Bobby Jones (basketball, born 1951)

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Bobby Jones (basketball, born 1951) bigraphy, stories - Basketball player

Bobby Jones (basketball, born 1951) : biography

December 18, 1951 –

Robert Clyde "Bobby" Jones (born December 18, 1951) is a retired American professional basketball player in the American Basketball Association (ABA) and National Basketball Association (NBA).

Notes

Biography

Bobby Jones was one of the most admired defenders ever to wear an NBA uniform; he was also considered one of the most virtuous. While most other players depended on the occasional thrown elbow, hip-check, or grab of the uniform to gain an advantage, Jones relied on hustle and determination. It was Jones’ stellar defense along with his other specialties such as leadership, that made him a standout sixth man. Opposing teams could ill afford to relax on defense when Jones came off the bench, and they also had to work a lot harder on offense to get the ball in or even near the basket.

Jones’s coaches used to marvel that he was so good at the things they had trouble getting many other players to do at all, such as block shots, move without the ball, hustle back on defense, tip passes, dive after loose balls, give up an open outside shot so a teammate could hit from inside—all the things that rarely, if ever, show up in a box score. Jones was as unselfish as a player could be, so much so that coaches had to implore him to take more shots. His hardworking, gentlemanly playing style was due in no small measure to his deep-seated Christian values. “When I’m in there, I just play as hard as I can,” Jones told NBA Today in 1983. “In the Bible, it says we’re supposed to give 100 percent in whatever it is we do—and that’s what I do.”

What that work added up to was a 12-year pro career that featured eight selections to the NBA All-Defensive First Team; the first-ever NBA Sixth Man Award; membership on the ABA All-Rookie Team; four appearances in the NBA All-Star Game and one in the ABA All-Star Game; and perhaps most prized, an NBA Championship with the Philadelphia 76ers in 1983. Above all, Jones’s value as a player was evidenced by the fact that his teams never missed the playoffs.

“Bobby Jones gives you two hours of his blood, showers and goes home,” former Sixers General Manager Pat Williams told NBA Today. “If I was going to ask a youngster to model after someone, I would pick Bobby Jones.” Added longtime 76ers teammate Julius Erving, “He’s a player who’s totally selfless, who runs like a deer, jumps like a gazelle, plays with his head and heart each night, and then walks away from the court as if nothing happened.”

As for his almost polite approach to the game, Jones believed that anything less would have been downright un-Christian. “If I have to play defense by holding on, that’s when I quit,” Jones said early in his career. “If I have to use an elbow to get position, then I’m going to have to settle for another position. And if I foul, or if the official makes a mistake, there’s no use screaming about it. It won’t change things or make me happier.”

On one of the few occasions Jones did address a referee, it was to point out that the official had called a foul on the wrong player: it was Jones, not a teammate, who was the guilty party. The trusting ref changed his call and assigned the foul to Jones—his fifth of the game. Larry Brown, Jones’s coach with the Denver Nuggets, remarked, “Watching Bobby Jones on the basketball court is like watching an honest man in a liars’ poker game.”

The 6-foot-9 forward played with an almost boyish respect for the game, its rules, and its traditions. He always raised his hand when called for a foul. When Nuggets teammate Paul Silas showed him a less-than-legal way to get a rebounding position, Jones said no thanks. “For veterans like Paul, I consider that executive privilege,” Jones said. “But that’s not my game.”

As for vices such as drinking, smoking, and cursing, they were out of the question. When a computer-generated ranking sponsored by Seagram Distillers rated Jones the NBA’s “most consistent and productive player” in 1976–77, Jones turned over the $10,000 prize to religious charities. At the award dinner (held without alcohol at Jones’s request) he pronounced from the podium: “I’m definitely against whiskey, and I just felt God gave me this money not to keep, but to use.” And while he never asked teammates or coaches to avoid expletives, they frequently found themselves crying out “Oh, shoot!” in his presence.