James Jones: Best Guard in the ABA? 1974

[In the 1970s, Dan Pattison covered the ABA’s Utah Stars for the Salt Lake City-based Deseret News. He clearly enjoyed his beat. Pattison wrote as knowledgably about the ABA as any reporter out there, and he loved his Stars while the franchise lasted. 

In the March 6, 1974 issue of Basketball Weekly, Pattison highlighted one of his favorite Stars, James Jones, under the provocative headline: “Best Guard in the ABA?” Fifty years later, few would even think to pose that question. But Jones had game, lots of it. That’s why it’s worth taking a look back to remember just how good number 15 with the star stitched to his chest really was. 

Pattison’s article provides a nice snapshot of Jones’ overall game. But the article is a little too brief for me. So, I’ve folded in just a few quotes and a comment from two other 1974 stories about Jones. One is from the great Steve Rudman, the Stars beat reporter for the rival Salt Lake Tribune. His story ran on March 26. The other is from Pattison again sounding off about Jones in the March 30 issue of the Deseret News. Great sources, great play.]

****

Mention the name of James Jones with the best guards in the ABA, and there’s a good chance you can start an argument. There are fans, sports wags, and coaches who will boost Jones. There are others who will knock him. 

Some people believe the Utah Stars’ veteran is the best guard in the league. Others question his play. Some think, like his former ABA coach Babe McCarthy (it still gets into Babe’s craw the way Jones left him to join Utah), that he is not making the most of his talent and “the Stars will never win the ABA title again with him.”

And the 6-4 guard, who has played in six of the seven ABA All-Star games, is well aware of his boosters and critics. Jones has a lot of pride and self-respect. He feels he is a 100 percenter and that he wouldn’t be able to look at himself in the mirror following a game if he didn’t put forth his top effort. He knows, though, that he won’t be able to please his critics every game. 

“How can a guy make a statement like that?” Jones responds to Babe’s attacks. “I don’t think that way at all. That’s a bad rap! If that’s the case, I’m in good company. Look what they’ve been saying about Wilt Chamberlain all these years. Yet he’s been on two championship teams. 

“It takes a lot of breaks to win championships. Some players never win championships, and they don’t get tagged losers. I think it’s a personal thing with Babe, but I really don’t want to get into it.”

After winning the ABA’s Western Division title for the last two years, what has been the Stars’ failure to go all the way? “I look at the last two years that Indiana beat us and feel that the breaks went against us,” Jones explains. “The first year, ‘Z’ [Zelmo Beaty] got hurt in the Dallas series, and last year, both Willie [Wise] and myself were injured.

“We got a lot of bad breaks around the league, too. Maybe I’m looking at it from a selfish standpoint, but I feel like we did and still do. Some calls we’ve been getting can’t get any worse. The reason I feel they are down on me is the fact I bitch at them so much.

“But the last two years, I haven’t been cursing them. I try to do my best not to say anything. I realize how much it hurts us now. But still it burns me, because some of the other guys really come down on them, and they get nothing called against them.”

Whether Jones has been maligned by people around the league doesn’t really matter to his teammates. They believe in him. And they believe he’s one of the key people in their drive for a third-straight Western Division title and a possible ABA championship. Not that many people can be against him, either. He was named All-League last year. 

But what does Jones have to do for the Stars to win? “I have to play sound basketball,” he relates. “I have to do all the things I think I can do well. I feel I have to penetrate more and stay healthy. 

“I know my assets and liabilities,” he adds. “Like I don’t feel I’m in the top four defensive guard in the league. You’ve got guys like Mike Gale (New York), Al Smith (Denver), Fatty Taylor (Virginia), and Ted McClain (Carolina), who I feel are the top defensive guards. And I don’t feel that I’m the overpowering-type guard either.

“But whenever I have the height advantage on another guard, I figure I can take advantage of him. It seems like it’s a lot harder to post guys the last two years. Teams are playing tougher defense and trying to help out more. We try to clear out a side, like we do in our guard ‘41’ play, and get into a good shooting area. You really don’t have to worry about posting them or jockeying for a layup. Any time you shoot a 15-footer on them, it’s like shooting a layup in the pros.”

Jones is also a showman, not a showboat. His sense of the spectacular is controlled, not contrived, and Jones is perhaps the best clutch operator in the league. His style is reminiscent of the best big guards in the NBA, combining physical ability with brains and marked by a sense of always knowing what to do when it counts most. 

Joe Mullaney, the former NBA head coach now heading the Stars, agrees with all of the above. “Jones has got tremendous skills. No question, he controls the ball on the dribble as well as any and takes the ball where you want it. He controls the ball and protects it, which takes him into medium and short shooting range. He takes good percentage shots.

“His size means a lot,” Mullaney added. “He’s one of the best at faking the shot, then taking it just at the right time—getting a team to overreact. Walt Frazier can do it. Jerry West and Oscar Robertson can, too.”

Jones had an ankle operation during the summer, and says he has had no trouble at all with it. But what does he feel about his season thus far? 

“Personally, I started out really well,” he said. “I thought I was in good condition. But I guess I wasn’t. My shot took a vacation. Now, I think I’m getting it back together. As a team, I believe we are stronger than last year, because now when our office gets bogged down, we can still keep in the game with our defense. Under coach Joe Mullaney’s system, we’re playing a lot better defense, helping each other out more.”

Jones has been a key. And there is not any better guard that a team can depend on in the league than him. 

[The Stars didn’t win the ABA’s 1974 championship. Neither did the team’s tried-and-true veteran nucleus remain in tact or in town, including Jones. “Jones didn’t like living and playing in the nearly all-white Salt Lake City environs,” wrote the magazine Street & Smith’s before the next season (also calling Jones the best guard in the league), “and was pushing them for big, big money this past summer, hoping to force a trade.” It was money that the failing Utah franchise didn’t have. Neither did most of the ABA’s surviving franchises. And so Jones, now 30 years old, jumped to the NBA’s Washington Bullets. He spent three seasons in the Nation’s Capital coming off the bench. ]