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The Shooting Guard from North Carolina

Everyone knows about the great New York guards like Kenny Smith, Kenny Anderson, Stephon Marbury, Mark Jackson, Bob Cousy and how they inspired tens of millions of people to work on their handles to express themselves on the basketball court. The Chicago guards with great athleticism and skills like Isiah Thomas, Dwayne Wade, Tim Hardaway and Derrick Rose that put fear in opponents hearts. Great forwards from the DMV like Kevin Durant, Elgin Baylor and Adrian Dantley that will serve you buckets at an astonishing rate.

However, if one really wants to change the game, inspire murals, earn record breaking contracts, build the best championship dynasties, end opponents dynasties and hit the most clutch shots in NBA history then they wanna be like the shooting guards from North Carolina. From the mountain’s in the west across the piedmont midlands and the coastal east one will find guards that blend the fundamentals of the game with their natural gifts and a little bit of magic culminating into the North Carolina guard being the most significant player-state-position relationship in the history of basketball.

North Carolina has a long and rich history of basketball including the great college programs like University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and Duke that helped popularize the game of basketball before the NBA was established. It was already a world-wide sport being played in countries like China and showcased in the Olympics but its best post-college talents were split between AAU programs and various professional leagues.

This is the story on how an atmosphere of coaching, insane love of sports (specifically basketball), values like hard-work/self-belief/discipline, and evolution built the greatest guards that basketball has ever seen.

Out of all those great college’s this story begins at the other school in Durham — North Carolina Central an HBCU (North Carolina leads the country in HBCU student enrollment). 1957 the Year the Celtics drafted “Mr. Clutch” — Sam Jones. Jones, the son of a baseball player and a domestic, was from Laurinburg and attended the “Laurinburg Institute” in the midlands.

The Laurinburg Institute was an historically important African-American preparatory school known for its basketball and other programs. It provided students with a high level liberal education that attracted students from all over the east coast to the small factory/agriculture based town and churned out scholarships for its participants.

Sam, like many other young men in the State, grew up playing baseball, football, and basketball at local businessman and community leader Mr. McDougald’s house where Sam could utilize the half-court and watch the only TV in his black community. Sam credits Coach Daniels for teaching him the fundamentals of the game in middle school “This is where I learned the fundamentals of basketball — defense. offense, passing, dribbling but fundamentally sound — how you make a layup, what foot to jump off, how to shoot a free throw”

Jones had multiple tools that made him a great basketball player — at 6’4 he majestically ran up and down the court, had maybe the greatest clutch gene, and scoring ability — specifically his mid range shot off the backboard. Jones was taught early on to use the backboard for layups and kept pushing it back further and further until it was perfected from 18 feet on both sides of the rim. He also played tennis in his later years of high school which improved his “agility, reflexes, balance, and flexibility” although he thought it to be a “sissy” sport.

Jones would go on to attend North Carolina College at Durham (now NC Central) where he would play basketball, and tennis before being drafted *for the first time* into the U.S military where he served two years before returning and was drafted again this time in the 7th round of the NBA draft by the Lakers. Sam would forgo the Lakers to finish out his college career while improving his draft stock to become the 1st round pick of the Boston Celtics.

The Celtics led by Bill Russell and Bob Cousy had won the championship the season prior. Jones, unsure about moving and making the Celtics roster, chose to give professional basketball a try instead of the guaranteed job offer he had to become a teacher.

Jones and the Celtics would win an astonishing 10 championships making him and Russell the highest championship winning duo in American pro sports history and while 10 titles makes it seem like they were guaranteed to win it all every year, the truth was anything but that. Many times the Celtics needed a clutch shot to win a game at the end — and nobody in the history of the game was better at that than Sam Jones. Six times during that Boston Celtics run they needed a shot to avoid elimination (finals, conference finals) and each time he made the shot.

Obviously Sam had something special mentally that allowed him to be the greatest in those moments but without the early coaching teaching him how to play and the community allowing him to practice his skills Sam wouldn’t have had the fundamentals and skills to rely on and Boston wouldn’t have the greatest dynasty in the history of sports.

Russell said of Jones — “he’s got more skills than any player I’ve ever seen, I’d have maybe the three championships without him”. Teammate Tom “Snatch” Sanders claimed “He did not wanna be a dominant player, which was unfortunate for us because he was the one we wanted to give the ball to almost every time down the court”. Hall of fame opponent Billy Cunningham stated “Sam was as nice a gentleman as you’d ever meet and he was so quick and so fluid that” — Billy Cunningham.

A career 18 points per game scorer who shot 46% shooter which is far beyond the guard of his time and would be like a guard shooting 50–56% today. In 9 winner take all playoff games he averaged 27 points per game shooting 49% and 88% from the free throw line. His 47 points against Oscar Robertson and the Cincinnati Royals was tied for the NBA record in a game 7 until Kevin Durant surpassed the total in 2021. Among the top-10 most points scored in a game 7, his 47 point outburst has the highest field goal percentage at 67%. In his final game Sam would go 10–16 in a game 7 that saw the Celtics beat Baylor, Chamberlain, and West by 2 points to seal the Celtics 11th title.

It was this beautiful style and ability to be hyper-effective as a primarily off-ball guard that makes some credit Sam as being “the original shooting guard”.

The next generation of shooting guard was a little different. Take Jones’ abilities and give him the highest vertical the NBA has ever seen — that’s David “Sky-Walker” Thompson.

Thompson from the western NC rural mountain town of Shelby, North Carolina an hour drive west of Charlotte where he played for Crest high school. Thompson grew up in a very religious family where his father was a deacon. Thompson and his cousin Alvin Gentry built a dirt court where Thompson would hone his skills and athletic ability. Thompson would train like a track star even wearing ankle weights to improve his athletic ability.

He would become a local hero before committing to NC State where his legend would continue to grow. After making noise on the freshman basketball team and being barred from postseason play during an undefeated sophomore campaign — Thompson led the Wolfpack to the 1974 national championship defeating UCLA in a double overtime semifinals classic, ending their run of record 7 consecutive national championships winning the final four most outstanding players in the process.

During his junior campaign Thompson averaged 26 points on 55% shooting from the field, 8 rebounds per game while winning his second conference player of the year award. The following season he averaged 30 points per game and won the national player of the year but would fall short of repeating as national champion.

Along with the accomplishments Thompson would popularize the vertical jump and the “alley-oop” — which was invented in a practice between himself and the point guard Monte Towe on accident although he was forced to lay them in due to the NCAA baring dunks at the time. NC State head coach Norm Sloan liked that accidental alley-oop and made it a part of the teams offense.

When the time came to turn professional Thompson had a decision to make, would he go to the traditional NBA or the sexy ABA with a three point line, a fast paced game, better athletes and the chance to make more money. Thompson decided to go to the ABA where as a rookie he would lead his Denver Nuggets to the championship against the marquee basketball attraction in the world Julius Erving and the New York Nets.

It was during the ABA all-star game of 1975–76 that Thompson, Erving and other ABA stars would compete in the first Slam Dunk Contest where Thompson dazzled fans by being of the shorter contestants and throwing down a 360 slam. Erving would end up stealing the show by jumping from the free throw line and throwing one down but it was clear, after that day basketball would never be the same.

In the 1976 ABA finals Thompson averaged 28.3 points per game shooting 57% from the floor but was outdone by Erving and the Nets who won the series in 6 games. The following season the NBA in major need of an injection of exciting talent would absorb the ABA moving the “Skywalker” and the Nuggets to the NBA.

Thompson would continue to shine leading his team to the playoffs, scoring the third most points in a single game (73), and receive the largest professional sports contract to date. His star would soon fade as Thompson, driven by the isolation and money of being a superstar would get away from his roots and would turn to partying, drugs, and alcohol causing his career to take a sharp downturn before an early retirement. As accomplished as Thompson is there will always be the “what if he stayed on the right path” attached to his career.

In spite of not fulfilling his own career, he already made his mark by inspiring the next generation of the North Carolina shooting guard, arguably the greatest athlete in the history of the world.

While Thompson was flying high against UCLA and Dr. J there was a young man back on the coastal east side of the state watching, learning, and trying to be like his idol David Thompson. In between battling his brothers in the backyard and attending stock car races with his dad, young Michael Jordan saw himself in the black, gangly, athletic Thompson. In fact long before anybody wanted to be like Mike, Mike wanted to be like David.

The student Michael “Air” Jordan would take up and eventually outdo everything that David “Skywalker” Thompson left behind. Michael of course would attend the rival UNC-Chapel Hill where as a freshman he hit the game winning shot to win the 1982 national championship and would go on to become the national and ACC player of the year similar to Thompson. Jordan and Thompson were both known for the highlight reel athleticism but it was the consistent skills and mastery of the fundamentals that allowed them both to shoot over 50% in college which opened up space to showcase the athleticism.

It was often said of Jordan that the only person who could slow him down was his college coach Dean Smith. Which is true but what people didn’t realize is that Smith knew what Jordan could be and by forcing him to be an efficient star player that worked on all facets of his game Smith was making Jordan into the greatest player the world has ever seen.

Jordan would say that his inspiration for basketball were those two ABA stars Thompson and Erving and stylistically he played like a combination of both. From Thompson, Jordan would get his agility, no wasted motion style of play, high vertical leap, mid range consistency (like Jones as well). His additional two inches of height compared to Thompson (6’4 compared to 6’6) would allow him to also occasionally play forward when needed along with abnormally large hands would allow him to control the ball with one hand like Erving when he flew like Thompson.

When one is gifted with even more natural ability than Thompson with the lifelong consistency of Jones the product is Jordan. Like Jones, Jordan would have his biggest games when it mattered most and hit the most clutch shots of his generation from the game winner in college to the shot over Ehlo to the game winners over Bryon Russell to win the 1997 and 1998 NBA championship.

Jones and Jordan would make all of those game winning shots in the mid range. When the pressure gets to its highest and it’s tough to get to the basket the mid-range shot is the most available shot and nobody is more trustworthy in those situations than the shooting guard from North Carolina.

Jordan’s career is too vast to summarize but was well said by President Barack Obama.

Similar to how David was a catalyst of the NBA-ABA merger and changed professional sports with his record breaking contract Jordan took pro sports to new heights. This could be from off the court with his signature ‘Air Jordan” line that helped Nike become one of the largest brands in the world, on the court where his record breaking 30 million dollar contract paved the way for the high wages players make today.

The latest evolution of the North Carolina shooting guard… well he might not even be a shooting guard, he’s kind of a point guard kind of not but since teammate Draymond Green usually leads the team in assists it’s fair to consider Curry a shooting guard.

He didn’t grow up in a rural town like Sam, David, and Michael. He grew up in the bright lights of Charlotte watching his dad play shooting guard for the Charlotte Hornets. Unlike the others who had to imagine what it took to make the NBA because they didn’t have the access, Steph Curry was fortunate enough to watch his dad have playoff battles with Jordan and understand the lifestyle of an NBA player. In many ways Curry is different from his predecessors yet he still has the signature traits that great North Carolina shooting guards have. A mastery of the fundamentals of basketball built by a tight night family/community oriented upbringing, a constant work ethic, and inane self belief.

Steph is without a doubt the greatest three point shooter of all time and while many young ballers go out and try to imitate his off the dribble long three point shots what they don’t understand is that Steph was trained for this from one of the best three point shooters of all time. Curry didn’t just wake up with a quick release and unlimited range. Training from a young age starting with shooting on smaller hoops to make sure he didn’t mess up his form shooting on larger hoops, watching his dad to learn how to set one’s feet coming of a screen, which allows Curry to dazzle and do things we’ve never seen before because he has one of the best fundamental bases of all time.

The son of the NBA sharpshooter Dell Curry (who ended his career as the Charlotte Hornets all time leading scorer) didn’t even get a scholarship offer from his dad’s Alma Mater Virginia Tech. Sometimes blessings come in disguise and Steph was able to go Davidson, a smaller school with a great coach Bob Mckillop. Steph was instantly a star in college but it wasn’t enough. Even though he was already one of the best players in the country after his freshman year, he and his dad got in the gym and worked on improving his form. A risk to take but when your personal trainer is one of the best three point shooters of all time it’s a risk worth taking.

So while it’s unsure exactly why the shooting guard from North Carolina is so special there are trends they all share. Sam, David, Michael, and Steph come from tight knit families, had coaches make a significant impact on their life leading them to master the fundamentals early, they dealt with adversity, and had tireless work ethics. They mastered the fundamentals like the art of curling around off ball screens with the proper footwork to be ready to shoot. Some jumped higher while others shot from a further distance but they all were the definition of greatness.

Altogether North Carolina shooting guards have were pivotal to 20 NBA championship winning teams, 7 MVP’s, 7 Finals MVPs, 10 of the most famous shots in basketball history, Thompson and Jordan made everyone want to fly then Curry came and made everyone want to shoot threes, a combined 20–3 record in the NBA finals, 4 top 10 NBA draft picks, Thompson Jordan and Curry all signed the largest contracts in history (at the time they signed them), the most merchandise ever sold, the 2 best teams in NBA history (’96 Bulls, ’17 Warriors), the 2 best dynasties in NBA history (60’s Celtics and 90’s Bulls), the only black owner of a major professional sports team in the United States. So the question is what State has a collection of players at a position that can even compare to that?

None.

If one wants to be the definition of clutch, change the game of basketball, change the world, and become the greatest of champions then it’s simple — be like the shooting guard from North Carolina.

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