1976: The rise and fall of the Utah Rockies

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Meanwhile, down in New Orleans …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1975 Part Two: Trading it all for a Pistol

I still find it eerily cosmic how the collapse of the Utah Stars perfectly coincided with the rise of the New Orleans Jazz. But we’re still quite a way from the Jazz coming to Salt Lake. First, we need to talk about the five most interesting players who shaped this franchise’s inaugural season.

Our story starts in the spring of 1974, before the New Orleans expansion team even had a name. Team president Fred Rosenfeld was bound and determined to build this franchise around a local superstar. And he was willing to pay any price to bring in the only player who fit that bill.

Pete Maravich was born in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania (a small town just outside of Pittsburgh), while his father was wrapping up his playing career with the Pittsburgh Ironmen of the Basketball Association of America. Pete was named after his dad, but everyone called him Press because of his boyhood job of selling the Pittsburgh Press newspapers on the street. Press wasn’t a particularly impressive player, but he had a deep love for the game and got into coaching right away, first as an assistant at Davis & Elkins College in West Virginia (where he had originally played in the 1930s).

Press got his first head coaching job in 1949 at West Virginia Wesleyan College. A year later, he took over Davis & Elkins, but only lasted two years before moving back to Aliquippa to coach high school. He only stayed there for two years before moving on to a different high school in Pittsburgh. Finally, in 1956, Press caught his big break and became the head coach at Clemson University in South Carolina. By this point, young Pete had demonstrated enough skills to begin playing for the high school team even though he was still in junior high.

In 1962, Press moved his family to Raleigh, so he could be an assistant at North Carolina State University. It was here that young Pete gained the nickname Pistol because he shot the ball from his hip, which made it look like he was drawing a pistol from a holder. Press became the head coach at North Carolina State in 1964, all while obsessively molding his son into a star. Some say that Press’ relationship with Pistol was borderline abusive. I don’t know much about that, but I do think it says something that Press never could seem to hold onto a job for more than a couple of years.

In 1966, Press became the head coach at Louisiana State University. Pistol was now finally eligible for college ball and he apparently had his heart set on West Virginia. But Press allegedly threatened to disown his son and/or bribed him with a new car to move down to Baton Rouge with him. 

Pistol Pete was an instant success at LSU, averaging an unthinkable 44.2 points per game over his three-year career and being named national player of the year in 1970. Wikipedia goes to great lengths to describe how difficult this feat was, considering Maravich was playing without a 3-point shot or a shot clock. But Wikipedia fails to mention one fact that made this feat a bit easier: Louisiana State played in a segregated conference at the time. This meant that Pistol Pete was going up against all-white teams on a night-to-night basis — not against the best available competition. It’s also worth pointing out that the LSU Tigers didn’t win very many games during Pistol’s record-setting tenure. The highest they ever got was a fourth-place finish in the NIT during Pistol’s senior year. But at least the coach’s son got to score as many points as possible.

In January 1970, Maravich was drafted by ABA’s Carolina Cougars with the No. 1 pick in the draft (although it was technically the second overall pick, as the New York Nets were awarded a territorial pick for Bob Lanier). But rather than signing with Carolina, Maravich decided to wait until the NBA draft in March and see who would make a better offer. This was quite common during the ABA era, especially in this draft, as Lanier did the same to the Nets and future NBA MVP Dave Cowens did with the Los Angeles Stars.

In the NBA draft, the Detroit Pistons took Lanier at No. 1, which was the sure thing to do. The big man went on to have a Hall of Fame career and was one of Detroit’s best players in franchise history. With the second pick, the San Diego Rockets surprisingly took Rudy Tomjanovich over Maravich. Rudy T also became a Hall of Famer — but as a coach, not a player. I can’t confirm this, but I suspect that San Diego passed on Maravich because they dreaded the inevitable bidding war with Carolina. The cash-strapped franchise was just one year away from being sold and relocated to Houston.

So Maravich fell to No. 3, where the Atlanta Hawks gladly picked him up. And they only had the third pick because of a trade they had made just a month before the draft that sent Zelmo Beaty’s contract to San Francisco (everything’s connected!). Anyway, the Hawks managed to secure their prize with a staggering $1.9 million contract. Carolina was furious, but had no way to retaliate. Maravich was thrilled to be able to stay in the South. But basketball fans from then to today mourned the lost opportunity of seeing Maravich play with a 3-point line.

Anyway, Maravich’s first four seasons with Atlanta were a little bit underwhelming. He did finish third for Rookie of the Year, then received some MVP votes in each of the next three years. He lost a little bit of time to an injury in his sophomore season, but managed to become an All-Star in his third and fourth years. He also made the All-NBA Second Team in his third year and led the league in field goals attempted in his fourth. But most frustratingly for Hawks fans was the lack of wins. Atlanta made the playoffs in Maravich’s first three years, but couldn’t get out of the first round. Then they missed the postseason entirely in Pistol’s fourth year.

So I don’t think the Hawks were too upset to part with Maravich when the unnamed New Orleans franchise came calling. But they still managed to extract a high price from the expansion team. In exchange for the two-time All-Star, the Jazz gave up two first-round picks (1974 and 1975), two second-round picks (1975 and 1976), a third-round pick (1980), the first two picks of the expansion draft, and a slightly underhanded agreement that Atlanta would choose which of their players New Orleans would take in the expansion draft. On paper, it kind of looks like Atlanta fleeced New Orleans. But at the end of the day, I think both teams ended up even.

Maravich actually struggled in his first year with the Jazz. His scoring fell from 27.7 points per game to 21.5. But he did also average 6.2 assists, 5.3 rebounds, and 1.5 steals, while leading the league with seven triple-doubles. There’s a chance he may have been injured, although he still appeared in 79 games. But I think it’s more likely that the very nature of this expansion team prevented him from getting into a good rhythm. The Jazz had 22 players suit up in the 1974-75 season, three head coaches, two team presidents, and two home arenas, including one with a raised court that required a net around the edges for player safety. Tumultuous, to say the least. So let’s take a look at some of Maravich’s less-than stellar supporting cast.

Walt Bellamy was the player the Atlanta Hawks demanded the Jazz take in their expansion draft. Which is really sad, because Bellamy had put together a Hall of Fame career up until this point. He was born and raised in North Carolina, but chose to play at Indiana University because his high school coach had played there and he felt Indiana was “the closest school to the South that would accept African-Americans.”

Bellamy dominated in college and helped lead Team USA to a gold medal in the 1960 Olympics in Rome. In 1961, was the No. 1 overall pick in the NBA draft, taken by the expansion team Chicago Packers. His team only won 18 games that season, but Bellamy did put up monster numbers — 31.6 points and 19.0 rebounds per game — which earned him a trip to the All-Star Game and the Rookie of the Year award. He ended up spending four seasons with that franchise (which became the Zephyrs then the Baltimore Bullets), making the All-Star Game each year.

In 1965, the Bullets got new owners who decided to reduce Bellamy’s salary because they believe he wasn’t trying as hard as he could be. So Bellamy held out of training camp until he got a new contract with a small raise and was traded to the New York Knicks as quickly as possible. Bellamy still played well for the Knicks, but saw a decline in his production as he had to share the frontcourt with another future Hall of Famer, Willis Reed. Bellamy unfortunately never was an All-Star again, and was later traded to Detroit and then Atlanta in 1970. 

Combing a slow, aging center with a quick, young guard was not a winning recipe (as I already pointed out above). By 1974, Bellamy had become a bit of a liability for Atlanta. His number had fallen to 13.1 points and 9.6 rebounds per game, younger players were running circles around him, and worst of all, he still had one more year on his contract. So Atlanta dumped him off on New Orleans, ironically bookending his professional career with two expansion teams.

Bellamy naturally felt betrayed by this whole situation and initially refused to report to New Orleans, complaining the “con men” in Atlanta had put him into a “forced retirement.” I don’t know when that team photo at the top of this post was taken, but you will note that Bellamy is not in the picture. But then, for some reason, Bellamy did agree to play in the Jazz’s first game. My limited research failed to turn up a reason for why this happened, but I suspect it may have had something to do with a clause in Bellamy’s contract.

In his only game for the New Orleans Jazz, Bellamy scored six points and pulled down five rebounds in 14 minutes of action. He didn’t miss a shot from the field or the free throw line, which sort of makes him the all-time franchise leader in field goal and free throw percentage. I did find a newspaper article about this game that was quick to point out how old and slow Bellamy was compared to his competition. The Jazz waived him shortly after, saying they wanted to give him the chance to sign with another team. Bellamy did try out with the Milwaukee Bucks, but they didn’t sign him, thus ending his once legendary career.

Bellamy settled down in Atlanta, which may be one reason why he felt so betrayed by the trade. He became active in the NAACP and local politics. In 1993, he was elected to the Hall of Fame as a player, and he was elected again in 2010 as a member of the 1960 Olympic team. He died in College Park, Georgia, in 2013 at age 74.

Aaron James became the first player officially drafted by the New Orleans Jazz when he was selected in the second round of the 1974 NBA Draft, which was held just a week after the expansion draft. Unlike the 1961 draft, where the NBA awarded the top pick to the expansion team, in this year, the league arbitrarily decided the Jazz should pick at No. 10. Of course, the Maravich trade meant that the No. 10 pick belonged to Atlanta, who used it on former Ute Mike Sojourner. He may have been an All-WAC player at Utah, but his professional career was nothing special and he was out of the NBA after just three years.

James seemed destined to join the Jazz. He was born and raised in New Orleans, but went to college at Grambling State in northern Louisiana. In 1974, he was also drafted by the Utah Stars, but wisely avoided that chaotic situation to play in his hometown. The 6-foot-8 small forward averaged 11.7 points per game in his rookie season.

Rick Adelma, like Walt Bellamy, was interesting not because of what he did for the Jazz, but for everything else in his career. Born and raised in Southern California, Adelman was a star at Loyola University at Los Angeles, but he wasn’t drafted until the seventh round of the 1968 NBA Draft, where the San Diego Rockets picked him up. The 6-1 point guard surprisingly made the roster, but was scooped up by the Portland Trail Blazers in their expansion draft of 1970.

Adelman enjoyed the best years of his career in Portland, putting up 12 points and two steals per game. But he was traded to Chicago in 1973. In November 1974, he was sent to the Jazz for John Block, a past-his-prime one-time All-Star that New Orleans had picked up in their expansion draft. Adelman averaged 6.3 ppg and 1.7 spg for the Jazz, but he was traded away after just 28 games. He played in 18 more games for the Kansas City-Omaha Kings before retiring.

But Adelman wasn’t done with basketball. In 1977, he became the head coach at Chemeketa Community College in Salem, Oregon. In 1983, he became an assistant for the Portland Trail Blazers and promoted to head coach in 1989. He took the Blazers to the Finals twice, but was never able to secure that elusive championship. He kept coaching in the NBA until 2014, bouncing around between Golden State, Sacramento, Houston, and Minnesota. In 2021, he was elected into the Hall of Fame as a coach. He recently passed away in June of 2026 in Portland at the age of 79.

Nate Williams was the guy the Jazz traded Adelman (and Ollie Johnson) for. Williams was born in Columbia, Louisiana (a small town in the north part of the state), but he grew up in Oakland, California. He didn’t really expect to go to college, so he jumped at the first offer given to him by Utah State when an assistant mistook the sophomore for a senior. Williams ended up having an excellent career for the Aggies, playing under LaDell Andersen for two seasons.

In 1971, not long after Andersen left to coach the Utah Stars, Williams accepted into the NBA’s Hardship Draft. This was a new experiment by the league to find a way to justifiably take underclassmen before the ABA snatched them up. There were certain financial requirements the players needed to meet, and Williams was allegedly living on just $15 a month. The 6-5 swingman was selected first in this draft by the Cincinnati Royals and he played fairly well for them over three seasons (and the odd move to both Kansas City and Omaha). Williams was traded to New Orleans in February, so he only played in 35 games for the Jazz this season, putting up 14.3 points and 1.3 steals per game.

So there you go. Five of the most interesting players on the 1974-75 New Orleans Jazz roster. And three of them ended up in the Hall of Fame. Of course, that didn’t help much back in 1975. The Jazz went 23-59, which was the worst record in the league. This meant that the Jazz earned the No. 1 pick in the 1975 draft. Unfortunately, that pick belonged to Atlanta because of the Maravich trade.

The Hawks chose future Hall of Famer David Thompson, but he surprisingly chose to sign with the ABA’s Denver Nuggets instead. The Hawks also had the third pick in the draft, which they used on Marvin Webster. But he also chose to play for Denver instead. So poor Atlanta came up with absolutely nothing from this draft. Suddenly, that Maravich trade didn’t seem so bad anymore.

Thanks to an October 1974 trade, the Jazz owned Milwaukee’s first-round pick, which ended up being No. 7. So New Orleans got to make its first-ever first-round pick.

Rich Kelley was born and raised in the Bay Area of California and enrolled at Stanford University, where he became a standout 7-foot center. In 1974, he was drafted by the ABA’s New York Nets, but he chose to stay with the Cardinal for another year. He also played for Team USA in the FIBA World Championship, earning a bronze medal in Puerto Rico. Kelley made the All-Pac-8 First Team in each of his three seasons at Stanford and graduated with career averages of 18.6 points and 12.4 rebounds per game.

All things considered, the Jazz actually had reason to be excited heading into the 1975-76 season. They had solidified the front office with Sam Battistone Jr. as team president. Butch van Breda Kolff had proven to be a better coach than Scotty Robertson. But the biggest news was the opening of the long-anticipated Louisiana Superdome.

The $134 million structure took four years to build and boasted a capacity of more than 73,000 seats. It was envisioned to be the home of NFL, NBA, and MLB teams, although New Orleans curiously was never able to land a major league baseball team. The NFL’s Saints were a natural fit from Day One, and they still call the place home (although it’s now called the Caesars Superdome). But the Jazz? Well … take a look at the setup their home games required.

That chunk of the football field creates a very awkward look. And the movable stands, while necessary, also appeared rather clunky. Worst of all, in my opinion, was the cavernous emptiness of the stadium. Basketball works best in compact arenas, where all the fans are stacked right on top of each other. And having too many seats can actually be a bad thing. Years later, the Jazz ownership would complain that nobody in New Orleans wanted to buy season tickets because they knew they could always show up on the day of the game and find a seat. I think the owners could have addressed this issue by blocking off sections of seating, but I will concede some truth to their complaint. But at the end of the day, I’m sure the Jazz players were quite happy to be in a more stable arrangement for their home games. And the fact that their facility was brand new and state-of-the-art certainly helped, too.

The Jazz also tweaked their uniforms for the 1975-76 season. They wisely dropped the boring, mismatched music note from the road jerseys, replacing it with all-white version of the inspired basketball music note. They also added that glorious J-note to their home shorts, but curiously omitted it from their road shorts. Regardless, I still absolutely love this look and I will never forgive this franchise for departing from it.

This is normally where I’d end this post, but something very unusual happened at the end of the year. With the ABA collapsing (partially intentionally to prepare for the merger), the NBA decided to try to poach some of the players they had missed out on. So in December 1975, they held a special draft just for the handful of players who had entered the ABA as underclassmen. Any team that chose to participate in this draft would have to forfeit their 1977 first-round pick. And since the Jazz had the worst record, they got to pick first. The ABA was absolutely furious about this, but completely powerless to prevent it. The only consolation they had was that these players were still under contract with their ABA teams, so all this draft could do was give these NBA teams the right to negotiate with the players.

Moses Malone was by far the best player available in this little draft, and the Jazz eagerly scooped him up. They readily admitted that his enormous contract would be a challenge, even going as far as to calculate that they’d need to sell an additional 3,000 season tickets to cover Malone’s salary. But New Orleans confidently believed that Malone would generate enough excitement in the team to cover that difference.

What happened next has become a bit of an NBA legend. Unfortunately, there has been some misinformation and misunderstandings that spread, while the complicated, boring truth gets buried. (Which I guess is the case for most things.) I was particularly disheartened to see a Wikipedia article citing Bill Simmons’ Book of Basketball as a source. As much as I enjoyed that book, Simmons’ primary focus was to be funny — not factual. So when Simmons says that van Breda Kolff single-handedly nixed the acquisition of Malone because he believed Malone was unintelligent, you should take that with a grain of salt. It’s funny to pick on a scapegoat for making a bone-headed mistake, but the contemporary newspapers I read don’t support that version of events.

In reality, Malone was still under contract with the Spirits of St. Louis and he was still being paid handsomely thanks to the contract James A. Collier had offered to lure him to the Utah Stars. New Orleans  knew going into negotiations that it would be a legal nightmare to untangle all the layers of his contract, not to mention incredibly expensive to put him in a Jazz uniform. But from what I can tell, they genuinely tried to make it work. Months and months went by, but no deal could be reached. Ultimately, the Jazz decided to relinquish Malone’s rights so they could regain their 1977 first-round pick.

Malone was entered into the 1976 dispersal draft that was part of the big NBA-ABA merger. Once again, Malone’s massive contract became nearly insurmountable for most teams. The Portland Trail Blazers took him with the fifth pick of that draft with no intention to play him, seeing him only as a valuable trade asset. They sent him to the Buffalo Braves, who apparently had the same idea as the Blazers, but took a little longer to pull off their deal, which forced Malone to awkwardly play two games of limited minutes in Buffalo. He was then sent to the Houston Rockets, where his career took off, winning him the MVP award in 1979 and 1982.

But shortly after winning his second MVP, the Rockets got new owners who bristled at the idea of paying Malone his salary, which had climbed to approximately $2 million per year by this point. So Houston traded Malone to the Philadelphia 76ers, where he won his third and final MVP and his only championship. A few years later, he began to slow down and bounced around the league, playing for Washington, Atlanta, Milwaukee, and finally San Antonio. He retired in 1995, a full 20 years after he began his professional career with the Utah Stars.

Malone was elected into the Hall of Fame and was a member of the NBA’s 50th and 75th anniversary teams. His jersey was retired by both Houston and Philadelphia. He dipped his toe into coaching in 2006 by becoming an assistant for the 76ers, but that stint only lasted for three years. In 2015, he suddenly died of a heart attack at a hotel in Virginia where he was set to participate in a charity golf tournament. He was only 60 years old.

It really is remarkable at how close he came to becoming a permanent fixture in Utah’s professional basketball scene — either as a member of the Stars or the Jazz. In an alternate world, I’m sure there’s a statue of Moses Malone in front of the Delta Center instead of Karl Malone. But I just want the record to show that it was merely financial ineptitude that prevented this from happening — not a failure to recognize talent.

1974 Part Two: The end of the beginning

The extraordinary turmoil of 1974 began to push the ABA out of Utah. But in that very same year, unbeknownst to anyone at the time, the future of professional basketball in Utah was being born down in New Orleans. 

The valuable market was a highly coveted location for the ABA back in 1967, but they were unable to find any local buyers willing to invest. New Orleans had plenty of deep pockets at the time, but they were preoccupied with bringing professional football and baseball to the city. So out of desperation, the ABA agreed to a deal with seven investors — mostly from out of state — for the shockingly low entry price of $1,000. The ABA’s 10 other original teams each had to pay $30,000.

The New Orleans Buccaneers were actually a good basketball team that reached the first-ever ABA Finals (which they lost to the Pittsburgh Pipers). But the Buccaneers struggled financially, mainly because they really didn’t anywhere to play. They bounced around between the gyms at local colleges and various concert halls, before desperately exploring other options throughout the state of Louisiana. Ultimately, the team had to relocate to Memphis in 1970.

So why was the NBA so eager to swoop in just four years later? Well, for starters, the Oscar Robertson lawsuit was still ongoing, preventing any possibility of a merger with the ABA. (This didn’t stop the rumors from flying, though. In the spring of 1974, newspapers were reporting a proposed deal for the NBA to bring in most — but not all — of the ABA teams. The Utah Stars were notably left off that list, due to Bill Daniels’ inability to secure a stable buyer.) But the biggest reason the NBA was so gung-ho about New Orleans was the construction of the Louisiana Superdome — a massive structure designed to be versatile enough to accommodate football, baseball, and even basketball.

However, the NBA was also forced to turn to a group of out-of-state investors to fund this expansion team. Ultimately, nine men (mostly from California) agreed to pay more than $6 million for the franchise, which was approximately double the price Daniels had valued the Stars at. Fred Rosenfeld, the man in the middle of the photo at the top, was named the first president of the team. As a Southern California attorney, Rosenfeld had gained experience in the NBA by representing Laker stars Elgin Baylor and Gail Goodrich. But Rosenfeld was not the majority owner. That was another Southern California native, who was not pictured in the above photo.

Sam Battistone Jr. was the heir to a massive pancake restaurant that had locations in 47 states at its peak. Unfortunately, it had the racially insensitive name of Sambo’s. For those who don’t know, this is a reference to an old story that actually came from India, called Little Black Sambo. It’s about a boy who goes wandering through the jungle with his brand new clothes and umbrella. He encounters four hungry tigers and gives them his fancy clothes to dissuade them from eating him. The tigers then begin to argue about who looks better in their apparel and they chase each other until they … dissolve(?) into some of the base ingredients for pancakes. (Hey, it’s an old kids story!) Little Black Sambo then gets his clothes and umbrella back, and his mom cooks the tigers into pancakes.

At some point, when this story was brought to America, some illustrators decided that Little Black Sambo needed to be an African American and presented him in a stereotypical derogatory way. And it was that style of artwork that Sam Battistone Sr. used to decorate his pancake restaurants with. When the backlash to this racist depiction became insurmountable, Sam Sr. tried to argue that the word Sambo’s was merely a play on his own name. His reasonings didn’t work and his entire pancake empire eventually collapsed. This is something to keep in mind as we move forward in our story. But in 1974, Sambo’s was still going strong and Sam Jr. was quite wealthy.

Anyway, Battistone was initially pretty hands-off with his new investment, letting Rosenfeld call all the shots. And since Rosenfeld was a diehard Laker fan, he immediately began staffing the front office with as many former Lakers as possible — starting with the general manager.

Bill Bertka was a high school basketball star from Akron, Ohio, who played at Kent State after serving in the Army during World War II. After graduating college in 1951, he played for the Santa Maria Golden Dukes in the National Industrial Basketball League for two seasons while also coaching high school ball on the side. In 1954, he became the head coach of Santa Maria’s Hancock College, where he performed well enough to take over his alma mater. But he only stayed at Kent State for four years before returning to California in 1961.

While working as a community recreation director in Santa Barbara, Bertka developed a successful scouting program while also hosting his own radio show. At some point in time, he became friends with Rod Hundley (Jazz fans should know this name), who convinced the Lakers to officially hire Bertka as a scout in 1968 — something that was apparently unprecedented at the time. In 1971, Bill Sherman (remember him?) made Bertka an assistant coach. And that’s where he was when Rosenfeld offered him the general manager position for the brand new team in New Orleans. Bertka was so committed to this new venture, he even eventually purchased a small percentage of the team.

Scotty Robertson was one of the few Rosenfeld hires that didn’t have any connections to the Lakers. He was born in Arkansas, but moved to Shreveport, Louisiana, while in the sixth grade. Robertson became a star basketball and baseball player at his high school. After graduating from Louisiana Tech, he tried for a professional baseball career, but never could make the big leagues. So he turned to coaching high school basketball in 1952.

By 1963, Robertson had performed well enough to become an assistant at his alma mater and he quickly was promoted to Louisiana Tech’s head coaching position the next season. He guided the Bulldogs for 10 years, winning three conference championships and two coach of the year awards. So even though he didn’t have any previous experience at the professional level, he was a natural choice to be the first head coach of the NBA’s New Orleans team. On paper, at least, I think it’s a good idea to involve local talent whenever possible.

Elgin Baylor was by far the biggest name brought in by Rosenfeld, although he was given the lowly duty of assistant coach. Before Baylor became a Laker legend, he was a high school legend in Washington, D.C. But his poor grades prevented him from joining a major university. However, he happened to have a friend at the College of Idaho (how random can you get?), who bizarrely arranged for Baylor to join the school on a football scholarship. Baylor never played football in Idaho and was accepted onto the basketball team without trying out. Naturally he thrived in his first season there, but it ended up being his only season. The College of Idaho decided to fire their basketball coach and cut back on their scholarships, leaving Baylor out on his own.

However, a Seattle car dealer had learned how amazingly talented Baylor was and convinced him to join Seattle University. Baylor had to sit out a year due to the transfer, but he kept active by playing in the Amateur Athletic Union. The Minneapolis Lakers actually drafted Baylor in the 14th round in 1956, but he chose to honor his commitment to Seattle instead. Obviously, Baylor was overwhelmingly dominant in the NCAA and was drafted once again by the Lakers in 1958, this time with the No. 1 overall pick.

Baylor’s career with the Lakers was simply spectacular. Eleven All-Star appearances, 10 All-NBA First Team honors, and eight trips to the NBA Finals. Sadly, he never did earn that elusive championship ring, as a knee injury forced him to retire in 1971, right before Los Angeles claimed the 1971-72 title. Regardless, Baylor was and remains an all-time great, who was not only inducted into the Hall of Fame, but was a member of the NBA’s 35th, 50th, and 75th anniversary teams. In 1974, Baylor had expressed an interest to get into coaching, and his old pal Rosenfeld was more than happy to oblige.

Rodney Hundley had a rough childhood in West Virginia, moving from foster family to foster family, enduring abuse, neglect, and poverty. But as a 6-4 guard, he dazzled on the basketball court, earning the nickname “Hot Rod.” Despite receiving 100 scholarship offers, he chose to stay close to home, playing at West Virginia University and absolutely dominating. He drafted No. 1 overall in 1957 by the Cincinnati Royals, then immediately traded to the Lakers. 

Unfortunately, Hundley was a victim of his own success. He rarely trained and drank heavily, which caught up with him in the NBA. He did make two All-Star appearances, but he had to retire after just six seasons with bad knees. He immediately went into the broadcasting world, starting with the Phoenix Suns. After four years, he moved over to the Lakers, where he was mentored by legendary play-by-play man Chick Hearn. Hundley was a natural at broadcasting, and soon was calling games for CBS and NBC. Naturally, Rosenfeld had to have Hot Rod be the voice for his new team. The only question now was what to call this team.

There doesn’t appear to have been any desire to resurrect the Buccaneers name. The new owners held a name-that-team contest and received over 6,000 submissions. The runner-up choice was the Crescents, which I think would have absolutely stupid. The winner, though, was a name that I consider inspired.

And the logo was even more beautiful! Designer Jim Bohner artfully merged a basketball with a music note and used it as the letter J with some blocky, snazzy letters that match perfectly. And he wisely chose the Mardi Gras colors of purple, yellow, and green to create a brand identity that screamed New Orleans. I honestly think you’d be hard-pressed to find a sports logo that ties in better to its city than this one.

Naturally, the great logo brought some great uniforms along with it. Well … except for the road jerseys. For some strange reason, they decided to go with a purely traditional music note instead of the inspired basketball note. Maybe they did it because they thought the basketball would look weird if it wasn’t colored. But what they ended up with was something that was too thin to go along with the rest of the letters of the logo and it just didn’t look right. Luckily, they only used this jersey for one season. Much like how they only spent one season out of their intended home.

The Municipal Auditorium became the first official home of the New Orleans Jazz as the Louisiana Superdome wasn’t complete by 1974. Plans for the Superdome actually began at the end of 1966, but the project kept getting delayed and went way over budget. So the Jazz had to do with this multipurpose arena that was built in 1930 primarily for Mardi Gras balls. It could fit more than 7,000 people for basketball games, but I imagine it must have felt very dated and not terribly comfortable. It also was booked for so many other commitments that the Jazz couldn’t play all their home games there, being forced to follow the Buccaneers’ footsteps in visiting the local college arenas. And yes, one of those arenas apparently had to place a net around its raised court for the players’ safety. All in all, not the ideal situation for a brand-new NBA team.

And it wasn’t the ideal debut season for the Jazz, either. I’ll save my usual roster breakdown for next time because there are some fascinating stories there that I want to give justice to. But before I leave, I have a couple of more fun front office stories that happened before the calendar turned to 1975.

For whatever reason, Scotty Robertson got off to one of the worst starts in NBA history. In his first 15 games, he only won one game. And those 15 games turned out to be the only games he coached for the Jazz, as Fred Rosenfeld fired Robertson on November 17. Robertson took a few years off of coaching before becoming an assistant for Buffalo in 1977. He then spent the next 20 years bouncing around the NBA as an assistant coach, serving as a head coach briefly for Chicago and Detroit. He retired in 1998 and died of lung cancer in Ruston, Louisiana, at age 81 in 2011.

Elgin Baylor was named the interim head coach for the Jazz, but he only coached one game (which he lost). Baylor’s tenure was so incredibly brief because Rosenfeld already had the perfect former Laker waiting for him. (I wouldn’t be surprised if he was actually Rosenfeld’s original choice all along.)

Butch van Breda Kolff was born in New Jersey to a professional Dutch soccer player. Young Willem (sometimes called Bill, but almost always called Butch) attended Princeton University, where he played both soccer and basketball. After graduating in 1946, the 6-foot-3 guard signed with the New York Knicks, but had a relatively mediocre career and retired in 1950. He immediately dove into coaching, becoming the head coach of Pennsylvania’s Lafayette College in 1951. In 1955, he moved over to New York to take over Hofstra’s program. And in 1962, he experienced the same honor that Bill Bertka and Scotty Robertson had of coaching at his alma mater. Van Breda Kolff was so successful at Princeton that the Los Angeles Lakers hired him in 1967.

Led by Elgin Baylor, Jerry West, and Wilt Chamberlain, the Lakers reached the Finals in van Breda Kolff’s first NBA season. But they lost to the Celtics in six games. They returned to the Finals the next year, but lost in Game 7 by two points. Controversially, van Breda Kolff had refused to play Chamberlain for much of the fourth quarter, allegedly having told the all-time great that “we don’t need you.” Rather than suffer the embarrassment of being fired, van Breda Kolff decided to resign of his own volition.

Van Breda Kolff then took over the Detroit Pistons in 1969, but abruptly quit in 1971 because he was tired of being cursed at by the fans. In 1972, he was hired as head coach of the Phoenix Suns, but was fired after a mere seven games. In 1973, he moved over to the ABA to guide the Memphis Tams, and he managed to last a full season with them, but was fired after the franchise got new ownership and became the Sounds. That left van Breda Kolff completely free to join the New Orleans Jazz on November 18, 1974. 

Shockingly, on December 5, 1974, Fred Rosenfeld announced that he was stepping down as team president. He said that it was becoming too difficult for him to keep traveling back and forth between Louisiana and California, but the newspapers made it quite clear that he was being forced out for reckless spending. Another major factor was Rosenfeld’s controversial trade for Pete Maravich, which we will go into full detail next time. So the New Orleans Jazz went into 1975 with Sam Battistone Jr. firmly in charge.

Ironically, Rosenfeld actually ended up settling down in Baton Rogue, Louisiana. He got into hotels and restaurants and even had his own radio show before passing away in 2020 in Baton Rogue at the age of 86.

And that wraps up the incredibly monumental year of 1974. And 1975 looks like it’ll be a doozy, too, as we’ll have to untangle the messy collapse of the Utah Stars and take a look at who the New Orleans Jazz actually played in their inaugural season. Hope to see you there!

Jimmer is free!

It finally happened. After nearly three years of languishing away in possibly the worst team for him, The Jimmer has been freed at last. Although I do find it odd that the same franchise that was able to trade for Rudy Gay this season was unable to trade Jimmer. But a buyout works out fine here, and I actually am very excited to see if he'll get to play alongside Derrick Rose next year. Yeah, it's the Bulls, who should never be forgiven for their sins committed against the Jazz, but I actually kind of like this version with Tom Thibodeau and Rose when he's healthy. They play defense hard and always compete, and are generally a fun team to watch — even with Carlos Boozer.

I covered the BYU men's basketball team during the first half of Jimmer's junior year. He was a star on the team, but not the star. He was a very solid point guard, and we were happy to have him. But senior Jonathan Tavernari felt like he should be the star, and he certainly acted like it. I was astounded by his complete arrogance during interviews and games. He was such a tremendous ball hog, and not even that good of a shooter. In BYU's first loss that year, Tavernari went 1-for-11 from the field at Utah State. Finally Dave Rose benched Tavernari, which ignited a 15-game winning streak and really helped Jimmer take control of the team.

At that time, he was still known as Jimmer Fredette, and he was able to walk around in public in obscurity. I also worked at the BYU Creamery on Ninth East, and often served ice cream to the basketball players when they came in for practice. I was amazed, though, that none of my coworkers knew who Jimmer was. Of course, most of them were girls who had no interest in sports, but still. This was our starting point guard, and he was actually pretty good. As an ice cream scooper, I always tried to treat the customers professionally, i.e., like normal people — even the handful of apostles who visited while I was there. But with Jimmer, I had to let him know that I knew who he was and respected what he did. I didn't ask for an autograph or anything (I was covering the team for The Daily Universe then); I just empathized with him about losing to Utah State (which was the team's only loss that semester). Jimmer took my playful comments in good humor and was very nice and respectful. In fact, in my limited exposure with Jimmer, I never saw him act anyway but respectful.

Anyway, with Tavernari on the bench, Jimmer continued to improve and progress. He put together a couple of 20-point games and a 33-point game against Nevada. And then it happened. The semester ended and I was unable to continue covering the basketball team. So I kind of missed Jimmer's big game at Arizona over Christmas break. Jimmer hit nine 3-pointers, scored 49 points and added nine assists and seven rebounds for good measure. Suddenly he was a somebody among BYU fans. And I noticed that people at the Creamery began asking him for autographs. But I don't think anybody considered him a superstar at that point — just a good player who could occasionally get hot.

Well that season wrapped up with a loss to Kansas State in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. But us BYU fans were thrilled with that. BYU rarely makes it to the Tournament and hadn't even won a game there for a long, long time. On an interesting note, Kansas State guard Jacob Pullen single-handedly destroyed BYU with 34 points in that game, and I thought for sure he'd be in the NBA. But he never got drafted and has spent all his time overseas. Speaking of the Draft, there was some talk that Jimmer would try to go to the NBA after his junior season. I thought he'd be a second-rounder at best, and apparently so did he, as he pulled out from the Draft and rejoined BYU for his senior year. Now that we knew what he could do, expectations were very high.

It soon became commonplace for Jimmer to score 30 his senior year, and he became, without question, the most popular athlete on campus (it really helped that the football team was rather lackluster then). Jimmer stopped coming to the Creamery, and I began to hear stories about how it became difficult for him to go anywhere in Provo. Things really didn't start to get crazy until the Utah game. True, the Utes were in a down year, but beating the rivals on their home floor is still pretty fun. And scoring 47 points while you're doing it is even better. One of Jimmer's most memorable moments came right before halftime of that game, when he beat the buzzer to make a half court shot like it was nothing.

Jimmermania had officially begun. And it only grew exponentially with each game. Scoring anything less than 40 was an off night for The Jimmer. Here are some highlights: 42 at Colorado State, 43 the next game against No. 4 San Diego State, and a career-high 52 against New Mexico in the Mountain West Conference Tournament. That last one was particularly impressive for me because New Mexico had beaten BYU twice that season, and in that game Jimmer only shot one free throw. Everybody remembers his deep 3-pointers, but he made quite a living at the line, making 16 free throws in several games.

Unfortunately, I was unable to attend any of these games in person because I was working as a copy editor for The Daily Universe. But the benefit of that meant I was able to write a lot of fun Jimmer headlines and design amazing Jimmer packages. It was a cruel tradeoff, but I was always filled with a bit of pride to see the newspaper racks empty when Jimmer was on the cover. One of our great covers simply had Jimmer's head fill up the whole page with the words "We Love Jimmer!" below. We put a dotted line with a pair of scissors around his head, and to my surprise, a lot of fans actually did cut out Jimmer's head and use that to make their own signs. During this time, I was also serving an internship with the Deseret News, and got to work on the sports desk every Friday and Saturday night. That meant that I was working seven nights a week for a whole semester, and it nearly killed me, but the excitement of Jimmermania kept me going. I almost felt a little guilty sometimes for giving a good Jimmer headline to the Deseret News and not The Daily Universe, or vice versa, but it all worked out in the end. But it all worked out in the end. It was at the DesNews where I helped decided that Jimmermania should be one word. My biggest headline regret was shooting down "Fredette about it" at the Universe. But then ESPN used that same headline, so I was glad nobody could accuse us of copying.

Sadly, all the excitement and fun and high hopes of the greatest team in BYU history was crushed when leading rebounder Brandon Davies was suspended for an Honor Code violation. I can't blame Davies or BYU for the situation — everybody did what needed to be done — but the timing couldn't have been any worse. The Cougars did manage to reach the Sweet 16 for the first time since Danny Ainge, but they sadly fell to Florida in overtime. The loss of Davies really hurt me in this game, because it seemed like BYU could have won in regulation if they would have made one last defensive rebound. But Davies was able to rejoin BYU the next year, had a pretty decent career, and is currently on the bench of the tanking 76ers.

Well, Jimmermania ended sadly, but he did gain national recognition and won every major college basketball award there is. Unfortunately, there is no reward in college basketball that commands as much respect as the Heisman. The Wooden or the AP Player of the Year just don't sound as impressive. Anyway, building up to the NBA Draft was especially exciting since the Jazz had the 3rd and 12th picks, which were perfectly in Jimmer range. I got to cover Jimmer working out for the Jazz, which was pretty much a disastrous media circus nightmare for me. I guess the TV people got their way and insisted we interview Jimmer on the court. There were a million people there and we all had to shove and fight our way toward him, hoping that our recorders could catch his words. It was an unpleasant experience, and not one I'd like to repeat too soon. But Jimmer was very impressive during that chaotic interview. He stood tall, spoke loudly and clearly, and even joked a little bit. By contrast, Kemba Walker was also there for the workout, and he sat slunched over, seemed disinterested, and sounded (as one reporter put it) like a dog with peanut butter stuck on the roof of its mouth.

Well, the Draft soon approached, and I got the sense that Kevin O'Connor wanted nothing to do with Jimmer. But in a fun little piece for the Universe, I still optimistically predicted the Jazz would take him at No. 12. The first three picks went just like everybody thought they would, with Kyrie Irving going to the Cavs, Derrick Williams to the T-Wolves, and Enes Kanter to the Jazz. Things got shaken up a little bit after that, and then Jimmer was taken at No. 10 by the Milwaukee Bucks. But it was immediately announced that he was drafted for the Sacramento Kings. It took all night for the Kings, Bucks and Bobcats to finalize their complicated trade, but it ended up with the Kings surprisingly trading up in the Draft to grab Jimmer by paying the price of Bismack Biyombo and Beno Udrih. Meanwhile, Kevin O'Connor likely breathed a sigh of relief and happily drafted Alec Burks. It's not that Jimmer would have been a bad fit in Utah, but most likely the fans' adoration of him would have put a lot of pressure on the coach who didn't play him or the general manager who didn't draft him. But nobody expected O'Connor to waste the third pick on Jimmer, so he was able to avoid some criticism on that front.

The Kings, meanwhile, seemed to make a pretty stupid trade at the time. Udrih was coming off a career year and Biyombo had a ton of potential. Plus, Sacramento had to take on John Salmons' unfavorable contract. But at the end of the day, it all became a wash. Udrih only played with the Bucks for a season and a half before being traded to Orlando. He then signed with New York before getting cut and recently signed with the Grizzlies (Memphis was rumored to be interested in Jimmer, but they chose Udrih instead). Biyombo has not had a particularly stellar career in Charlotte, and Salmons actually didn't hurt Sacramento that much because he was included in the Rudy Gay trade. So, almost three years later, I can't call that trade for Jimmer bad or good. I will call it unnecessary, though. Sacramento already had a ton of shoot-first, pass-never guards on their roster, leaving little to no room for Jimmer.

I was devastated for Jimmer. Not only did Sacramento have a terrible roster, but the whole organization was/is a complete mess. Their owners were bankrupt and almost moved the team to Seattle. Luckily they found some new owners and a little bit of stability, but how stable are you really when Shaquille O'Neal is one of your owners? Jimmer's first coach, Paul Westphal, seemed to like him and played him big minutes in the preseason. But Westphal got into a fight with notorious head case DeMarcus Cousins, and was fired only seven games into the season. After all, decent to mediocre coaches are easy to find, but players as big and strong as Cousins are not. So even though he acts like a complete jerk and idiot at times, the Kings are hanging on to him tooth and nail. Unfortunately, all this meant bad news for Jimmer. The new coach, Keith Smart, just never played him for whatever reason. Yeah, he's not as athletic as the other guys, and his defense is pretty terrible, but is he that much worse than the other players on the Kings roster? Here are Jimmer's stats through his first three years:

Season   Games   MPG   FG%   3FG%   FT%  PPG
2011-12     61        18.6     .386      .361       .833     7.6
2012-13     69        14.0     .421      .417       .859     7.2
2013-14     41        11.3     .475      .493       .895     5.9

So his minutes per game have steadily declined while his shooting percentages have steadily risen. Jimmer actually leads the NBA in 3-point percentage right now. I do want to put a disclaimer on those stats, though. The improved shooting is most likely due to the decreased competition Jimmer regularly faces. He usually only plays in the garbage minutes, when the game is already decided and both teams have the scrubs in. Nobody in those minutes are particularly good, and they're usually not trying very hard, not wanting to get hurt or too sweaty in a 20-point contest. So the defenders Jimmer has been facing more recently have likely been rather lackluster. I don't mean to discount anything Jimmer's done, I think it is still very impressive, but I want to help encourage some critical analysis of statistics. Most people work under the assumption that every minute of every NBA game is identical and an accurate indicator of a player's abilities. But anybody who watches the NBA has to admit that certain games and parts of games don't matter as much and are not played at the same intensity as the highest level of NBA games are. This is why I hate the per-36-minute stat. It is a little better than the completely nonsensical per-48-minute stat, but it still artificially increases most bench players' production. Sometimes they're just not able to play with as much energy for a longer period of time, and sometimes they do worse when they play against starters instead of bench players.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say (if I'm saying anything at all) is that I love Jimmer and I think he's a great player who has never really had a chance to prove himself. He doesn't have a lot of games with Chicago this year, but they will make the playoffs, giving Jimmer some good experience at that level. Hopefully Derrick Rose will be back next year and Jimmer will be there with him and turn into a major contributor on a contender. I would have loved to see him on San Antonio or Oklahoma City, but Chicago has a lot of potential, as well. Hopefully Jimmer will be able to resurrect Jimmermania and not become the next Adam Morrison.

A deeper look at tanking (Part 2)

Hey, don't give me that look, Alec. You should be celebrating! A 1-14 record is rather impressive — and exactly what the Jazz want to be doing. The best route to improving this franchise is through losing a lot of games, aka, tanking. In the first part of this post, I took a look at all the teams that made the conference finals from 1984 to 1998, and I found that almost half of those teams acquired their best player through nothing more than losing a bunch of games. Let's see how the past 15 years look.

1998-99:

*Spurs: Tim Duncan (Finals MVP) — 1st pick in 1997 (20-62)
Knicks: Latrell Sprewell — trade with Golden State in 1999
Blazers: Isaiah Rider — trade with Minnesota in 1996
Pacers: Reggie Miller — 11th pick in 1987 (41-41)

The '98-99 season sucked. The lockout limited it to just 50 games, and I firmly believe had this been a normal season, the Jazz would have finally won a championship. But that's just wishful thinking. Instead, the Spurs got their first title behind the stellar play of Tim Duncan, who helps prove the tanking theory. Now, David Robinson sat out most of the '96-97 season with injury, but I don't think the Spurs were ignorant about the possibility of drafting Duncan. I think they were quite content to allow Robinson to heal completely and thoroughly, while they limped to a 20-win season. And then just two years later, that top draft pick led them to the ultimate prize. But the other three teams in the conference finals this season did not use the tanking strategy. Patrick Ewing was still on this Knicks roster, but he was injured throughout much of New York's improbable run through the playoffs. Instead, they were led by Latrell Sprewell, who they acquired in one of the most successful mid-season trades in NBA history. For the Blazers, I had a hard time choosing their best player. They were a really well-balanced team, and I seem to remember Brian Grant hurting the Jazz more than anyone else. Rasheed Wallace was also there, but he hadn't quite developed into his All-Star potential. So I stuck with their leading scorer, the turbulent J.R. Rider. But none of those players were drafted by Portland, so there was no tanking there. And as I said in my last post, the Pacers were a playoff team the year before they drafted Reggie, so I don't count them as a tanking team, either.

1999-00:

Lakers: Shaquille O'Neal (MVP & Finals MVP) — free agent in 1996
Pacers: Reggie Miller
Blazers: Rasheed Wallace — trade with Washington in 1996
Knicks: Latrell Sprewell

This was the year that Shaq finally started living up to his full potential. And even though he was a No. 1 overall pick, he ditched his original team (Orlando) to chase the glitz and glamor of Hollywood. After his acting and rapping career failed to take off, he started to focus more on basketball thanks to the arrival of Phil Jackson and the emergence of Kobe Bryant. I don't think it should surprise anyone that the Lakers never were a tanking team on my list. What is surprising is that for the first time since 1984, not a single conference final team was led by a tanking success. Rasheed Wallace was a lottery pick — for the Washington Bullets. So all these teams got here more or less through intelligent front office moves. Maybe the lottery system is doing its job at preventing tanking.

2000-01:

Lakers: Shaquille O'Neal (Finals MVP)
*76ers: Allen Iverson (MVP) — 1st pick in 1996 (18-64)
*Spurs: Tim Duncan
Bucks: Ray Allen — 5th pick in 1996 (traded by Minnesota)

Well, so much for the lottery putting an end to tanking. Philadelphia got a great score after an awful 18-win season. And in the 2001 playoffs, Allen Iverson (almost single-handidly) gave the Lakers their only loss. And Milwaukee is not considered a tanking team by a mere technicality. They acquired Ray Allen through a draft-day trade, but they definitely tanked to get in position to make that trade. However, I credit their GM for dumping off Stephon Marbury for the superior Allen. Which one of those guys is still in the league?

2001-02:

Lakers: Shaquille O'Neal (Finals MVP)
Nets: Jason Kidd — trade with Phoenix in 2001
Kings: Chris Webber — trade with Washington in 1998
*Celtics: Paul Pierce — 10th pick in 1998 (36-46)

Jason Kidd and Chris Webber were both high lottery picks in their day, but they both didn't reach this level of success until they were traded to their third team. We are definitely seeing less tanking teams, but they are still out there. A 36-win season doesn't feel like a "true" tanking season, where everybody completely gives up. But the Celtics were bad enough to get a lottery pick who eventually took them to the conference finals, so they fit under my definition.

2002-03:

*Spurs: Tim Duncan (MVP & Finals MVP)
Nets: Jason Kidd
Mavericks: Dirk Nowitzki — 9th pick in 1998 (traded from Milwaukee)
Pistons: Ben Wallace — trade with Orlando in 2000

Dirk Nowitzki was a draft-day trade for a terrible Dallas team, but I give them credit for taking a chance on the unproven German player instead of sticking with the "sure thing" of Robert "Tractor" Traylor. For the Pistons, I could have chosen their leading scorer, Rip Hamilton, or their point guard, Chauncy Billups. But neither one of them seemed to really take over the team at this point. Ben Wallace, however, was Defensive Player of the Year and at the peak of his abilities with 15 rebounds and 3 blocks a game. The undrafted, undersized center was merely a throw-in for the Grant Hill sign-and-trade. And neither Hamilton nor Billups were drafted by the Pistons, so they built this team entirely without tanking.

2003-04:

Pistons: Chauncy Billups (Finals MVP) — free agent in 2002
Lakers: Shaquille O'Neal
Pacers: Jermaine O'Neal — trade with Portland in 2000
*Timberwolves: Kevin Garnett (MVP) — 5th pick in 1995 (21-61)

Chauncy Billups was originally drafted by Boston, then bounced around to three other teams before he finally found a home in Detroit. He also got pretty lucky to go against a Lakers team caught in a massive Shaq-Kobe feud and an injured Karl Malone unable to help. Reggie Miller was still on the Pacers, but had aged past the point of being their top player. In typical Indiana fashion, the Pacers found their new leader through a smart trade — not tanking. However, the Timberwolves completely tanked to get Kevin Garnett. Yes, he was a bit of a risk coming straight out of high school, but when you're a 21-win team, you can't really get much worse.

2004-05:

*Spurs: Tim Duncan (Finals MVP)
Pistons: Chauncy Billups
Suns: Steve Nash (MVP) — free agent in 2004
*Heat: Dwyane Wade — 5th pick in 2003 (25-57)

Steve Nash was actually drafted by the Suns with the 15th pick in the 1996 draft. But that was a non-tanking situation, and besides, he was traded to Dallas after just a couple of years. Nash then became an All-Star, but then Mark Cuban suddenly got cheap on him, so he rejoined his former team, where he became even better. In Miami, the arrival of Shaquille O'Neal was a really big deal, but this team was led by Dwyane Wade, who was one of the many prizes of the 2003 lottery, which Miami was more than willing to be a part of.

2005-06:

*Heat: Dwyane Wade (Finals MVP)
Mavericks: Dirk Nowitzki
Pistons: Chauncy Billups
Suns: Steve Nash (MVP)

Dwyane Wade put up a dominant Finals performance with 34.7 ppg, 7.8 rpg and 3.8 apg. I watched that series right before I left on my mission, and I thought for sure that Wade was the next Jordan, and the Mavericks were his first victims. But then he got hurt and everything changed.

2006-07:

Spurs: Tony Parker (Finals MVP) — 28th pick in 2001 (58-24)
*Cavaliers: LeBron James — 1st pick in 2003 (17-65)
Pistons: Chauncy Billups
Jazz: Carlos Boozer — free agent in 2004

I still consider the Spurs to be Tim Duncan's team, and I think Tony Parker won this award mainly because of voter fatigue. However, his 24.5/5.0/3.3 was pretty nice — especially for the 28th pick in the draft. He also represents exactly how San Antonio has remained competitive all these years. After landing Duncan, they smartly built a good team around him by drafting intelligently and developing players, so they didn't need to tank again. The Cavs, however, tanked big time to get LeBron. They had the worst record in the league, and their coach at the time, John Lucas, later admitted that Cleveland was tanking. (Funnily, enough, this caused a bit of faux-outrage from Cleveland's owner. Why deny it? Embrace it!) The Jazz, sadly, decided to have another good season while I was in the Czech Republic. This team was anchored by Carlos Boozer, Memo Okur (both free agents) and Deron Williams. The Jazz did a pseudo-tank to get Williams by having a 26-win season then trading up to get him. That's the closest they've come to tanking. Will they be able to do it this year?

2007-08:

*Celtics: Paul Pierce (Finals MVP)
Lakers: Kobe Bryant (MVP) — 13th pick in 1996 (traded by Charlotte)
Pistons: Chauncy Billups
*Spurs: Tim Duncan

Of course, Paul Pierce wasn't the main reason for Boston's championship here. They made two very successful trades for a couple of guys named Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen. However, Pierce was still the leader, and he was technically acquired through a tanking situation. Kobe Bryant finally got to take the Lakers to the Finals (although Pau Gasol helped a lot), but the Lakers didn't get him through tanking — or being particularly smart, either. There's a lot of debate on whether Kobe demanded a trade to L.A. or whether Charlotte was just desperate to get Vlade Divac. Knowing what I know about Kobe, I'm inclined to believe he refused, or would have refused, to play for Charlotte. But whatever you choose to believe, you can't deny that this was a non-tanking situation.

2008-09:

Lakers: Kobe Bryant (Finals MVP)
*Magic: Dwight Howard — 1st pick in 2004 (21-61)
*Cavaliers: LeBron James (MVP)
*Nuggets: Carmelo Anthony — 3rd pick in 2003 (17-65)

Now here are the tanking success stories! Orlando finished with the worst record in the league, landed the top pick, and took only a slight risk with high schooler Dwight Howard. In four years, he had them in the Finals — almost all you could ever hope for. Denver, if you remember, tied with Cleveland for the worst record, and chose Carmelo Anthony with their pick. True, they might have had more success with Dwyane Wade, but reaching the conference finals with Carmelo was a solid accomplishment. But the most important thing from this season is that three of these four teams didn't just tank — they completely bottomed out. And general managers took notice, and continue to try to replicate that success today. (And then they act outraged and vehemently deny all accusations that they would ever attempt to think about doing something as dastardly as tank a season.)

2009-10:

Lakers: Kobe Bryant (Finals MVP)
*Celtics: Paul Pierce
*Magic: Dwight Howard
Suns: Steve Nash

Not much to say for this season. The same handful of teams just keep rotating in and out. Probably the most important development we learned was that Cleveland did not successfully build a winning team around LeBron James. He realized it was too hard for him to win on his on, began to pout, then ditched Cleveland as soon as he could. Carmelo Anthony and Dwight Howard would later follow suit. What's interesting is that this very rarely happened in the '80s or '90s. Teams landed a supreme talent, then kept them and built around them. In the 2000s, teams continued to land the supreme talents through the same tactics (primarily losing), but they became less adept at keeping these players for the long term. Perhaps it has to do with the stricter salary cap.

2010-11:

Mavericks: Dirk Nowitzki (Finals MVP)
Heat: LeBron James — sign-and-trade with Cleveland in 2010
*Bulls: Derrick Rose (MVP) — 1st pick in 2008 (33-49)
*Thunder: Kevin Durant — 2nd pick in 2007 (31-51)

The Bulls and Thunder are both teams that spent a long time tanking, especially Chicago, who started the drill as soon as Jordan left. They suffered through many years in the lottery before they finally got lucky with Derrick Rose. The Thunder (formerly the Sonics) built their team with high draft picks in Russell Westbrook, James Harden, and most importantly, Kevin Durant. The salary cap forced Oklahoma City to break up that trio prematurely, but the takeaway lesson here is that tanking is rarely a one-season event. Sometimes it can take years of strikeouts before you hit it big (like Chicago), or sometimes you need to slowly build up an accumulation of top-tier talent (like OKC). Either way, Jazz fans should prepare themselves for this tanking session to last a while.

2011-12:

Heat: LeBron James (MVP & Finals MVP)
*Thunder: Kevin Durant
*Spurs: Tim Duncan
*Celtics: Paul Pierce

Again, not much to say here. This happened so recently that we all know what happened. We had the old guard (Spurs and Celtics) slowly being replaced by the new guard (Heat and Thunder). But even though LeBron was clearly the best player on Miami this year, the main reason he went there was because they already had Dwyane Wade, who was acquired through tanking. Just like how San Antonio and Boston wouldn't have been as competitive had they not had at least one truly awful season in their recent past.

2012-13:

Heat: LeBron James (MVP & Finals MVP)
*Spurs: Tim Duncan
Grizzlies: Zach Randolf — trade with Los Angeles Clippers in 2009
*Pacers: Paul George — 10th pick in 2010 (32-50)

Now we got a couple of newcomers here. I could have chosen Marc Gasol for Memphis — he was the Defensive Player of the Year — but I stuck with Randolf, their leading scorer and rebounder through the playoffs. But like Randolf, Gasol was traded to Memphis (as a throw-in with the Pau Gasol trade). Memphis' starting point guard, however, Mike Conley Jr., was acquired in the draft after the Grizzlies finished with the worst record in the NBA. So there was a fair amount of tanking on this team. Paul George was one of Indiana's spoils from destroying their team after the Malice at the Palace. It used to not bug me that the Jazz drafted Gordon Hayward one pick ahead of George, but lately that's really starting to annoy me. In a couple of years, that may become one of the worst draft picks made by Utah.

So, let's start tallying everything up. In the past 15 years, 24 of the 60 conference finals teams were led by a tanking success story. That's a 40 percent rate, which is slightly lower than the previous 15-year chunk. Altogether, over the past 30 years, 51 of the 120 teams (42.5 percent) were built by tanking. Looking at just the Finals MVPs, only five of the past 15 were acquired through tanking, whereas the previous 15-year chunk had 11 of 15. So it's getting harder to win by tanking, which is exactly what the NBA wants. But tanking still is perhaps the best way to improve for all teams not named the Los Angeles Lakers. Here's a look at all the teams that made my list:

Lakers: 15 appearances, 0 tanks
Pistons: 11 appearances, 3 tanks
Bulls: 9, 9
Celtics: 9, 9
Spurs: 9, 8
Pacers: 7, 1
Suns: 7, 1
Heat: 6, 2
Jazz: 6, 0
Blazers: 5, 0
Sonics/Thunder: 5, 2
Knicks: 4, 2
Magic: 4, 4
Mavericks: 4, 1
Rockets: 4, 4
Bucks: 3, 0
Cavaliers: 3, 2
76ers: 2, 1
Nets: 2, 0
Nuggets: 2, 1
Grizzlies: 1, 0
Kings: 1, 0
Timberwolves: 1, 1

So this chart means that over the past 30 years, the Lakers have reached at least the conference finals 15 times. They had three distinct dynasties, led by Magic Johnson, Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant. But none of those players were acquired by the Lakers' own lottery pick, i.e., a tanking situation. The Bulls made nine appearances, and each time were led by one of their tanking spoils (Michael Jordan and Derrick Rose). What I find most interesting with this list is the second-highest team with a zero in the tanking column: the Utah Jazz. They have never successfully tanked before. Every other team that's made it more than five times had at least one team led by a lottery pick. Except the Lakers, who can get away with that thanks to their ability to land marquee free agents. But the Jazz will never have that luxury.

Now tanking isn't the only solution. The Detroit Pistons enjoyed an enormous amount of success through a team led by Chauncy Billups and other players acquired through trade or free agency. And that's pretty much how the Jazz did things during Jerry Sloan's tenure. They always made the playoffs, and reached the Finals twice. But that was when the Jazz had a magnificent, hands-on owner and a Hall-of-Fame coach. Greg Miller isn't quite Larry H. Miller, and Tyrone Corbin is nowhere near Jerry Sloan. Without that front office stability and leadership, the Jazz will never be able to return to competitive form "the old-fashioned way." Their only hope is to completely bottom out and draft a guy who can single-handedly turn this team around.

So Jazz fans, sit back and enjoy the tanking. Laugh at their struggles and take pleasure in the coaches and players trying to find new ways to say, "We're not intentionally losing." And Jazz? Why not actually come out and say this season is a wash and that you're actually tanking? What's going to happen? Will the NBA fine you? Will the national media feign shock and wag their tongues at you? I doubt it. Be honest with yourself and the fans. We deserve it.