Guest Article by Dan Kelley
Last week the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame announced their candidates for the Class of 2024. It is understandable if anyone missed the announcement. The headline candidates included Vince Carter and the 2008 Team USA “Redeem Team.” Former Boston Celtics head coach K.C. Jones was not among those included.
To Jerry Colangelo and the Hall of Fame committee, it is way beyond time to explain yourselves regarding this glaring omission.
To be clear: K.C. Jones 100% deserves to not simply be a candidate for the Hall of Fame as a coach, he deserved to be enshrined long ago. Him remaining on the outside remains unjustifiable. However, a look around makes it more apparent what Colangelo is up to.
The Hall of Fame candidates came from six different categories. The breakdown:
36 North American Nominees
11 Women’s Nominees
30 Contributor Nominees
24 International Nominees
11 Women’s Veterans Nominees
40 Veteran’s Nominees
For those keeping track, there are 152 candidates to be in the Class of 2024. So why isn’t coach K.C. Jones one of them? It’s certainly not due to a lack of worthiness. A quick review of his coaching career makes that painfully obvious.
K.C. Jones Pivots to a Coaching
Following his Hall of Fame playing career with the Boston Celtics, K.C. Jones began a second career as a basketball coach. He joined the Los Angeles Lakers as an assistant coach for the 1972 season. The Lakers won the NBA Championship. In his first season on the bench, Jones already had his first championship ring as a coach. Two years later, Jones had his first head coaching opportunity in the NBA.
Washington Years (1974-to-1976)
K.C. Jones was hired for the 1973-1974 season to coach the Capital Bullets (who would change their name to the Washington Bullets the following season). He remained as head coach in Washington for three seasons. His teams went a combined 155-91 (62.2 winning percentage). Washington reached the 1975 NBA Finals, before ultimately falling to the Golden State Warriors. A year later, Jones was fired following a 48-win season and seven-game elimination in the playoffs. Nearly 50 years later, K.C. Jones is still Washington’s all-time leader is both winning percentage and wins over .500 (32).
Return to Boston (1978-1983)
After being fired by Washington, Jones returned to being an NBA assistant. He spent one year with the Milwaukee Bucks before returning to his playing home with the Boston Celtics. He spent six seasons as an assistant coach in Boston. The non-interim head coaches during those years were Tommy Heinsohn (Hall of Fame coach), Tom Sanders (Hall of Fame contributor), and Bill Fitch (Hall of Fame coach). The 1981 Boston Celtics won the NBA Championship. K.C. Jones picked up his second ring as an NBA assistant coach.
Celtics Head Coach (1984-1988)
After Bill Fitch left to coach the Houston Rockets, K.C. Jones was promoted to head coach of the Boston Celtics before the 1983—1984 season. Even with the most successful franchise in NBA history, it was difficult to be much more successful than K.C. Jones. In his five years as Celtics head coach, the team went to four NBA Finals and won twice. The 1984 and 1986 teams both raised banners in the Boston Garden under Jones’ watch. The 1986 team is considered one of the greatest in NBA history. They amassed 67 regular season wins before going 15-3 in the playoffs. Their head coach: K.C. Jones.
Jones was replaced following the 1988 season. It is not often a head coach wins 57 games, reaches the Eastern Conference Finals, and still gets fired, but that is exactly what happened to Jones. Following his departure, the Boston Celtics would not reach the NBA Finals for another 20 years. He would coach two seasons with the Seattle SuperSonics (.500 both years)in his final head coaching job in the NBA.
K.C. Jones has the highest winning percentage in both the regular season (.751) and NBA Playoffs (.637) in Boston Celtics history. This is a franchise with Hall of Fame head coaches Red Auerbach, Bill Russell, Tommy Heinsohn, and Bill Fitch. All of them are deservingly in the Hall of Fame. Why isn’t K.C. Jones?
How is K.C. Jones Not in the Hall of Fame?
Statistics to show what an injustice Coach K.C. Jones being left out of the Basketball Hall of Fame include:
There are only six NBA head coaches to reach more than three NBA Finals. The only retired head coach not in the Hall of Fame is K.C. Jones , who did it five times.
Throughout NBA history, of every head coach with at least 500 wins, K.C. Jones has the second best winning percentage (.674). He trails only Hall of Fame coach Phil Jackson (.704).
There are 11 retired head coaches who won multiple NBA Championships. Ten are in the Hall of Fame. The other? K.C. Jones.
When the NBA celebrated turning 75 in 2022, they revealed a list of the 15 greatest coaches in NBA history. Of the 12 coaches who were not active, 11 are in the Basketball Hall of Fame. The other? K.C. Jones.
Praise From Bill Walton
If anyone read the above-section and is still not sold, Hall of Fame player Bill Walton recently paid his former head coach the highest compliment. Walton won two NBA titles during his playing career, as the star of the 1977 Portland Trail Blazers, and the sixth man on the 1986 Boston Celtics. (note: the head coach of that 1977 Portland team, Jack Ramsay, is in the Hall of Fame).
In college Bill Walton played for legendary head coach John Wooden at UCLA. He won two National Championships and three Player of the Year Awards in his three seasons. Wooden won 10 NCAA Championships at UCLA. He is held in high esteem by many, but perhaps nobody more than Bill Walton. This is what Walton had to say this past week about K.C. Jones.
“K.C. Jones was the smartest, most kind person, and a great coach. He was the closest coach I ever had to John Wooden.”
No small praise to say the least. So the question remains, why is K.C. Jones not in the Basketball Hall of Fame as a coach? When Hall of Fame sportswriter Peter Vecsey was asked about this, he pointed to Jerry Colangelo,
What Does Jerry Colangelo Have Against K.C. Jones?
It is hard to imagine anybody having a grudge against K.C. Jones. Larry Bird said of his former coach, “K.C. (Jones) is the nicest human being I have ever met in my life.” So why does Jerry Colangelo seem set on keeping him out of Springfield? There are a few possibilities.
Colangelo has served as the Chairman of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame since 2009. He had previously elected himself, as a contributor for his years as an NBA executive, in 2004. During his time as the Chairman of the Hall, Colangelo was ran the Phoenix Suns from 1968 to 1994. During that time, the Suns reached the NBA Finals twice, never winning a championship. So perhaps, as a Hall of Fame executive with no rings, Colangelo is not swayed by a coach with two titles as a head coach, another two as an assistant, and five NBA Finals trips as a head coach on his resume.
Jerry Colangelo also owned the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury from 1997 to 2003. They also won no championships under Colangelo’s watch.
Since Colangelo became HOF Chairman in 2009, there have been nine former Phoenix Suns players, and two Phoenix Suns “contributors” inducted to the Hall of Fame. Among the 2024 candidates are three Suns players, and several contributors. And about those contributors…
Colangelo’s Contributor Loophole
One of the amazing things to discover while studying the Basketball Hall of Fame, specifically under Jerry Colangelo’s watch, is the use of the “contributor” category to shoehorn in certain candidates.
Longtime Phoenix Suns head coach Cotton Fitzsimmons was inducted into the Hall of Fame as a contributor in the Class of 2021. Fitzsimmons’ Hall of Fame page even mentions his relationship with Jerry Colangelo. It is very clear that Fitzsimmons was being inducted as a coach, as that is the focus of both his basketball career, and the writeup. However, he was inducted as a “contributor” after having won 51.8% of his 1607 NBA games as a head coach. Fitzsimmons teams never reached the NBA Finals.
If Cotton Fitzsimmons was nominated as a coach, a comparison to somebody like K.C. Jones might have kept him out. But Cotton Fitzsimmons was posthumously inducted into the Hall of Fame as a contributor, and nobody batted an eye.
There are other contributors who are really coaches inducted into the Hall of Fame during Colangelo’s tenure. These include Del Harris and Al Attles. Contributors on this year’s ballot include Doug Collins, Mike Fratello, and Red Kerr (Colangelo’s first head coach as GM of the Suns). There are also a large number of high school and college coaches in this category. But for some reason, high school and college coaches get more attention than one of the most successful coaches in basketball’s most elite league?
To be clear, there is no objection to Cotton Fitzsimmons, Red Kerr, or anyone else being inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. Perhaps if K.C. Jones was not in the Hall of Fame as a player, he’d have been inducted as a contributor long ago himself. But K.C. Jones was a Hall of Fame player, and he deserves to be a Hall of Fame coach.
It’s Not Too Late to Make Things Right
Sadly, K.C. Jones passed away on Christmas Day, 2020. He died on Dec. 25, fitting for the man who has 25 hanging from the rafters of TD Garden in his honor. Jerry Colangelo and the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame deprived K.C. Jones of being able to attend his own enshrinement as a coach, despite being one of the most successful head coaches in NBA history. However, his wife and children deserve the opportunity to still celebrate the honor after his passing.
Perhaps Jerry Colangelo has forgotten K.C. Jones over the years, but not everyone has.
Maybe everything has worked out exactly as it was meant to be. The man known for wearing 25, before becoming a successful NBA coach, can still be inducted into the Hall of Fame. Ignorance from the committee is no longer a valid excuse.
K.C. Jones obviously needs to be part of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame Class of 2025.
