The Boston Celtics retired Sam Jones' #24 as part of a franchise that understood ten championships do not happen without exceptional players at every position. Jones won ten NBA championships in twelve seasons, second only to Bill Russell in all-time rings, playing quietly alongside the greatest winner in basketball history and proving crucial to every title. His signature weapon was the bank shot — the ball arcing off the backboard at an angle he had calculated with a geometric precision defenders could not replicate, used from the elbow, the mid-range, and the corner. There was no defensive answer for a shot that ignored conventional geometry. He was named to five All-Star teams, averaged 17.7 points per game, and delivered game-winning shots in multiple Finals series; in 1966 he averaged 23.5 points, more than Russell and Havlicek. Red Auerbach called him the best clutch player he ever coached. Inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1984, Jones is the permanent record of what that bank shot accomplished.
The Bank Shot That Changed Everything
Sam Jones' signature weapon was not a fadeaway or a stepback or a pull-up jumper. It was the bank shot — the ball arcing off the backboard at an angle that Jones had calculated with a geometric precision defenders could not replicate. He used it from everywhere: the elbow, the mid-range, the corner. And because it came off the glass rather than the rim, it went in when ordinary jumpers would have rattled out. Guards who had taken the angle away still watched the ball bank in off the board. There was no defensive answer for a shot that ignored conventional geometry.
Ten Championships in the Shadow of Greatness
The difficulty of Sam Jones' legacy is inseparable from where he played. Ten championships in twelve seasons is extraordinary by any measure, but it happened alongside Bill Russell and Bob Cousy and John Havlicek, in a dynasty so complete that supporting players' contributions were sometimes absorbed into the collective excellence. Jones was named to five All-Star teams, averaged 17.7 points per game across his career, and delivered game-winning shots in multiple Finals series. In 1966, he averaged 23.5 points per game — more than Russell, more than Havlicek. The team won another championship.
Red Auerbach described Jones as the player who made the dynasty possible in the way every great team has a player like this: the one who takes over when the star cannot, who closes games when the defense has adjusted, who scores thirty points without making the evening about himself. He was, Auerbach said, the best clutch player he ever coached.
The Quiet Greatness
Sam Jones was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1984. His #24 was retired by the Celtics as part of a franchise that understood, even if the broader basketball public sometimes forgot, that ten championships do not happen without exceptional players at every position. The bank shot lives in the memory of every Celtic fan who watched it go in at the most important moments. The rings, all ten of them, are the permanent record of what it accomplished.
