1980: Big losses and small crowds

“Here come the Jazz” proclaimed the newspaper ads, urging the good people of Utah to purchase season tickets for their newly acquired NBA team. But were the good people of Utah actually ready for the Jazz? Well …

On October 15, 1979, the Utah Jazz played their first regular season home game in the Salt Palace. Four Osmond brothers sang the national anthem. Pete Maravich scored a game-high 29 points. But the Jazz lost to Milwaukee 131-107. And the official recorded attendance was a mere 7,721 — barely more than half full. Sadly, this was an omen of things to come.

Perhaps it was the sting of the Utah Stars that kept fans away. Maybe it was the lack of local ties. This was a team owned by restaurateurs from Santa Barbara, California, using a name and color scheme that screamed New Orleans — not Utah. In fact, there weren’t any major figures in the front office or on the court from Utah. And once again, Sam Battistone Jr. took an extremely hands-off approach. So it fell to general manager Frank Layden to drum up local support. He heard that Utahns really took their high school sports seriously, so he lobbied to not have any home games on Friday nights. But that little concession didn’t seem to help much. As the season drug on and attendance continued to lag, Layden began asking the ushers to open up the doors at halftime, hoping that some people would come in off the street to enjoy the second half of NBA basketball for free. I don’t know if many people took advantage of this. Things got so bad, that Layden frequently repeated this joke: Whenever somebody called and asked him what time the game was, he’d reply, “When can you be there?”

Things really did get better. Eventually. But for this opening season, it was pretty rough. So, without further ado, let’s take a quick look at the five most interesting players for the first Utah Jazz season.

Pete Maravich — the face of the franchise since Day One — was unfortunately not built to carry the team through this new chapter. He had his moments (five games of at least 25 points), but on a whole, his ravaged knees had left him a shell of his former self. After a string of poor performances, Maravich’s minutes began to dwindle until he suddenly was benched completely. Wikipedia will tell you that Maravich was only missing games because he was too injured to practice and head coach Tom Nissalke had a strict “no practice, no play” rule. But that’s not true at all.

After reading a bunch of newspapers from 1979 and 1980, I discovered that Maravich was still (relatively) healthy when the benching began. He still went to practice and kept dressing for games, but Nissalke refused to put him in. Even at the end of a close game, where the Jazz needed a 3-pointer to force overtime. Maravich was the league leader in the NBA’s first season with the 3-point line, having made seven of his 11 attempts through 17 games. (It really amuses me how NBA teams were absolutely terrified to take 3-pointers in this era. Entire games would go by without either team taking a 3.)

Insultingly, Maravich was even benched during a home game against the Lakers, where fans received a free poster of Pistol Pete and Magic Johnson. Nissalke originally tried to brush it off by saying that Maravich merely had a couple of “bad practices.” But it didn’t take long for him to admit that Maravich no longer had a spot on the Jazz. Battistone himself held a private hour-long meeting with Maravich at the end of November, and Layden admitted that he was trying to trade Pistol. Naturally, Maravich felt betrayed by this. He said he was quite excited to be in Utah and even had purchased a $100,000 condo. He was also impressed with the fans’ dedication, as attendance had steadily risen to over 10,000 per game, even though the team’s record remained in the doldrums.

Layden spent several weeks trying to unload the five-time All-Star. But his bad knees, poor defense, erratic shooting, and massive contract scared everybody away. Maravich still had two years and $1.8 million left on his contract, which Utah eventually had to eat. On January 16, 1980, the Jazz reluctantly waived Maravich, agreeing to pay the full amount due to him, but stretched out in smaller payments over a longer period of time. And thus Maravich ended his final season with the Jazz with 17.1 points per game in just 17 games.

Philadelphia was an early contender to sign the 31-year-old shooting guard, but they backed out at the last minute. Boston eventually took a chance on him, which enabled Maravich to return to the playoffs for the first time since 1973. But he was reduced to a reserve role and forced to conclude that Nissalke wasn’t being entirely unreasonable. Even though he had previously stated a desire to play four or five more seasons, Maravich ultimately conceded defeat and retired at the end of the season.

Maravich reportedly became a bit of a recluse in his first couple of years of retirement, experimenting with vegetarianism and various religions. He eventually landed on becoming a born-again Christian — even going as far as to say he wanted to be remembered for his Christianity instead of his basketball career. But that didn’t stop everybody else from honoring his hoops legacy. In 1985, the Jazz retired his number 7 jersey, making him the first player in franchise history to have his number retired. (The Atlanta Hawks later retired number 44 for him, and the New Orleans Pelicans also retired Maravich’s number 7, even though he never had anything to do with that franchise.)

In 1987, two weeks before being inducted into the Hall of Fame, Maravich’s father, Press, died of cancer at age 71. And while reading about this in old issues of the Salt Lake Tribune, I learned about another heartbreaking tragedy that Wikipedia completely overlooked. In 1974, when Pistol was traded to the Jazz, his mother died of an apparent suicide after a long battle with alcoholism. Here I was, thinking that Maravich must have been injured during his first year in New Orleans, when in reality, he was battling with tremendous grief. He remained close to his father throughout his life, and even helped Press gain a scouting job for the Jazz. During Pistol’s Hall of Fame induction speech, he openly wept while speaking of his father.

On January 5, 1988, Maravich went to Pasadena, California, to record a radio interview with evangelical James Dobson, a controversial figure known for being extremely homophobic even by 1980s standards. After the interview, Maravich played an impromptu game of pickup basketball with Dobson and several others. Maravich hadn’t played any basketball since a Legends Game during the 1987 NBA All-Star Weekend, and he was commenting on how he needs to do this more often since he feels really good. Suddenly, he collapsed on the court and died at the age of 40. Turns out he had a rare congenital heart condition. One of the arteries on the left side of his heart was missing, causing the right side to be dangerously enlarged to compensate.

At the 1997 All-Star Weekend, the NBA honored the 50 greatest players in league history. It was a remarkable ceremony, as every single player honored was alive and present — except for Maravich, who was represented by his two sons. And in a way, that just made the moment all the more sweeter and cemented Maravich with an unimpeachable legacy. I only say this because I can’t help but think about the declining reputation of an even greater Jazz legend, John Stockton. Nobody ever had anything bad to say about Stockton until he retired and became an outspoken critic of vaccines and proponent of far-right politics. Had Maravich survived and continued his association with the bigoted Dobson for several decades, it’s easy for me to imagine his legacy becoming tarnished on an even greater scale than Stockton’s.

Well, that was a lot! Where were we? Oh yeah! The 1979-80 Utah Jazz!

Adrian Dantley was born in Washington, D.C., and played at a Catholic high school in Maryland, before enrolling at the Catholic university Notre Dame. Despite standing just 6-foot-5 and having one leg longer than the other (which required special shoes), Dantley was a dominant low-post scorer. In 1976, he helped Team USA win the gold medal at the Montreal Olympics, before being drafted sixth overall by the Buffalo Braves. Dantley won Rookie of the Year, but Buffalo traded him to Indiana the next season, mainly because the owner of the Braves saw an opportunity to bring back one of his favorite ABA players, Billy Knight.

Dantley got off to a strong start for the Pacers, averaging 26 points and 9 rebounds per game, but he was surprisingly packaged in a trade to Los Angeles after just 23 games. Apparently Indiana felt they needed a center more than an undersized forward. On the Lakers, Dantley found himself as the third option behind Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Jamaal Wilkes, and his scoring fell to just 17 ppg. In the 1979 offseason, former Stars coach and current Lakers general manager Bill Sharman confessed to Jazz GM Frank Layden that he was having a hard time negotiating a new contract for Dantley. Layden proposed trading Spencer Haywood for Dantley, which would solve both teams’ problems. Of course, Layden needed confirmation that Dantley actually was willing to play in Utah. Luckily, the Lakers just happened to have one of the most popular former Utah Star on their roster, Ron Boone, who convinced Dantley that he would enjoy living in Salt Lake City. The lack of a night life was actually a plus, and it would force him to concentrate entirely on basketball.

Dantley quickly established himself as the primary scorer for the Jazz and put up 28.0 points, 7.6 rebounds, and 1.4 steals per game. He was also named to the All-Star Game, becoming the first All-Star in Utah Jazz history. The reigns had been officially passed from New Orleans’ first All-Star, Maravich.

Bernard King was born and raised in Brooklyn before attending the University of Tennessee. The 6-7 small forward quickly gained a reputation of being an explosive scorer and was drafted seventh overall by the Nets in 1977. He finished third in voting for Rookie of the Year with 24.2 ppg, but had a slight sophomore slump at 21.6 ppg. 

On October 2, 1979, almost a month after trading Dantley, Layden decided to send Rich Kelley to New Jersey for King, Jim Boylan, and John Gianelli. Kelley had opted out of a contract extension, and Layden didn’t want to risk losing one of the league’s top centers for nothing. However, his choice to trade for another high-scoring small forward so soon after acquiring Dantley was a bit perplexing. In fact, Dantley worried that he was going to be traded again. But Layden felt that Dantley and King would complement each other and form one of the most explosive front courts in the league. But did it actually work? Well …

First the good. King got off to a good start, most notably hitting the game-winning shot in Utah’s first win, a 110-109 nail-biter over the Clippers on Oct. 22. And, according to all the interviews I read, it seemed like King and Dantley genuinely enjoyed playing together — maybe, just maybe, Layden was genius to pair them together.

Now the bad. King injured his foot and ankle early on, which limited his playing time. But even worse, the Jazz learned the hard way why the Nets were so willing to part with him. In Tennessee and New Jersey, King had a history of being arrested, mostly due to substance abuse issues. And then everything fell apart on New Year’s Day 1980. The 23-year-old King decided to ring in the new decade by inviting a woman over to his apartment. According to the woman, King began making advances toward her, which made her uncomfortable, so she tried to leave the apartment. But King stopped her and forced her to perform sexual acts. She waited until he fell asleep, then called the police. When they arrived, King was completely unconscious and could not be revived until paramedics were brought in.

King was charged with five counts of sexual abuse and for possession of cocaine. The Jazz immediately suspended him indefinitely without pay, but that was eventually overruled by arbitration through the players’ union. King avoided jail time by pleading guilty to a lesser charge and taking multiple lie detector tests to prove that he had no memory of the even because he was so drunk. He then spent a month in a rehabilitation facility in California to battle his alcoholism. And thus ended his first (and only) season with the Jazz after just 19 games and a scoring average of only 9.3 ppg.

Luckily for King, this whole ordeal turned out to be the wakeup call he needed. After checking out of rehab, he got back into shape by playing in the California Pro Summer League, where he absolutely dominated. Layden and assistant coach Bill Bertka flew down to Los Angeles to watch King and were stunned by his progress. Layden even went so far as to say that King would be the best player on the Jazz, which was quite a remarkable thing to say right after Dantley became an All-Star. However, Layden’s grand plan came to an end before the 1980-81 season could begin.

King diplomatically didn’t blame the Jazz for suspending him without pay — at least publicly. But he did request to be traded away. Since Layden never was one to force a player to stay somewhere against their wishes, he complied by sending King to Golden State for big man Wayne Cooper and a 1981 second-round pick. King finally began playing up to his full potential with the Warriors, reaching his first All-Star Game and a spot on the All-NBA Second Team. He was then traded to New York, where his career reached even greater heights. He made the All-NBA First Team twice and once led the league in scoring with 32.9 points per game. But a devastating leg injury cost him an entire season and almost his career.

After recovering from surgery to repair a torn ACL, a torn meniscus, and a fractured femur, King enjoyed a surprising comeback with Washington, where he became an All-Star for the fourth and final time of his career, in addition to reaching the All-NBA Third Team. But another knee injury cost him another season. And this time, his comeback plans with the Nets (returning to where he started) didn’t go so well. After 32 mediocre games, King was forced to retire in 1993. In 1994, he was arrested again for allegedly abusing a woman. And then in 2004, he was arrested on charges of abusing his wife. Those incidents may have been what led to his delay in joining the Hall of Fame, but he was finally inducted in 2014. He currently works as a part-time broadcaster for NBA TV.

Ron Boone, the former ABA All-Star for the Utah Stars, entered the NBA when he was selected by the Kansas City Kings in the big dispersal draft of 1976. He continued his streak of never missing a game, but now that he was in his 30s, his level of production began to decline. He averaged 22 ppg in his first year with the Kings, then just 17.7 in his second. He was then traded to Denver, who immediately dealt him to Los Angeles, where he was relegated to a role player and put up a career-low 7.4 ppg.

On October 25, the Jazz sent a 1981 third-round pick to the Lakers for Boone. This trade accomplished two things. First, it helped shore up Utah’s backcourt to compensate for Maravich’s shoddy play. And second, it helped generate some interest in the team by bringing back an old fan favorite to the Salt Palace. Boone did start 66 games for Utah this year, but he only averaged 12.9 points and 1.2 steals per game.

Mack Calvin, like Ron Boone, was a bit of a blast from the past for this blog. For those who remember, Calvin began his career with the Los Angeles Stars in 1969, but was traded to Miami for Donnie Freeman after just one season. Calvin then proceeded to make five consecutive ABA All-Star teams, one led the league in assists, once in free throws made and attempted, and twice in free throw percentage. During the tumultuous final season of the Virginia Squires, he was named the interim head coach for six games, but he lost each game. 

He began his NBA career in 1976 with the Lakers, but they traded him to San Antonio after just 12 games. Thirty-five games later, he was dealt to Denver. After spending a full season with the Nuggets, Calvin got into a disagreement with the coach and was basically kicked off the team. When asked about it later, he only said it was personal and refused to elaborate. So whatever the reason was, it cost him the entire 1978-79 season.

On November 27, once the Jazz had decided that Maravich would no longer be a part of their team, they signed the veteran point guard Calvin. Unfortunately, his year away from the game seemed to do no favors for the 32-year-old, as he only averaged 6.4 points over 48 games.

The next season, Calvin signed with Cleveland, but only lasted 21 games before he was forced to retire. In 1987, he became an assistant coach with the Milwaukee Bucks, where he stayed until 1991, when he took that same position with the Los Angeles Clippers. He was an interim head coach for the Clippers for two games, going 1-1. But his coaching career ended in 1992. I don’t know if that was his choice or not, but either way, I find it a slightly sad ending for one of the greatest ABA players of all time.

So those were the five most interesting stories from the Jazz roster in their first season in Utah. With Dantley as the only source of consistency, the Jazz limped along to a 24-58 record, and they once again found themselves in the dreaded coin flip for the first overall pick. The good news was that the Jazz actually owned their pick this year. The bad news was they lost the toss to Detroit, or rather Boston, as they had acquired that pick in a previous trade. But then Boston dealt the No. 1 pick to Golden State anyway. However, a very good sign for the Jazz was that Layden was finally confident in his role as general manager and was completely prepared for the 1980 NBA Draft. In fact, he even did a fun television interview where he correctly predicted the top 11 picks — an impossible feat nowadays. And the guy Layden chose at No. 2 was someone he was very happy with.

Darrell Griffith was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky. The 6-4 shooting guard was so good in high school that the ABA’s Kentucky Colonels tried to convince him to skip college and go straight to the pros like Moses Malone. But Griffith declined and enrolled at the University of Louisville, where he guided the Cardinals to their first NCAA championship in 1980. He was named the Wooden Player of the Year and the Final Four Most Outstanding Player, wrapping up his four years at Louisville as the school’s all-time leading scorer at 18.5 points per game.

In other words, Griffith was the most exciting player in college that year and the one “can’t miss” player in the draft. And the Jazz counted themselves extremely lucky that Golden State only took big man Joe Barry Carroll because they had just traded Robert Parrish to Boston. Of course, I think the Jazz wouldn’t have been able to resist Carroll, either, had they won that coin flip. Because, you know, Utah really didn’t have a center, either. But hey, you can’t downplay the incredible optimism that comes on draft night! And the Jazz had another reason to be excited. Thanks to the Truck Robinson trade, Utah owned Phoenix’s No. 19 pick.

John Duren was born and raised in Washington, D.C., and chose to attend his hometown Georgetown University. The 6-3 point guard actually played alongside Griffith in the Pan American Games trials in 1979. Surprisingly, Griffith didn’t make the team, but Duren did and helped Team USA claim gold in San Juan. In his senior season, Duren averaged 12.3 points and 7.1 assists per game and was named Big East Player of the Year.

The Jazz were absolutely thrilled that Duren was still available at No. 19, and they envisioned him to form the backcourt of the future with Griffith — making up for the mess left behind by Maravich, Boone, and Calvin. About 1,000 fans gathered in the Salt Palace for a draft night party, where Battistone and Hatfield excitedly announced the first-round picks … before immediately leaving to catch a plane back to California. It really makes sense why the Jazz were initially a tough sell in Salt Lake, when the owners of the team frequently found more pressing business two states away.

But still, the state of Utah finally had an NBA team. And thanks to the Griffith pick, they had some hope heading into their second season. After all, when you’re at the bottom, the only way to go is up!