Afterward, according to Crow, he was waived from the team but nobody told him. He showed up to the next game with his uniform on and everything. Just moments before tipoff, one of Kim’s staffers noticed him on the bench and told him he didn’t belong there since he was no longer a member of the team. The embarrassed crow allegedly begged to stay on the bench for the game since he had friends and family in the crowd, but the staffer wouldn’t relent.

This story should give you a good sense of the kind of franchise Art Kim was running. Although he had a co-owner, James Ackerman, he simply did not have enough funds to support a professional basketball franchise. Some players, like Crow, say they were never paid. Others had to sue Kim for their paycheck. When it was all said and done, Kim and Ackerman claimed the Anaheim Amigos had lost $500,000 in its first season. However, Kim luckily found a buyer to keep the team alive.

James J. Kirst purchased the Anaheim Amigos for $450,000 — a massive increase from the $30,000 that Kim and Ackerman paid just a year prior, but not quite enough to make up for the money they claim they lost. Kim apparently was under the impression that Kirst, who owned his own construction company, would keep the Amigos in Anaheim. Instead, Kirst relocated the franchise to Los Angeles and did everything he could to distance himself from the train wreck that had been the Amigos. 

Jim Hardy was Kirst’s right-hand man and was promptly named the team’s general manager. He was tasked with cleaning house, from laying off the entire managerial staff, to waiving or trading away most of the players, to even (allegedly) burning the Amigos uniforms. To signify that this was a new franchise as much as possible, they changed the team colors from orange and black to red, white, and blue. Oh, and they picked a new name: the Los Angeles Stars.

The old Amigos logo used an orange basketball, which was rather ironic as the ABA distinguished itself by using a red, white, and blue ball. So on that alone, this logo is an upgrade. I also find a charming simplicity in the lettering. And, of course, the name is vastly better — referencing all the movie stars in and around L.A. It’s a redesign that brings a lot of optimism with it. And it was the right time to relocate.

The Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena had been home to the Lakers from 1960 to 1967. Once the Lakers moved to The Forum in Inglewood, Kirst was free to claim the 16,000-seat arena for himself. No longer would this franchise have to fight for dates at the Anaheim Convention Center.

Of course, the arena wasn’t the only reason for relocation. NBA superstar Wilt Chamberlain had grown so upset with Philadelphia that he demanded to be traded to Los Angeles (primarily so he could rub shoulders with celebrities). Chamberlain was so determined to move to L.A. that he even threatened to join the ABA. I’m not certain if Kirst ever extended an actual offer to Chamberlain, but I have no doubt it was in the back of his mind. Ultimately, though, the Lakers did make the trade and they rewarded Chamberlain with a record $250,000 contract — which Kirst never would have been able to match. He did, however, manage to land a big name for his head coach.

Bill Sharman was born in Texas but raised in Southern California, where he excelled at basically every sport he played and was named California’s Outstanding Athlete as a high school senior in 1944. After serving in the Navy for two years during World War II, Sharman played basketball and baseball at USC. He was decent at baseball, but better at basketball, where he was twice named to the All-Pacific Coast Conference First Team. In 1950, he was named a consensus first-team All-American before being drafted by the Washington Capitols in the second round. He also signed a contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers and spent the next five years playing basketball in the winter and minor league baseball in the summer. He never got called up by the Dodgers and decided to quit baseball after he broke his hand in 1955.

Sharman only played 31 games for the Capitols before the franchise folded. Ironically, he may have played a small part in the destruction of that franchise. Since he had signed with the Dodgers first, he was able to negotiate for one of the highest rookie contracts in the NBA by threatening to become a full-time baseball player. After Washington collapsed, Sharman was picked up by Fort Wayne in the dispersal draft, then immediately traded to Boston where his career took off.

During his 10 years with the Celtics, Sharman won four championships, made eight All-Star Games (winning the game’s MVP in 1955), four All-NBA First Teams, and three All-NBA Second Teams. He was later named to the NBA’s 25th, 50th, and 75th Anniversary Teams. In other words, he was an all-time great.

Sharman retired from the NBA in 1961, but he wasn’t quite done with playing basketball yet. He returned home to Southern California, where he became a player/coach for the ABL’s Los Angeles Jets. But that franchise folded in January 1962. Sharman was quickly scooped up by the Cleveland Pipers, where he focused entirely on coaching and helped the Pipers win the ABL title. Before they folded, as well.

So Sharman went back home and coached the Los Angeles State basketball team for two seasons before trying his hand at broadcasting for a couple of years. In 1966, he finally returned to the NBA as head coach of the San Francisco Warriors. Rick Barry led that team to the Finals in Sharman’s first season, but they lost to Philadelphia. In Sharman’s second season, Barry abruptly joined the ABA over a contract dispute, which may have played a role in Sharman’s departure in 1968.

Sharman actually listed several reasons for why he left the Warriors. One, he really wanted to return home to Los Angeles (this won’t be the last time he made this choice). Two, General Manager Jim Hardy was an old college buddy of Sharman’s. Three, he genuinely believed the ABA and NBA would soon merge. As strange as it sounds, there was already a lot of talk about a merger. Jim Kirst went on the record saying that when the merger occurred, the new league would simply have to have two L.A. teams because he intended to keep the Stars there forever. Hardy also liked to refer to the Lakers as Inglewood’s team, arguing that the Stars would soon become the “true” basketball team of Los Angeles.

And finally, Sharman seems to have been quite optimistic about the future of the ABA. Although the league missed out on Wilt Chamberlain, Rick Barry did headline a trend of NBA stars switching leagues. And many people (Sharman included), believed it was highly likely that Lew Alcindor (later to be known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) would join the ABA. Of course, none of those hopes would pan out quite like Sharman had hoped. We’ll start exploring how and why things collapsed in our next post. But just remember: the struggles of the Amigos and the Stars were only good news for the dream of professional basketball in Utah.

Before Watchmen: Still stalling for time

The great J.G. Jones has delivered another solid cover, presenting an old photograph of the Comedian with two Vietnamese boys who have unfortunately decided to pick Eddie Blake as their role model. The Comedian nicknamed them Hearts and Minds in mockery of the U.S. military’s PR campaign. It’s a good-looking cover, but not terribly interesting. I’d like it a lot more if Brian Azzarello had decided to spend a little more time with these two boys, but he didn’t.

Brian Stelfreeze gave us a psychedelic cover that’s not too bad. He really emphasized Eddie’s connection to the Kennedy family, which — again — I wish Azzarello had decided to devote a little bit more time toward.

So … what did Azzarello devote his time to in this issue? Not much. Eddie gets sick and tired of the war effort, especially when he realizes that his handlers are focused on prolonging the war as long as possible to set themselves up for lucrative opportunities afterward. He also becomes quite distressed when he heard Robert Kennedy was running for president and he wouldn’t take Eddie’s phone call. So Eddie got high, basically slaughtered an entire village, then shoved his commanding officer out of a helicopter when he yelled at Eddie for jeopardizing his long-term plans. And that’s about it.

Azzarello mixed things up by presenting this story out of order, but I found all the flashbacks and bouncing around completely pointless. And unnecessarily confusing. A different color scheme would have helped. The story wouldn’t have been any better, but at least I would have had an easier time telling when everything was supposed to be happening. Mostly, though, I felt the same way about this issue as I did the last issue I reviewed. Perhaps six issues was too long for this miniseries. Giving Azzarello just four issues may have required him to tighten up his story and we would have ended up with a better product. Or it might have been rushed. But after reading two comics where nothing seemed to happen, I think I would have liked to take my chances

A brief history of pro basketball in Utah: 1967

The history of professional basketball in Utah is a fascinating and hilarious one. And it all begins with the ambition — and ineptitude — of this man, Art Kim.

Art Kim was a Korean-American from Maui, Hawaii, who made a name for himself by organizing basketball games for the servicemen stationed in Hawaii during World War II. In 1946, he began working with Abe Saperstein, owner of the Harlem Globetrotters. Kim’s job was to manage the opponents the Globetrotters would beat, fake teams like the Washington Generals. Apparently he was quite good at that job, as his partnership with Saperstein continued through 1961, when Kim was granted control of one of the franchises in Saperstein’s newly formed American Basketball League. Based in Honolulu, Kim wanted to name his team the Hawaii Aliis, but was persuaded by the locals to reserve that name for Hawaiian royalty and he went with the Chiefs instead.

It turns out that running a team that’s designed to lose is very different from running a team that’s trying to win. After just one season, Kim was forced to relocate his team to California, where they became the Long Beach Chiefs. Of course, it’s hard to tell how much of this was Kim’s fault, as the entire ABL folded on December 31, 1962. While Saperstein’s dream may have failed, his league did help popularize the 3-point shot, which Kim was also apparently an early proponent of.

A few years later, Kim’s connections brought him in on the ground floor of the American Basketball Association, which officially was formed on February 2, 1967. One of the founders of the ABA, Dennis Murphy, came quite close to bringing a professional football team to Anaheim, California, so it came as no surprise that this new league would prioritize that location. As Kim was one of the only new franchise owners with previous basketball experience, he was given a little bit of special treatment. Of course, he still had to come up with the $30,000 entry fee, which he was unable to pay himself. James Ackerman made up the difference and as I far as I can tell, he was only a silent partner. For all intents and purposes, this ABA franchise in Anaheim was Kim’s team.

On a side note that also loosely connects to Utah, Kim wasn’t the only person the ABA played favorites with. The league was so desperate to beat the NBA to New Orleans that they allowed a group of seven investors to join for just $1,000, instead of the usual $30,000. And that was how the New Orleans Buccaneers were created. But I’m focusing mainly on Kim’s team, which came to be known as the Anaheim Amigos.

For some reason, I just feel like this name and logo is in poor taste. In any case, it doesn’t feel like a particularly strong team name to rally behind. But one thing the Amigos did have going for them was their own arena … sort of. The Anaheim Convention Center opened across the street from Disneyland on July 12, 1967, to cater to the growing demand for business conferences and trade shows near the Happiest Place on Earth. I don’t know if the Amigos chose the colors orange and black to match the convention center’s signage or if it was the other way around, but either way, I think it was kind of neat that their colors were coordinated.

Unfortunately for the Amigos, the demand for the convention center was quite high. And its officials quickly learned that it was much more profitable to host just about anything else than Amigo games. Although they provided more than 7,000 seats, the Amigos rarely used more than a thousand of them each game. So the center didn’t give the Amigos any priority on the schedule. This forced Kim to arrange a handful of “home” games in random California cities like Fullerton, Fresno, and Los Angeles. 

Of course, at the start of the season, Kim actually wanted to play more road games. Since the ABA split the gate revenue for each game between the home and away team, Kim arranged for the Amigos to play in as many season openers as possible. He surmised (correctly) that each team’s debut game would draw bigger crowds than they would the rest of the year. And in what I can only call a bit of favoritism, the ABA allowed the Amigos to begin their season with six straight road games, including the league’s first-ever game, before finally debuting in Anaheim. The Amigos went 1-5 on this season-opening road trip.

At the end of the day, I think Kim’s biggest problem was his inability to put together a competent basketball team. The ABA did hold a 10-round draft before the season began, but for various reasons, none of those rookies ended up playing for Anaheim (some went to the NBA, some decided to stay in college another year, and so on). That left Kim with a less-than-desirable roster, which I will go into more detail next time. For this entry, I want to focus on the coaches.

For head coach, Kim went with a familiar name, Al Brightman, who was the last coach of the Long Beach Chiefs. Brightman, a native of Long Beach, was named California Mr. Basketball in 1941. At the age of 17, he played as catcher for the Cleveland Indians organization, before a shoulder injury ended his short-lived baseball career. He played basketball at Morris Harvey College in Charleston, South Carolina, and joined the Boston Celtics for their inaugural season in 1946 with the Basketball Association of America. Brightman even became the first player in Celtics history to score more than 20 points in a game, but he decided to leave the team after just one season and relocate to Seattle to be closer to his wife’s family. He allegedly had been on his way driving back to Boston but realized his wallet had been stolen in Idaho, so he turned around and went back to Seattle.

Brightman ended up joining the Seattle Athletics of the Pacific Coast Professional Basketball League, where he served as a player-coach until that league folded in 1948. He was quickly hired as the head coach of the Seattle University basketball team, where he flourished. He led the Chieftains to the postseason five times in his eight seasons, and had five losses or fewer three times. But just when Brightman seemed destined to become the next great coach of his generation, disaster struck. During an NCAA Tournament game against UCLA in 1956, Brightman nearly got into a fight with Bruins’ head coach John Wooden. Seattle lost by 24 points and Brightman abruptly resigned three days later from his positions as basketball and baseball coach.

Years later, it was revealed that Seattle had politely asked Brightman to resign under his own accord before they fired him. There is some speculation that he had been drunk during that fateful game against UCLA. In any case, the rest of his career paints a picture of a disgraced coach, who struggled to keep a full-time job. In 1961, he coached the NBL’s San Francisco Saints for one season, before working for Art Kim and the Long Beach Chiefs. After the NBL folded, Brightman returned to coaching high school basketball until Kim called his number in 1967. But this reunion didn’t last long. Kim fired Brightman after he put up a 12-24 record. And Brightman never coached basketball again, choosing to manage properties until he died of cancer in 1992 at age 68.

Brightman apparently didn’t have any assistant coaches in Anaheim (that team photo only shows one trainer with the coach), so Kim decided to pick one of his players to be the new coach. And that lucky guy was Harry Dinnel.

Dinnel was a Southern California native who put together a rather impressive career at Pepperdine, being named Co-West Coast Conference Player of the Year in 1962 and reaching the All-WCC First Team in 1963. He was drafted in the eighth round by the San Francisco Warriors but never played in the NBA. In fact, it appears that he didn’t play any professional basketball until he signed with the Amigos in 1967. He only appeared in 11 games as a player, putting up a paltry 1.7 points and 2.1 rebounds per game. Rather than becoming a player-coach, he retired as a player before replacing Brightman. Unfortunately, he was unable to turn around the Amigos’ fortunes, as he compiled a 13-29 record before his professional coaching career came to an end. Dinnel then became the basketball coach at Redondo High School, where he stayed for 34 years. He died in 2017 at 76 years old.

Well, that was probably more detail than anyone wanted, but I find it fascinating. All these little stories add up to the big story of Utah gaining a professional basketball team. And speaking of Utah …

Ground was broken for the Salt Palace on March 10, 1967. The $17 million arena was constructed as part of a bid for the 1972 Winter Olympics. And the name was inspired by the original Salt Palace, a turn-of-the-century dance hall that plastered real salt on the outside walls to gleam in the sunlight and burned down in 1910. Salt Lake City lost the ‘72 Olympics to Sapporo, Japan, but this new 10,000-seat venue would eventually land a rather intriguing consolation prize.

Before Watchmen: Going through the motions

This cover is a typical example of Jae Lee’s work. Artistic, clean, posed interestingly, yet also hampered by a strange “scrunchiness” and disconnect with the story. I’ve always been curious about Adrian’s beloved cat, Bubastis, but this issue does not feature her — which makes this cover a bit disappointing to me.

The variant cover by Mike Kaluta is fantastic. Beautiful, yet haunting. Poetic and ominous. I’ll admit I don’t fully understand it, though — probably because it also doesn’t seem to bear any connection to the inside story.

Of course, it’s hard to blame the covers for not being connected to a story like this, where nothing happens at all. It’s really unfortunate coming off the rushed ending of Silk Spectre and the rushed opening of Moloch, only to see a bland placeholder issue from Len Wein. He was given six issues for an Ozymandias story, but apparently he only needed four. This is the comic book equivalent of a high schooler desperately trying to stretch their two-page essay to the required five pages.

Wein rapidly advances through a few years of Adrian’s life, doing absolutely nothing of any particular interest. Adrian admits that he lacked the passion for being a superhero like his counterparts, but he kept going through the motions mostly out of boredom. He was happy to form a close relationship with John F. Kennedy, but was dismayed when he saw the Comedian had an even more intimate relationship with the Kennedy family. Adrian was also surprised when JFK deduced his secret identity, but he was more than happy to resolve the Cuban Missile Crisis, advising the president that Dr. Manhattan was far too powerful to ever be used in a political conflict.

Adrian was shocked by Kennedy’s assassination, and dismayed to discover that there was no grand plot beyond Lee Harvey Oswald. His inability to foresee this starts to put his reputation as the “world’s smartest man” into question, but Wein was not interested in reflecting on that. What he was interested in, apparently, was recreating the entire Crimebusters scene word-for-word as Alan Moore originally told it. I saw absolutely no need for this beyond a frantic need to eat up some pages. And the end of the issue was a bland detail that should have been painfully obvious from Moore’s old work. As Captain Metropolis whimpers that someone’s got to save the world, Adrian decided that he should be that someone. Duh! We already knew that!

Before Watchmen created the opportunity for comics creators to explore new avenues and fresh angles of the characters and world created by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. Sometimes we got lucky and were given a unique, interesting story. But far too often, this project only produced dull, repetitive nonsense that made this whole endeavor feel more like a cheap cash grab than anything else. This issue is one of the prime examples of the very worst Before Watchmen has to offer.

Redrafting the Jazz: 1979

I have been cursed by a witch to repeatedly travel back through time to relive every NBA draft. Fortunately, her spell sends me directly to the Utah Jazz war room on draft night and all the executives magically know I’m from the future and will do whatever I say. Unfortunately, the curse prevents me from seeing how my advice altered the future. And at long last, my journey has come to its end.

June 25, 1979 – Plaza Hotel, New York City

Previous season:

The Utah Jazz were officially born on June 8, 1979, when Sam Battistone Jr. completed the relocation of the New Orleans Jazz to Salt Lake City. Although he kept the same name and uniforms, and he left the roster mostly intact, he did seek a fresh start in management. Replacing Elgin Baylor at head coach was Tom Nissalke, who had won Coach of the Year with the Houston Rockets in 1977. Atlanta Hawks assistant coach Frank Layden also sought out Utah’s coaching role, but Battistone made him the general manger to replace Tom Willingham.

The New Orleans Jazz had struggled from Day One, and nothing had improved by their fifth and final season in Louisiana. With All-Star Pete Maravich limited to just 49 games, the Jazz limped to a 26-56 record, which earned them the right to the coin flip with the Chicago Bulls for the No. 1 pick in the 1979 Draft. For the first — and so far only — time in franchise history, the Jazz won the top pick. Unfortunately, it belonged to the Los Angeles Lakers thanks to a major mistake the Jazz made back in 1976. New Orleans decided to sign All-Star Gail Goodrich to a large contract, even though he was already past his prime. And back then, the NBA really hated the idea of free agency, so they had a punitive rule in place that forced teams to deliver some form of compensation to the free agent’s old team. New Orleans’ unprotected 1979 first-round pick was included in the compensation package to the Lakers, who then used it to draft Magic Johnson, forever altering the landscape of the NBA.

The draft:

Although the Jazz lost out on the top pick, they did own the 20th thanks to a trade that sent Truck Robinson to Phoenix. So with the first draft pick in Utah Jazz history, Frank Layden selected Larry Knight, a forward from Loyola Chicago.

In the second round, Utah used the 23rd pick on a guard from Georgia Tech named Tico Brown.

And the draft lasted eight more rounds after this, but none of those picks were consequential.

Analysis:

The new Utah Jazz front office had no time to prepare for this draft and it showed. Frank Layden apparently did no scouting on Larry Knight and drafted him simply because he averaged 13 rebounds per game in college. But Layden failed to take into account the mediocre level of competition Knight faced at his small school or how his slight 6-foot-8 frame would translate to the professional game. Tom Nissalke hated Knight’s game right away and cut him before the season began.

Tico Brown also failed to make the Jazz roster, and both Brown and Knight never saw action on an NBA court. All in all, this was absolute worst outcome in this draft for the Utah Jazz. Not only did they miss out on Magic Johnson, but their top two picks never even became NBA players. The best my interference could do would be to give the Jazz Bill Laimbeer, who was a four-time All-Star with Detroit.

My advice:

1. Use the 20th pick on Bill Laimbeer.

2. Who cares?

I know full well that Bill Laimbeer is a poor consolation prize for Magic Johnson. But it was the best I could do. And I honestly don’t care anymore. It was a fun ride while it lasted, now I close my eyes and allow the witch’s curse to return me to the present, where I am but a lowly fan, praying for the Jazz to hit it big in the draft.

Before Watchmen: A villainous diversion

DC’s Before Watchmen was announced in February 2012. In August, they announced an addition to the project, a two-issue miniseries focused on the villain Moloch. Apparently this whole gamble was paying off quite well and the company quickly sought a way to expand it. I was quite eager to read Moloch’s backstory — as opposed to the rest of the main cast, he’s actually a character we know very little about. I think there’s much more potential in a Moloch story than Silk Spectre or Nite Owl. Unfortunately, DC decided to only devote two issues to this tale. And even more unfortunate was their choice to had this story to J. Michael Straczynski. He has surprised me from time to time, but more often than not, he just lets me down.

But what’s not letting me down is this amazing cover by Eduardo Risso. It is ominous and haunting, giving me my first glimpse of what a threatening figure Moloch could have been. It’s definitely one of my five favorite covers from Before Watchmen and definitely ranks fairly high on my list of favorite comic book covers in general. I just wish Risso’s interior art matched this level of detail and intensity. I wouldn’t call it bad art, per se, but maybe rushed?

This variant cover by Matt Wagner and Brennan Wagner is nothing special. In fact, I find it rather cheesy. I prefer mystery over on-the-nose symbolism. However, symbolism does have its place, when done well. Like with the third variant cover.

I am absolutely floored by this Jim Lee and Alex Sinclair cover. I hated all of Lee’s variants for the main Before Watchmen series. He had all the characters blandly posing in a police lineup, muscled up and glamorized to extreme levels that flew in the face of what I believe Alan Moore had intended. But this! This is something unique and captivating! It’s not just a generic pose — it ties in beautifully with the inside story. And I actually do enjoy the Pietà pose here. While Moloch technically doesn’t die in this story, his innocence does. I’m really glad that Lee pushed himself to do some storytelling with this cover.

But how good was Straczynski’s storytelling? Well … a bit of a letdown. This issue details the childhood of Edgar Jacobi, who was born with a deformed face and ears. Because of his grotesque appearance, his parents never truly loved him, only providing him with the bare minimum of support. Craving attention, Edgar trained to be a stage magician. His acts caught the eye of a pretty girl who promised to have sex with him. But then Edgar discovered she already had a boyfriend and was playing a cruel joke on Edgar. So he killed the boyfriend and somehow smuggled his dead body into the girl’s bed without waking her up. This Godfather-esque experience apparently traumatized the girl and forced her to be institutionalized, while Edgar ran away from home and became a traveling magician under the name of Moloch the Mystic.

Edgar told everyone he took the name from the ancient Ammonite god who was known for his supernatural powers. But he really chose the name because Moloch was known for child sacrifice, and he considered his first kill to be a sacrifice for his new life. He turned out to be a fairly poor magician, which forced him into a life of crime. But his meager magician skills made him a very successful criminal, one that attracted the attention of the Minutemen. However, he was always able to escape prison no matter how many times they locked him up.

Moloch’s outlook on life changed when he first encountered Dr. Manhattan. He realized this was a foe he would never be able to defeat. While serving a life sentence in prison, Moloch converted to Christianity and began praying for forgiveness. To his surprise, he was granted parole, only to find Ozymandias waiting for him outside the prison.

I feel like there was a lot of wasted potential with this story. Straczynski gave us a rather by-the-numbers tragic origin tale without taking any time to show us why Moloch was the most prominent “super villain” in the Watchmen universe. But mostly I wanted more interactions with the Comedian. I think it was a big deal that Eddie Blake chose to visit Moloch instead of anyone else after he learned Ozymandias’ plan. Now, I haven’t read the second issue of this series yet, so maybe I’ll get my wish. I don’t have high hopes, though, because one, I know this writer, and two, this miniseries just isn’t long enough to do what I want it to do.

Redrafting the Jazz: 1980

I have been cursed by a witch to repeatedly travel back through time to relive every NBA draft. Fortunately, her spell sends me directly to the Utah Jazz war room on draft night and all the executives magically know I’m from the future and will do whatever I say. Unfortunately, the curse prevents me from seeing how my advice altered the future, as I am sent back to the previous year as soon as draft night ends.

June 10, 1980 – Sheraton Centre Hotel & Towers, New York City

Previous season:

The 1979-80 season was this franchise’s first full season in Salt Lake City as the Utah Jazz. And boy, was it a doozy! General manager Frank Layden desperately tried to spice things up in the hectic 1979 offseason by trading a couple of veteran big men for young, high-scoring forwards. The first trade ended up being one of the best in Jazz history, as Utah sent the aging Spencer Haywood to the Lakers for Adrian Dantley. This immediately paid off for the Jazz, as Dantley made the first of six eventual All-Star appearances in an Utah uniform. Layden’s second big trade was to send Rich Kelley to New Jersey for Bernard King. This, unfortunately, turned out to be a disaster. King was arrested for sexual assault and cocaine possession. His alcoholism required a lengthy stay in rehab, which limited him to just 19 games with the Jazz. Utah was able to eventually trade him away to Golden State for big man Wayne Cooper, but he only gave the Jazz one mediocre season. King eventually did get his life together enough to put together a stretch of incredible basketball … but it wasn’t with the Jazz.

Layden had envisioned forming a Big Three with Dantley, King, and All-Star veteran Pete Maravich. Each of them would end up leading the NBA in scoring at different points in their careers, and it would have been fascinating to see if Layden’s all-offensive experiment could have worked. But in addition to King’s absence, Maravich’s injuries limited him to just 17 games. Unlike King, Maravich was on his last legs, and Utah couldn’t find anyone to trade for him. So they waived him in January 1980 and he quickly signed with the Boston Celtics before retiring at the end of the season. So with Dantley as the lone bright spot, the Jazz struggled to a 24-58 record.

The draft:

Back in these days, the NBA held a coin toss between the teams with the worst record in each conference for the No. 1 pick. Utah lost the coin toss to Detroit, but they owed the pick to Boston, who quickly traded it to Golden State for the third pick and Robert Parrish. The Warriors used the top pick on big man Joe Barry Carroll, while Utah used the second pick on a shooting guard from Louisville named Darrell Griffith.

The Jazz also owned the 19th pick thanks to a 1979 trade that sent Truck Robinson to Phoenix. With this pick, Utah selected point guard John Duren from Georgetown.

I don’t care about any of Utah’s other picks in this insanely long 10-round draft. Although I will point out that their fifth-round selection was a guy named Wally West, which I’m sure DC Comics fans will get a kick out of. Unfortunately, this Wally West didn’t play any games in the NBA.

Analysis:

The Darrell Griffith pick was a no-brainer for Utah. He was the best player on the NCAA national championship team and he filled an immediate need at shooting guard. (Let’s face it, the aging Ron Boone was nothing compared to Pistol Pete — even on his last legs.) Griffith was named Rookie of the Year and participated in two dunk contests. He also led the NBA in 3-pointers in two seasons before he broke his foot in 1985. He missed an entire season and was never the same after that, limping along for five more years, becoming exponentially less effective in each subsequent season. Nevertheless, he remained a fan favorite and deservedly had his jersey retired by the Jazz. But was he really the best pick for Utah?

The third pick in this draft was Kevin McHale. After resolving a contract dispute with the Celtics, he went on to have a legendary career in Boston, winning three championships and making seven All-Stars. He’s a member of the NBA’s 75th Anniversary Team and was the only player of this draft to reach the Hall of Fame. Even though Griffith was Rookie of the Year, he never made a single All-Star. McHale had the better career of the two — by far — but I still hesitate slightly to make this switch. Griffith filled a gaping hole in Utah’s backcourt. And McHale’s low-post scoring could have gotten in the way of Dantley’s low-post scoring. However, the Jazz were also pretty thin up front after dealing away Haywood and Kelley, and McHale’s rebounding and shot-blocking would have been much appreciated. At the end of the day, I think I want McHale more than Griffith (and Dantley, for that matter).

John Duren played sparingly in two seasons with the Jazz before being waived in 1982. Unfortunately, there aren’t any good guards left at No. 19. So I’ll recommend another big man, Jeff Ruland, who was a two-time All-Star with Washington. Even though he undoubtedly would have gotten in McHale’s way, I’m a firm believer of drafting the best player available. Ruland could be traded down the road for a good guard.

My advice:

1. Use the No. 2 pick on Kevin McHale.

2. Use the No. 19 pick on Jeff Ruland.

3. Don’t worry about the other picks.

Once again, I’m a little nervous that I’ve ruined my Jazz. But maybe not. Maybe I merely hastened the departure of Adrian Dantley, which would have saved Frank Layden and Larry Miller a lot of headaches down the road. And who’s to say that Darrell Griffith wouldn’t have thrived on those amazing Celtics teams? But I’ll never know, thanks to this witch’s curse. And I don’t know what lies in store for me moving forward, as I’ve now reached the beginning of the Utah Jazz. We’ll just have to wait and see!