A brief history of pro basketball in Utah: 1973

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.