Phil Jordon

Phil Jordon
Player information
Full name	Philip Jordon
birthday	September 12, 1933
place of birth	Lakeport , California , USA
date of death	June 7, 1965
Place of death	Sumner , Washington , USA
size	208 cm
Weight	93 kg
position	Power Forward / Center
High school	Willits High School
college	Whitworth College (1952-1954)
NBA draft	1956 / Round: 6 / Pick: 42 / Minneapolis Lakers
Jersey number	various
Clubs as active
1954–1955 Federal Old Line Insurance (AAU) 1955–1956 Seattle Buchan Bakers (AAU) 1956–1957 New York Knicks 1957–1959 Detroit Pistons 1959–1961 Cincinnati Royals 1961–1962 New York Knicks 1962–1963 St. Louis Hawks

Philip "Phil" Jordon (born September 12, 1933 in Lakeport , California , † June 7, 1965 in Sumner , Washington ) was an American basketball player who was descended from the Native Americans of the Wailaki and Nomlaki and from 1956 to 1963 in the National Basketball Association was used.

He played in the front court on the position of a power forward and center . In 1965 he drowned in a raft accident in Washington state and was only found floating in Puget Sound about three weeks later .

life and career

Start of career and time as an amateur

Phil Jordon was born on September 12, 1933 as a descendant of Native Americans, his roots were in the Wailaki of the Eel River and the Nomlaki of the Sacramento Valley in the small town of Lakeport on the west bank of Clear Lake in the US state of California. In addition to his father John, who was of Aboriginal descent and died when Phil was in his teens , and his white mother Elizabeth, he also had four siblings. Because of the 184 cm high mother, the children also reached heights of over 190 cm, with the exception of the only girl, who at least reached the size of their mother. Growing up in sometimes poor conditions in Lakeport and around 70 kilometers north of Willits , he attended Willits High School in the latter place , where he worked as a basketball player. With the school basketball team he won a state championship and a regional championship the following year. His achievements in basketball brought him to Whitworth College in Spokane , Washington on a sports scholarship . He was already known there because he did not have a favorite throwing hand, but could throw baskets with both hands. After the mainly used as a center Jordon was active there for two years, he dropped out of his studies at Whitworth College and joined various amateur teams. From 1954 to 1955 he played for the amateur basketball team of the Federal Old Line Insurance from Seattle, which was part of the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) and played in the National Industrial Basketball League . After a season he moved, shortly before his move to the NBA, to local rivals Seattle Buchan Bakers , who were represented in the same league. With the works team of the local Buchan Bakery , where he was also employed, he won a national AAU championship title under Frank Fidler in 1956.

Change to the NBA

About the NBA draft in 1956 , Jordon was drafted as the 42nd pick in the sixth round to the Minneapolis Lakers , which did not sign him in the following. Then he got from General Manager Ned Irish a rookie contract with the NBA franchise New York Knicks , where he made his professional debut in the 1956/57 season under the young coach Vince Boryla and his assistant Andrew Levane . He completed his first game on January 1, 1957 in a 102-104 defeat of the Knicks against the Syracuse Nationals , when he himself remained without points. By the end of the month he was used eight more championship games and came to a balance of 44 points scored. He was the first player from the Redwood Empire , the northern Pacific coast of California, between the San Francisco Bay and the Oregon border, to be used in the NBA. In addition, until Josh Akognon was signed in 2013, he was the only player from this area who was represented in the highest basketball league in North America for around 57 years. With the Knicks he finished the 1956/57 season with 36 wins and just as many defeats in fourth place in the Eastern Division . Under Boryla, he also started the following season 1957/58 , where he made twelve league appearances for the New York City franchise , in which he contributed 37 scorer points, before being replaced by Fred Delano , the general manager of the Detroit Pistons , was brought to Auburn Hills , Michigan , home of the NBA franchise. There he was initially used under Red Rocha as a center and came in his first year to 46 championship appearances and 413 points. After the end of the regular season, when the Pistons ranked second in the Western Division , Phil Jordon also took part in six play-offs when the team was eliminated in the Division Finals by the Boston Celtics .

Regular player from the 1958/59 season

In his second season with the Detroit Pistons ( 1958/59 ) Rocha used him as a power forward, which he was used in all 72 championship games and with 1,029 points behind Gene Shue with 1,266 points was the second strongest player in the Pistons this season. With the Pistons he reached a starting place in the final play-offs despite only 28 wins, which faced 44 defeats. There the franchise was eliminated early in the Western Division semifinals against the Minneapolis Lakers. After this very busy season for him, he was transferred to the Cincinnati Royals in the spring of 1959 by the meanwhile new GM, Nick Kerbawy . In return, the Pistons received from the Cincinnati Royals and his GM Pepper Wilson Archie Dees, who played in the same position, and a second-round pick for the 1959 NBA draft . In the team trained by Tom Marshall , Jordon was one of the most experienced players alongside players like Med Park , Jack Twyman and Dave Piontek . In the 1959/60 season he was used as a regular in all 75 championship games and again achieved the second-most points of his team behind the strong Jack Twyman (2,338 points) with 1,004 points. In contrast to the 14.3 points per game that he achieved last year with the Pistons, this number decreased slightly with 13.4 points with the Royals. With the team reached only 19 wins this season, which faced 56 defeats, which meant by far the last place in the Western Division .

With the beginning of the 1960/61 season , Jordon was next to Twyman as the most experienced duo of their team, who received a strong point guard with the rookie Oscar Robertson . By the 48th round it had achieved 521 points. Under Vince Boryla, who was now general manager of the New York Knicks, he was bought by the Cincinnati Royals on January 18, 1961 and was used only four days after his last game for the Cincinnati franchise for the Knicks; of all things in a game against his ex-club. In the further course he was set up by coach Carl Braun , who still used himself in various games, in all remaining championship games and was therefore used across teams in all 79 league games this season. In his 31 appearances for the Knicks he got 405 points. After Boryla was replaced as general manager in May 1961 by Fred Podesta , who was his predecessor, he was still used as a regular on the position of the center under the new coach Eddie Donovan . In addition to Richie Guerin and Willie Naulls , Jordon was one of the most experienced players on the team, which this season mainly consisted of rookies. On March 2, 1962, he joined the New York Knicks in the infamous game against the Philadelphia Warriors , when the then star player of the NBA, Wilt Chamberlain , contributed 100 points in the 169: 147 victory of his team; a record that still exists today (as of April 2016). The defeat and the amount of points Chamberlains reached is sometimes attributed to Phil Jordon, who did not play in this game because he was officially ill with flu and therefore could not play. What was officially considered the flu was widely referred to as a hangover in public because Jordon had gotten drunk the day before and was therefore unable to participate in the game. With Darrall Imhoff , the Knicks had only one great player in the squad who was supposed to defend Chamberlain, which only succeeded occasionally.

Decline after Wilt Chamberlain's 100s

After the Knicks ranked fourth and last place in the Eastern Division at the end of the 1961/62 season with 29 wins and 51 losses , Phil Jordon left the franchise in the direction of the Chicago Zephyrs , which had only emerged a year earlier under the name Chicago Packers . He came to the Zephyrs on September 10, 1962 after Frank Lane , General Manager of the franchise, together with Cliff Luyk , who later became active in Spain , with the Knicks receiving in return baseball and basketball professional Gene Conley from the Zephyrs. His time with the new team from Chicago wasn't long; just a month later, in October 1962, he was signed by the St. Louis Hawks under General Manager Marty Blake . The Zephyrs received the rookie Charles "Charlie" Hardnett, who had never been used before . At the St. Louis Hawks, Jordon once again became a frequently used player, although the 29-year-old could no longer match the time before and therefore did not even make half of the minutes played by regular Bob Pettit , although he was in 73 of the 80 league games were possible on the field. With 48 wins and 32 losses, the Hawks finished the 1962/63 season behind the now known as Los Angeles Lakers franchise, which was previously the Minneapolis Lakers , in second place in the Western Division . With the team he was only just eliminated in the division finals against the Lakers 3: 4 in the best-of-seven series. Due to the hopelessness of a new breakthrough as a regular player, he ended his career as an active player at the end of the season. He played his last NBA game in the regular season on March 17, 1963, followed by his really last game in the NBA, in the play-offs on April 7, 1963.

Life after retirement and death

After his career ended, he moved to Tacoma , where he lived until his death two years later. On June 7, 1965, he and three other men went on a raft trip on the Puyallup River . When the boat broke while sailing and the crew went overboard, Phil Jordon was the only one who could not save himself to the shore. His body was found floating in Puget Sound just under three weeks later, on June 27, 1965 . At the time of his death he was working as a road worker. He left behind his wife Julia Jordon, nee Arthur, with whom he was already dating in his youth, and their son Jon, who was active as a basketball player himself in the 1980s, but never made it above amateur or college level.

Web links

• Phil Jordon - player profile on basketball-reference.com
• Redwood Empire's forgotten NBA big man (English)
• Native Village Youth and Education News - Redwood Empire's Forgotten NBA Big Man (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ WAYBACK MACHINE: A BAKERY THAT COOKED UP BASKETBALL , accessed on March 31, 2016
2. ↑ Buchan Bakers in the Pros, US Olympics, and Final Fours ( Memento of the original from March 19, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English), accessed March 31, 2016