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.
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