Ranking the 75 best players in NBA history: No. 65 – Sam Jones
On NBA 50 at 50 List
Career: 1957 – 1969
Achievements: 10-time champion; All-NBA (3x); All-Star (5x)
On the all-time great teams, teams that were perennial contenders and won multiple titles, it is sometimes hard to parse out which players were truly transcendent and which were simply in the right roles but ultimately dependent on their superstar teammates. Especially for players who never changed teams, those questions are largely unable to be answered with complete certainty.
Even so, I had to do my best, and so Sam Jones makes this list, while his teammate Bill Sharman does not. Jones played behind Sharman for years before finally breaking into the closing lineup in the 1961 playoffs and never looking back.
He was a perfect fit for the Bill Russell Celtics, a good-enough defender and confident shooter. He famously would taunt big men by hitting jumpers, then driving by them when they rumbled out to contest his shot. He won ten of the 11 titles the Celtics won during that dynasty, and Jones was the second-best player on more than one of those title teams.