Jones, Bobby (1902-71)

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    The 1975-76 Denver Nuggets Almost Beat Dr. J to Win a Championship

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    Eight-year-old L.J. Jones thought his grandfather Ralph Simpson had been keeping a secret from him. So he demanded answers.“Grandpa, can I ask you something?” Simpson, 73, recalled his grandson saying, imitating the young boy’s serious tone.“Grandpa,” the boy said. “Somebody told me you was famous.”Simpson had to laugh. After all, he is not the most famous Ralph; that might be Ralph Lauren, or Ralph Waldo Emerson. Nor is he the most famous member of his family; that would be his daughter, the Grammy Award-winning soul singer India.Arie.“Grandpa’s not famous,” Simpson told his grandson. “I played for the Nuggets and played professional basketball.”Still, L.J. wanted to know, “Why you didn’t tell me?”Simpson started on the 1975-76 Denver Nuggets in the American Basketball Association. They were the only Nuggets group to make it to a championship round until this year’s team reached the N.B.A. finals. The 1975-76 squad lost the A.B.A. championship series in six games to Julius Erving’s New York Nets. The A.B.A. and N.B.A. merged before the 1976-77 season, and the Nuggets spent the next 47 years in basketball purgatory, with a few teams that inspired confidence but none that reached the finals.Ralph Simpson said his 1976 Denver Nuggets finals team was better than the Nets team, led by Erving, that won that year.Focus on Sport/Getty ImagesNow, the Nuggets are one win away from the first championship in franchise history. As they try to close the series at home Monday in Game 5 against the Miami Heat, they’ll be cheered on by some of the men who played for that A.B.A. title.“It has been so cool because the Nuggets currently making it to the finals has brought out a lot of memories for people that didn’t realize that Denver had an A.B.A. team that went to the finals,” said Gus Gerard, 69, a backup player on the 1976 finals team. He added, laughing: “The only frustrating thing for me is they’re showing all these highlights and it’s always the same ones of Julius Erving, the great Dr. J, dunking on us left and right.”Like today’s Nuggets, the 1976 team routinely demoralized opponents with its near unstoppable offense, but often felt like the underdog. The older Denver team also toiled in obscurity for much of the season.A Sports Illustrated article on May 29, 1976, lamented that “Denver games are not on national television,” and that “Denver box scores do not appear on most sports pages.” The article noted that some “large media outlets” still referred to the Nuggets as the “Denver Rockets,” which had been their name until 1974. The franchise changed its name because it planned to move to the N.B.A., where the name Rockets was already taken by Houston.The 1975-76 Nuggets had the best record in the A.B.A. They were led by three future Hall of Famers: Bobby Jones, Dan Issel and David Thompson. Nicknamed Skywalker, Thompson had been the top draft pick in 1975 in both the A.B.A., by the Virginia Squires, and the N.B.A., by the Atlanta Hawks. But he chose to sign with the Nuggets instead.“David Thompson, man, I used to get myself standing and watching him when I’m in the game,” said Byron Beck, 78, who played for Denver in all nine of its A.B.A. seasons and its first in the N.B.A. “You know, you catch yourself, ‘Oh!’ and he’s already gone doing something spectacular.”They were coached by Larry Brown, who won an A.B.A. championship as a player in 1969 with the Oakland Oaks, a men’s N.C.A.A. Division I basketball championship as a coach at Kansas in 1988 and an N.B.A. championship as a coach in 2004 with the Detroit Pistons.In 1975-76, the A.B.A. was contracting, having gone to seven teams from 10, and had only one division. The All-Star Game pitted the Nuggets against All-Stars from other teams.Claude Terry, then a Nuggets reserve guard, said he remembered going to the All-Star Game with his wife and their two children in a station wagon. He said he was “probably wearing old Levi’s and shoes that didn’t get messed up in the snow.”He added: “I don’t remember even being interviewed during the game.”Denver Nuggets Coach Larry Brown leaped off the bench at the buzzer after his team beat the A.B.A. All-Star team in Denver on Jan. 28, 1976.Sc/Associated PressThat season, the Nuggets packed their new McNichols Arena, which opened in 1975, with the pending N.B.A. merger in mind, and was demolished in 2000. Gerard remembered being swarmed for autographs and invited for free meals at restaurants, like the Colorado Mine Company.“They had, like, the best prime rib you ever tasted in your life,” Gerard said.Amid the excitement, there was also uncertainty. Preparation for the merger with the N.B.A. weighed on the players, who knew that only four of the seven A.B.A. teams would survive it. The Nuggets, Nets, Indiana Pacers and San Antonio Spurs continued in the N.B.A.“Most of us didn’t have no-cut contracts,” Terry said, adding that players were “not nervous, but just trying to figure out what was next.”Terry said coming changes kept the players from appreciating what it to meant to play in the final A.B.A. season. Had there been social media at the time, Terry said they might have paid more attention to the significance.The Nuggets played the Kentucky Colonels in the first round of the playoffs and won in seven games. Then they faced the New York Nets, who had the best player in the series in Erving. Denver lost Game 1 at home. Facing elimination at home in Game 5, they won despite 37 points from Erving. Simpson and Issel led the team with 21 points each, and Gerard had 12 off the bench.If they could force a Game 7 in Denver, they were sure they could win it. But Erving led a furious fourth-quarter comeback in Game 6 to win the game and the championship.“We should have beat them,” Simpson said. “We had a better team. Even Julius Erving thought we did. But they got out on us.”Denver won Game 2 and Game 5 in the 1976 finals, but the Nets claimed the championship with a comeback win in Game 6.Richard Drew/Associated PressAs the years passed, though they stayed in touch with each other, some members of that Nuggets team became increasingly disconnected from the franchise. Most of them moved out of Denver, and went on to have careers outside of basketball.Thompson and Gerard went through well-publicized battles with drug addiction. Gerard later became a substance abuse counselor. He now works for the Fayette County government in Pennsylvania and still helps people recovering from addictions. Thompson participates in Nuggets fan events and attended Game 2 of the finals in Denver. He and Jones, who played for the Nuggets until 1978, started a religious nonprofit in North Carolina.Issel remained the most connected to the franchise. He played for the Nuggets until 1985, then returned as a broadcaster a few years later. Issel coached the Nuggets twice, the second time also serving as the team’s president. He apologized in 2001 after using a racial epithet toward Mexican people in response to a fan’s taunt, then resigned shortly afterward.This year, with his five grandchildren in tow, Issel went to Game 1 of the finals, which Denver won at home, 104-93.Simpson has been watching the games at home, and invites his grandchildren for a pizza party to watch with him. He didn’t get to play for Denver in its debut N.B.A. season because he was traded to Detroit, but the Pistons traded him back the next season. He stays in touch with A.B.A. and N.B.A. alumni by being active with the National Basketball Retired Players Association.Denver’s 47-year drought before returning to the finals is perplexing to him.“We’ve had some really good players,” said Simpson, who coached at a small school briefly and used to be a pastor in Denver. “I’m really surprised we haven’t won a title yet.”To win the franchise’s first, this year’s Nuggets have tried to focus narrowly on the task before them. Much like how the A.B.A. Nuggets weren’t thinking about history, these Nuggets aren’t using the franchise’s long drought as inspiration.“I don’t know much about it,” Denver’s Bruce Brown said. “Who was on that team?”He said he tries not to think about what a championship would mean for the franchise and for the city of Denver.“Then I’ll get too happy, too anxious,” Brown said. “I just try to stay in the moment.”The 1975-76 team’s try at making history has been obscured by the years, but Brown and his teammates are on the verge of completing the journey they began. More

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      2023 Masters: Rory McIlroy Looks to Make Up Ground as First Round Begins

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      Plus, N.C.A.A. champions will be invited to play the Masters, and Larry Mize and Sandy Lyle are preparing to say farewell to the tournament.AUGUSTA, Ga. — In the last five years, Rory McIlroy has spent 27 weeks ranked as the world’s best men’s golfer. He has earned nine PGA Tour victories, including at the Tour Championship and the Players Championship. He was on a Ryder Cup-winning team. In the final round of last year’s Masters Tournament, he carded an eight-under-par 64.But the last time he shot par or better in a Masters first round? April 5, 2018.2019: 73.2020: 75.2021: 76.2022: 73.At least the trend line is improving? It stands to reason that if McIlroy is to become the sixth modern player to achieve the career Grand Slam, he is very likely going to have to refigure out Thursdays at Augusta National Golf Club. (When he made his Masters debut in 2009, he shot a first-round par 72.)“It’s been tentative starts, not putting my foot on the gas early enough,” McIlroy said this week. “I’ve had a couple of bad nine holes that have sort of thrown me out of the tournament at times. So it’s sort of just like I’ve got all the ingredients to make the pie. It’s just putting all those ingredients in and setting the oven to the right temperature and letting it all sort of come to fruition. But I know that I’ve got everything there.”McIlroy is keenly aware that Augusta National, where he has lately played more than 80 holes of practice, is “a very difficult course to chase on.”“You start to fire at pins and short-siding yourself and you’re missing in the wrong spots, it’s hard to make up a lot of ground,” he said.Dottie Pepper, the CBS commentator and a two-time winner of women’s major championships, said she thought McIlroy had made some of the shifts necessary to contend, like switching putters and drivers. But Thursday, she said, may well reveal if it will be enough.“He has played himself out of the tournament year after year on Thursday, and all of a sudden, gets it in gear and it’s a gear too late,” she said. If he can sort out the first round, she predicted, “it could be a pretty spectacular movie come Saturday and Sunday.”McIlroy, who will play with Sam Burns and Tom Kim for the first two rounds, is scheduled to tee off at 1:48 p.m. Eastern time on Thursday.A new pathway into the Masters: the N.C.A.A. titleGordon Sargent, the reigning Division I men’s individual champion, was invited to this year’s field before Augusta National announced that N.C.A.A. title winners would be automatically invited next year.Andrew Redington/Getty ImagesAugusta National announced the entry criteria for the 2024 Masters, and although the standards did not change much for professionals, America’s male college golfers have a new incentive to win the N.C.A.A.’s Division I individual title: It now comes with a Masters invitation.“That is a major amateur championship, and I thought it was time that we acknowledged it,” Fred S. Ridley, Augusta National’s chairman, said of the N.C.A.A. competition. Gordon Sargent, a sophomore from Vanderbilt University who is the reigning Division I champion, is in the 88-man field this week, having received an invitation from tournament organizers before the new policy was announced.“It really goes back to our roots, and that is that Bobby Jones was the greatest amateur of all time,” Ridley said, speaking broadly about the place of amateurs at Augusta National. “He believed in the importance of amateurs in the Masters. I had the personal experience of enjoying that on three different occasions, and I can tell you that it changed my life.”Past N.C.A.A. individual champions include Bryson DeChambeau, Luke Donald, Max Homa, Phil Mickelson, Curtis Strange and Tiger Woods.Sargent, who is from Birmingham, Ala., has reveled in the experience, even if he has been mistaken around Augusta National for, say, a participant in the youth Drive, Chip and Putt competition.“I’m walking around, and no one is with me,” Sargent said. “I don’t even know if I had my badge with me — I think I probably still had it in the car or something. I was like, ‘Can I have player dining?’ They’re like, I don’t know, player?”He eventually made it inside.“It was pretty funny,” he said. “They’re like, ‘Where are your parents? Like, did they send you by yourself?’ I was like, ‘No, they’re coming in. I can travel by myself sometimes.’”Ridley also said Wednesday that the winner of the N.C.A.A.’s individual women’s championship will be invited to play in the Augusta National Women’s Amateur. Stanford’s Rose Zhang, the reigning Division I champion, won that tournament over the weekend.Two past champions are ending their Augusta National careers.Larry Mize, the 1987 Masters victor, is the only Augusta, Ga., native to win the tournament.David Cannon/Getty ImagesRidley, ever diplomatic, did not identify Larry Mize as a reason Greg Norman was not invited to this year’s Masters. But it was Mize who hit a brilliant chip — from 140 feet away — at No. 11 in 1987, making Norman a Masters runner-up for a second straight year.Mize, 64, has played every Masters since, and this one will be his last. It will be also be the final Masters for Sandy Lyle, 65, who won in 1988.“Club head speed lowers down without you even trying sometimes, and then the course is getting longer and I’m getting shorter,” Lyle said. “Not a good combination. The young ones are so good these days that I can’t really compete against that.”Mize, the only Augusta native ever to win the Masters, has spent part of the week doling out counsel to newcomers.“Trust your talent, believe in it, and just let it go,” said Mize, who added, “You’ve got to respect this golf course, but you can’t fear it. You can’t play in fear out there, or it’s going to be a long week.”Mize, Lyle suggested, struggled to get through his remarks at Tuesday’s private dinner for past champions. He had figured Mize would be at ease. He was not.“He clammed up like a clam shell,” Lyle said. “He just stood up there and had a glass of water and another glass of water.” As it turns out, Lyle said, “He’s tough enough to win a Masters, but when it comes to that kind of emotional thing, we’ve all got feelings.” More

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      How Augusta National Is Adjusting to Players’ Focus on Distance

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      Modern golf balls and clubs are challenging older courses. How much longer can Augusta National withstand the new technology?When it comes to major championships, the pedigree of the golf course matters. Courses hold the history of the players who have won there.Arnold Palmer at Cherry Hills. Ben Hogan at Merion. Tom Watson at Turnberry.Tiger Woods at, well, Pebble Beach, St. Andrews, Valhalla and Augusta National when he won all four majors consecutively for the so-called “Tiger Slam” in 2000-1.But Augusta National Golf Club, host of the Masters, is different from the rest. It was originally designed by two greats: Dr. Alister MacKenzie and Bobby Jones, the great amateur. It’s the only major played on the same course year after year. And its champions return like members for that week. Cue the song birds and blooming azaleas.There’s just one problem: modern professional golfers are hitting the ball so far that classic golf courses are being overpowered and some are struggling to find ways to remain relevant and challenging.Just two years ago, Bryson DeChambeau dominated Winged Foot, considered among the toughest championship venues, to win the United States Open. He hit it as far as he possibly could and then wedged it onto the green. The formidable, high rough of a U.S. Open had little effect on him (though he was the only player to finish under par).Now, the days of players like Gene Sarazen, who won the Masters in 1935, hitting a wood into the par-5 15th green are behind us. But the fear is that instead of someone like Woods hitting a 7-iron into that same green it will be a wedge, a much easier club to hit with.Augusta National is aware that the Masters transcends golf. Keeping the course from being a victim of clubs and balls that help players increase their distance is paramount. Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles, another classic course, had its future as a major site called into question earlier this year when, at the Genesis Invitational, players hit drives down adjacent fairways to have an easier approach to the green.Players like Bryson DeChambeau, shown here hitting a drive at the 18th hole during the first round of the 2019 Masters, have dazzled with their distance. Two years ago his long shots at Winged Foot helped him win the United States Open. David J. Phillip/Associated PressSo how has Augusta National continued to challenge players and stand up to golf balls that fly farther and spin to a quick stop, and drivers that launch those balls 330 yards and beyond? It’s a combination of technology and psychology.“Augusta National continues to add length judiciously where they can,” said Ben Crenshaw, the 1984 and 1995 champion and an acclaimed golf architect. “Subtle changes have been well thought out.”For such a historic course, Augusta National makes changes pretty much every year. This year it lengthened the 11th and 15th holes, which have become less strategic with players hitting farther, and the 18th, with its gigantic bunker waiting to swallow any straight shots.The added distance is around a total of 50 yards for the three holes, if the tees are pushed back. The goal is to change how players approach those holes. It’s not a new issue.“The length debate has been going on at Augusta National since Bobby Jones and Alister MacKenzie designed the course,” said Joe Bowden, a local doctor, longtime volunteer and member of the adjoining Augusta Country Club. “The first year the Masters was played in 1934 the course length was 6,700 yards. This year the course will officially measure 7,510 yards for the 2022 tournament.”Yet there’s a limit to the length. As magnificent as Augusta National is to watch on television and experience in person, it’s not exactly situated on a prairie. Hedged in by Washington Road, a commercial thoroughfare as average as Magnolia Lane is spectacular; established neighborhoods; and the Augusta Country Club, the National, as its neighbors call it, only has so much space to grow in the state’s second-largest city.A few years ago, the club went so far as to buy an entire hole from Augusta Country Club so it would have space to lengthen its own 13th hole. In a letter to its members, the then-president of Augusta Country Club noted that Augusta National would rebuild part of its 8th and 9th holes as part of the deal.Augusta National purchased an entire hole from the Augusta Country Club a few years ago so it could lengthen its 13th hole, shown here. Doug Mills/The New York TimesYet the club can also change the speeds of the fairways and greens at will, through how they water them but also which direction they cut them. “People don’t realize how much this can speed up or slow down a course,” said a former assistant golf professional at Augusta who requested anonymity because employees aren’t allowed to speak about club matters. “But it’s much bigger than you think.”For a club that regularly adjusts its angles and lengths of holes, there are more striking things it could do and still be in keeping with the original intent of the course. Michael Hurdzan, who designed Erin Hills, site of the 2017 U.S. Open, pointed to several things the club could do to mute the impact of distance and still be consistent with MacKenzie’s design. One would be to continue to bring trees into play. They could be used to block shortcuts that players can take. “There are only two hazards that make a difference to the great player, ” he said, “trees and water.”Another is to think differently about the bunkers. There are twice as many bunkers, 44, today as when the course was built, but there are only 12 fairway bunkers. Of those, only three are on the back nine where the championship is often decided, and two of those are on 18.“The fairways are basically bunkerless,” said Hurdzan, who advocates bunkers jutting into the fairways, known as cross bunkers. “Mackenzie wasn’t afraid of cross bunkers. If someone wanted to stiffen it up, they could use cross bunkers or more bunkering in the fairway. You could try to hit the big drive and risk it or hit a shorter club and hit a longer iron in.”Of course, what all classic courses are battling is technology: a ball that flies farther than ever when hit with a driver that springs it like a trampoline. This is an issue golf’s two governing bodies are addressing, with an update issued in March. Observers think this is the time for changes to the equipment.“With all due respect to the players, it’s not them working out that’s making the ball go farther,” said Geoff Shackelford, a golf course architect and commentator. “You put technology in their hands that’s 10 years old, and they’re going to go backwards. Technology that’s 30 years old — they’ll really go backwards.”“There are so many things Augusta can do to make it tough,” Shackelford added. “It’s not going to become irrelevant, but it does lose some of the charm when you’re taking away some of the things we’ve come to know.”Shackleford noted that previous attempts to roll back distance were met with resistance, but not so the March announcements from the United States Golf Association and the Royal and Ancient Golf Club. The technology, he said, is making it harder to stand out as a player. “It probably mutes some of the super elite players’ extra special skills.”Length, though, can be misleading at Augusta. Greg Norman was among the longest players of his era. When he found himself in a playoff in 1987 with Seve Ballesteros, whose short game made up for wild tee shots, and Larry Mize, a comparatively short hitter, it looked like Norman had the advantage.But that’s not how it ended. On the second playoff hole, Mize chipped in for a birdie to win the playoff.“With his length, Greg had an advantage,” Mize said. “Thank God golf is more than length. The longest hitters aren’t always winning the Masters.”Still, Mize said he, too, would be in favor of the U.S.G.A. addressing what technology has done to distance.“I know it’s hard to bring it back,” Mize said. “But I’m hopeful that 20 years from now golfers won’t be hitting it any further. I’m optimistic that Augusta will still be relevant. It’s a special place and a special event.” More

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      For a Few Days at Augusta National, the Spotlight Shines on the Women

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      When the club held its first national women’s amateur tournament in 2019, it hoped to benefit women’s golf, especially the junior circuit. It seems to be working.AUGUSTA, Ga. — Anna Davis had just turned 12 when Augusta National Golf Club, in a surprise, announced it would create a new national women’s amateur championship. On Saturday, now 16 years old, Davis won the tournament.Annika Sorenstam, who won 10 L.P.G.A. major championships, attended the club’s news conference in 2018, when Augusta National officials said it wanted the 54-hole tournament to benefit women’s golf at all levels.“This is a dream come true,” Sorenstam said at the time. “It will be an exciting carrot for these young amateurs.”Sorenstam sat behind the first tee on Saturday as Rachel Kuehn, who was 16 when the tournament was created, teed off in the final round.“I turned around and Annika Sorenstam was there and I thought, Oh my gosh, I have to hit the fairway,” Kuehn, who would finish seventh, said later. “I didn’t hit the fairway but it was really cool to see her and so many people out supporting women’s golf. It’s what this tournament was meant to do.”Amari Avery was 14 when Augusta National announced the event, which included the news that the national women’s amateur championship would be broadcast live on NBC on the weekend before the start of the Masters Tournament.“The very first year they played it I saw how electric it was and I made it a goal for myself to be a part of that atmosphere that very second,” Avery said Saturday after she finished tied for fourth.Amari Avery after a missed putt on No. 18.Doug Mills/The New York TimesIf Augusta National’s intent was to benefit women’s golf, especially the junior circuit, Kuehn, whose mother, Brenda, was a top amateur who would have loved playing competitive golf at Augusta National, and Avery, whose father is Black and mother is Filipino, each insisted the club’s relatively new amateur championship is achieving its objective.“It’s just been incredible,” Kuehn said. “It’s a testament to what Augusta National is doing here.”Avery, whose appearance nine years ago in a Netflix documentary about elite grade school golfers earned her comparisons to Tiger Woods, said the Augusta National tournament was “huge.”“It’s hard to find words for how much this has impacted amateur women’s golf,” she said. “Seeing all these people lined up and clapping and cheering for us, it’s how it should be and it’s a step in the right direction, for sure.”Andre Avery, Amari’s father, saw the symbolism.“For my daughter to turn on the TV years ago and see young women playing on the golf course where the Masters is played, I mean that was a turning point for her,” Avery said. “And today, for African American kids to be watching TV and see someone that looks like them on the same course, that’s a really big deal, too. It’s important for them to see that.”The first Augusta National Women’s Amateur was held in 2019 and the 2020 event was canceled by the pandemic, which inhibited attendance at the 2021 tournament as well. But on Saturday, the crowds at Augusta National, which began admitting women members in 2012, were hearty, with the galleries around the closing holes 10 deep with fans. (Augusta National does not release attendance figures.)“I’ve never played in front of such big crowds,” Davis said. “I’ve never seen anything like that.”Girls watching the trophy presentation at the Augusta National Women’s Amateur.Doug Mills/The New York TimesBrenda Kuehn could not help but notice how many women were in attendance — and how many had brought their grade school and preteen daughters, who surged around the golfers as they finished their rounds, clamoring for autographs.“I gave my golf ball to a little girl as I came off the 18th green today and I’m not sure if she understood what was going on, but the look and smile on her face was a beautiful thing,” Ingrid Lindblad of Sweden, who finished tied for second, said.Lindblad, a junior on the golf team at Louisiana State, said that one of her professors even knew she would be competing at the storied golf club.“Not many people normally talk to me about one of our college tournaments,” Lindblad said. “Only family and close friends go to those. But that’s how this tournament is different. There’s no question it’s raised the profile of women’s golf. And that will continue to have positive effects.”Kuehn’s coach at Wake Forest University, Kim Lewellen, said she has seen a rise in participation at junior girls’ camps and in the number of women recruits who have contacted her since the tournament’s inception. She credits the appeal of seeing women at a renowned golf course and the fact that it is contested the weekend before the Masters is played.Anna Davis, winner of the Augusta National Women’s Amateur, on No. 18 after missing a birdie putt.Doug Mills/The New York TimesThere are other prominent American women’s amateur championships, like the U.S. Women’s Amateur, first played in 1895, but Augusta National seems to have captured a distinctive foothold.“It’s the platform,” said Avery’s golf coach at Southern California, Justin Silverstein. “Arguably, everyone in golf has heard of Augusta National and even most casual sports fans have heard of the Masters. It’s the most recognizable golf course in the world.“Young women golfers turn on NBC, and that’s another huge platform, and they see people that look like them — or people not that far removed from them — and they think: Maybe I can do that too.”Sometimes, that is all it takes.Davis, who shares her March 17 birthday with Bobby Jones, one of the founders of Augusta National who died in 1971, said on Saturday that she had not heard of the event until last year — when she watched it on television.“It made me very excited to try and compete in this event,” she said. “Then I was excited when I learned I was going to play here.”Now she is the tournament champion. More