Fulks (author's collection)
Maybe Joe Fulks was destined to be forgotten. After his junior year of high school his family moved him from his hometown, Birmingham, Kentucky, to the town of Kuttawa due to rumors that the town would soon be flooded by the Tennessee Valley Authority. The rumors eventually came true, washing away Birmingham to make way for what today is the Kentucky Lake. The town where he spent his senior year would also later be flooded by the TVA. Fulks was a star during his senior year of high school, but his team lost during the first round of the state playoffs due in part to Fulks missing the game with an ankle sprain. It's rumored that Fulks turned down an offer to play basketball at Kentucky and instead played at Murray State (later the home of one of my favorite ex-Mavericks players, Popeye Jones).
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Fulks would go on to become a star in the Basketball Association of America (BAA), which became the National Basketball Association in 1949. The early portion of Fulk's professional career was cut short due to the time he spent in the military, where he served in Guam and Iwo Jima during World War II. The latter part of his career would be cut short by age and his affinity for alcohol. However, between 1946 and 1953, Fulks was a star. Had today's media culture existed during the late 1940s's, Fulkamania would have been more well known and more widespread than Linsanity, Tebowmania, and maybe even Vinsanity.
As a rookie in the upstart BAA, Jumpin' Joe Fulks led the league in scoring with 23.1 points per game. The runner up was Bob Feerick, with only 16.8. Fulks also led the league by significant margins with 439 free throws (the runner up had only 235) and 1557 field goal attempts (the runner up had only 1154). To put his scoring numbers into a modern day perspective, 23.1 points per game would have ranked him 6th in scoring during the recently concluded 2011-12 regular season. The numbers below show what each of the last 10 NBA scoring champions would had averaged if they had scored 37.5 percent more points per game than the runner up like Fulks did during the 1946-47 season.
| Season | Scoring Champ | Actual PPG | Revised PPG |
|---|---|---|---|
2011-12
|
Kevin Durant
|
28
|
38.4
|
2010-11
|
Kevin Durant
|
27.7
|
36.7
|
2009-10
|
Kevin Durant
|
30.1
|
40.8
|
2008-09
|
Dwyane Wade
|
30.2
|
39.1
|
2007-08
|
Lebron James
|
30
|
38.9
|
2006-07
|
Kobe Bryant
|
31.6
|
39.7
|
2005-06
|
Kobe Bryant
|
35.4
|
45.4
|
2004-05
|
Allen Iverson
|
30.7
|
38.0
|
2003-04
|
Tracy McGrady
|
28.0
|
33.3
|
2002-02
|
Tracy McGrady
|
32.1
|
41.3
|
Viewed from this perspective, which we understand is only one of many, Fulks' rookie performance might be comparable to a rookie in today's NBA leading the league with roughly 40 points per game.
Fulks also led the Philadelphia Warriors to the first BAA championship. Fulks' 1947 finals performance against the Chicago Stags included 37 points in game one and 34 points in the clinching game 6 (see portions of his game 1 performance here). As previously covered by TBCB, by defeating the Stags the Warriors also became the first team to raise The Basketball Champs Belt.
The Sporting News named Joe Fulks the 1948 Athlete of the Year, and the Knicks coach Neal Cohalen is reported to have said of Fulks, "Let him shoot. Just don't let him get a rebound!"
During the three seasons before the BAA merged with the National Basketball League, Fulks had considerable success. As already noted, his 1946-47 Philadelphia Warriors won the inaugural BAA title. The following year the Warriors reached the finals again before losing to Baltimore Bullets. Fulks' once famous 63 point game came during his third season, when he won All-BAA First Team honors despite the Warriors' pedestrian record (28-32). His 63 point game would stand as the record for the most points scored in a game until Elgin Baylor scored 64 in 1959.
It's possible to argue about Fulks' overall contributions. He was primarily a volume scorer and he wasn't known for passing the ball. But during a time when the standard of play was to run up the court, shoot the ball, miss the shot, and then run back down the court again, Jumpin' Joe scored better than anyone.
The competition stiffened when the BAA and NBL merged in 1949, and the Warriors finished the 1949-50 season with a record of 32-36. While they would bounce back the following season with a record of 40-26, they would not repeat their regular season or playoff success until after Fulks retired in 1954.
As previously noted, the latter part of Jumpin' Joe's career was speculated to have been cut short by his age (his pro career began when he was 25) and his love for alcohol. Given that his hometown was once a hotbed for bootlegging, this might not have been surprising. After the NBA, Fulks bounced between jobs, often fired for his drinking habits, until he kicked his habit and began working as a recreation director at the Kentucky State Penitentiary.
January 2011
In 1971, Fulks was still recognized as a major figure in the sport and was one of 25 players named to the NBA's Silver Anniversary All Star Team along George Mikan, Bob Cousy, and Bill Russell. However, five years later, Fulks had returned to his previous drinking habits and was shot and killed by his girlfriend's adult son during a late night a drunken argument. Fulks would be elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1977, two years after his death.
In 1996, Fulks' name was not among those listed as the 50 greatest players when the NBA released the list to commemorate its 50th anniversary.
It's impossible to know if the NBA that we enjoy today would have existed in its current form without the emergence of Jumpin' Joe Fulks. Maybe the BAA would have never merged with the NBL and then faded into history along with the many other leagues that came before and after. Today we might be following the NBL instead of the NBA, and BAA teams like the Golden State (then Philadelphia) Warriors, New York Knicks, and Boston Celtics might have quietly disappeared along with the Providence Steamrollers and St. Louis Bombers.
Basketball writers remember Fulks with periodic references. For example, a brief profile of Joe Fulks appeared in Freedarko's Undisputed Guide to Basketball History, Frank Deford mentioned him in a recent Sports Illustrated profile on the early days of the NBA, and Hardwood Paroxysm profiled him in 2011. However, the NBA and the general public have mostly forgotten the story of Jumpin' Joe Fulks.
A google search for the term "Kobe Bryant" generates almost 50 million results."Larry Bird" generates 6.7 million results, "Kareem Abdul Jabbar" generates 3.3 million, and "Pete Maravich" generates 745,000. In contrast, "Joe Fulks" returns only 36,300 results. Today we make that 36,301 and we hope that future generations of basketball fans begin to remember the man who was the BAA's first major star and the leader of the first team to ever raise the Basketball Champs Belt.
Sources and further reading:
John Christgau. The Origins of the Jump Shot: Eight Men Who Shook the World of Basketball. 1999.
Frank Deford. Frank Deford's NBA Flashback. Sports Illustrated, April 23, 2012.
Freedarko. The Undisputed Guide to Pro Basketball History. 2010.
Curtis Harris. Forgotten Warriors: Joe Fulks. (last accessed 4/28/2012)
Murray State Athletics. Joe Fulks Hall of Fame Profile (last accessed 4/28/12)
Charley Rosen. The First Tip-Off. The Incredible Story of the Birth of the NBA. 2009.
Michael Schumacher. Mr. Basketball. George Mikan , the Minneapolis Lakers, and the Birth of the NBA. 2007.
Bill Simmons. The Book of Basketball. 2009.
Greg Travis. Joe Fulks: Professional Basketball's First Superstar. (last accessed 4/28/2012)
Joe Fulks NBA.com profile page
Joe Fulks Hall of Fame profile page
Google search results as of 4/28/2012
As always, special thanks to Basketball-Reference.com
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