Utah Jazz
🗓On This Day : January 4th, 1984
Adrian Dantley knocked down 28 of 29 free throw attempts in a Utah Jazz 116-111 victory over the Houston Rockets. The 28 makes tied the record set by Wilt Chamberlin for the most converted freebies in a NBA Game. Dantley finished the game with 46 points. Did you know the contest was one of 11 home games that the Jazz played in Las Vegas at the Thomas & Mack Center that season?
On this day in 1993 Utah Jazz Center Mark Eaton swatted away two Seattle Supersonics shots during a Jazz 96-89 win over the Sonics in Salt Lake. With the two Blocks Eaton became the 2nd player to reach 3,000 blocks in his career. His 3.5 blocks per game average is the highest in NBA History.
Can anybody name the 1st player to reach 3,000? Let’s remember blocks weren’t an official statistic until the 1973-74 season.
‘Pistol’ Pete Maravich puts up a career best 68 points on February 25th, 1977 in a 17 pt New Orleans Jazz win over the New York Knicks 124-107. Maravich hit 26 of 43 fg. attempts that night and was 16 of 18 from the free-throw line. Just a reminder guys, this also was before a thing called the 3 pointer.
Jose Ortiz became the first Puerto Rican born player to be drafted into the NBA when the Utah Jazz selected him 15th overall in the 1987 draft. Considered by many to be one of the top Puerto Rican players ever, his NBA career was rather lackluster. He played in only 64 games over two seasons with the Jazz averaging just 2.9 points & 1.2 rebounds per game.
I mostly remember Antoine ‘Big Dawg’ Carr when he was the 6th man for the Utah Jazz, rocking the orange tinted shades, as they battled the Chicago Bulls in the ‘97 & ‘98 NBA Finals. Amongst his sixteen seasons in the league there was one season that stood out from the rest. Well, scoring wise at least. As a member of the 1990-91 Sacramento Kings, Antoine averaged 20.1 ppg while scoring over 1,500 points.In fact he never had over 1,000 points in any other season during his career. Happy Belated B-day Big Dawg!!
Thurl
