Looking back at Sam Jones’ Boston career

Stephen Stapinski of Andover, like many sports fans from Boston, really knows the city’s basketball team’s history. A few decades back, the Boston Celtics had a gem of player in the person of Sam Jones. This blog takes a look back at his career.

Samuel Jones is a former NBA basketball player who rose to fame because he redefined the shooting guard position, with his ability to move quickly around the court and his penchant for taking game-winning shots, especially during the NBA Playoffs.

Hall of Fame coach Red Auerbach took a trip south to scout North Carolina players who were fresh off a national championship. Initially, he set his prospects on North Carolina top gun Lennie Rosenbluth, but the meeting didn’t push through at the time. In the 1957 NBA draft, the Philadelphia Warriors drafted Rosenbluth. The Celtics instead drafted less-known player Samuel Jones two picks later, even if Auerbach had never seen him play.

Little did Aurbach know that he had a dynamo in his hands. One of Sam’s biggest assets was his near-perfect shooting form, which was observed to be so fundamentally sound as this delivered consistent results for the player they literally referred to as "The Shooter," recounts Stephen Stapinski of Andover.

A few years down the road, Jones led Boston in scoring, particularly in the 1962–63 season with 19.7 points per game, the 1964–65 season with 25.9, and the 1965–66 season 23.5. Teamed up with another Celtics legend, Bill Russell, Jones won a lot of championship trophies in his 12-year career as well. Russel and Jones have the most number of championships in the NBA, with 11 and 10, respectively.

Sure enough, Sam Jones was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1984. He was also named one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History, notes Stephen Stapinski of Andover.