Kenny Sailors
The pro career of Kenny Sailors was never as grand as it should have been and he hasn’t gotten his propers for propelling the jump shot into the NBA. The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame hasn’t even inducted the man. All the more reason for us to disregard that institution as useless.
The following exchange, noted in The Origins of the Jump Shot, during Sailors’s rookie season (1946-47) exemplifies the resistance to his extraordinary brilliance with the jumper as well as with his fancy dribbling.
Kenny was about to step into the shower after that first practice when [Cleveland Rebels’ coach] Dutch Dehnert approached him. “Say-lors,” Dutch pronounced Kenny’s name. “Where’d you get that leapin’ one-hander?”
“I been shootin’ it ever since I was a kid.”
Whether that satisfied Dutch or not, his face gave no hint.
“And that dribblin’ of yours,” he continued. “You don’t dribble in this league. You pass the ball.”
Kenny shrugged. “I have to dribble to shoot my jumper, Dutch.”
“I’m gonna give you some advice, Say-lors. If you’re gonna go in this league, you gotta forget that dribblin’.”
Kenny turned to enter the shower.
“And you gotta get yourself a good two-hand set shot,” Dutch shouted after him.
Needless to say, Say-lors never had much opportunity to win over the recalcitrant Dehnert, who was as old-school as it got in 1946. (Dehnert was born in 1898 and had starred with the Original Celtics in the 1920s). Nonetheless, the way Sailors played basketball has gone on to shape and influence nearly every player since.
When was the last time you’ve seen a player let loose with a two-hand set shot?
So, although just 5’10” tall, Sailors’ greatest contribution to the game was elevating it to new heights.
Literally.
Sailors was one of the first prominent players to use the jump shot back in the 1940s. The guard did not invent the jumper, though. It had been around since at least the 1920s. Something fancy pants innovators dabbled with sporadically.
What makes Sailors notable is just how reliant he was on the shot and how strikingly “modern” it looked. And how successful he was in college, and then the pros, with it.
His diminutive height made it necessary for Sailors to jump while shooting, otherwise he’d constantly be blocked by earthbound, yet-still-taller opponents. Don’t take my word it. That’s basically the story from Sailors himself.
His brother Bud—five years older and six inches taller—provided the necessary impetus for Kenny’s jumper.
“I was tired of him knocking the ball back in my face,” Sailors told the Casper Star-Tribune in 1999. “So I just started jumping in the air and shooting the ball that way.” The brothers’ basketball hoop was outdoors on the Wyoming prairie nailed to a windmill.
In that same interview, Sailors also addressed how he got so good at dribbling. “We had a game we would play — [local high school coach Floyd Domine would] give us a basketball and as long as you could dribble it you keep going. But if you picked it up, then the whole bunch could mob you and take it away from you.”
With the jumper in hand Sailors could more than equalize the height situation turning it completely around to his favor. Not only could he lift his release point higher by jumping, his opponents were unfamiliar with the relatively novel shot, so they didn’t know how to defend it. Accustomed to two-handers and set-shots anchored to the hardwood, the defenders couldn’t adjust on the fly to the unexpected style of flyin’ Sailors.
Sailors attended college at the University of Wyoming and was named Most Outstanding Player of the 1943 NCAA tournament en route to leading Wyoming to the NCAA title that year. In 1942, 1943, and 1946, Sailors was named an All-American as well. The disruption of his college career in 1944 and 1945 came thanks to his service in the military during World War II.
Naturally, the delay in finishing college meant his pro career was also delayed. At age 24, Sailors finally entered pro basketball with the Cleveland Rebels of the BAA in 1946.
Unfortunately for Sailors, his pro career was racked with chaos, misfortune, and the skepticism of coaches like Dehnert. Sailors’s website does an excellent job summing up the dysfunction caused by the unstable financial situation of many ball clubs in the BAA and early NBA.
July 27, 1947 – Drafted by the Chicago Stags from the Cleveland Rebels in the dispersal draft when Cleveland folded
November 1947 – Sold by Chicago to the Philadelphia Warriors
December 1, 1947 – Sold by Philadelphia to the Providence Steamrollers
July 16, 1949 – Signed by the Denver Nuggets as Providence folded when the BAA merged with the NBL to create the new NBA
June 22, 1950 – Sold by Denver to the Boston Celtics as the Nuggets were pushed out the NBA
December 1, 1950 – Traded by Boston to the Baltimore Bullets
After failing to impress in Cleveland and cast aside by Philly and Chicago in short order, Sailors’s greatest success in the pros came with the Providence Steamrollers and the Denver Nuggets from 1947 to 1950. Probably because those mediocre franchises had nothing to lose, Sailors was freed to shoot his jumper and play loose. Nothing else was working, so why not try the newfangled style of Sailors?
For the 1949 BAA season and 1950 NBA season Sailors finished in the top five in scoring while also finishing 7th and 6th, respectively, in assist per game.
For his stellar 1948-49 BAA campaign with the Steamrollers, Kenny was named to the All-BAA 2nd Team. His 1950 season with the Nuggets was worthy of similar honors, despite his ultimate exclusion. He did have the distinction of playing in the NBA’s first game, though.
Unfortunately for Sailors, the free-wheeling offenses that let him loose in Providence and Denver weren’t to last. After Denver was ousted from the NBA, Sailors was picked up by Boston prior to the 1950-51 season, but with Bob Cousy in hand they had no real use for him.
After having averaged 17.3 PPG and 4.0 APG in 1950, Sailors managed just 1.8 PPG and 0.8 APG for Boston as they glued him to the bench.
Traded to Baltimore after just 10 games with the Celtics, Sailors upped his averages to 9.5 PPG and 2.8 APG. Just prior to the 1951-52 NBA season, the Bullets released the 30-year-old guard. Being pretty old for a pro at that point, Sailors was happy to head back to the other side of the Mississippi.
Sailors lived to be 95 years old, passing away in 2016. In those six decades after his professional career, Sailors didn’t give up on basketball. In the 1960s, he moved to Alaska where he coached Glenallen High School to six state titles (five girls, one boys). After moving back to Wyoming, the old man just kept on teaching kids how to play hoops. Nice addendum to the legacy.
Sailors does get a serious demerit for being the Wyoming state chairman of Barry Goldwater’s 1964 presidential campaign.
But during his brief time with the Boston Celtics in 1950, Sailors also gladly roomed with Chuck Cooper, the first Black man drafted by an NBA team. “I used to room with Chuck on road trips,” Sailors said. “I liked him and I wanted to talk with him.” Sailors further noted that “Chuck wasn’t allowed to stay in the hotel with us” in some cities. That’s that Jim Crow for ya.
The pros never quite appreciated the revolution Sailors was instigating back in the 1940s. Even today, very few appreciate the role that Sailors commanded in one of the largest transformations in basketball’s history. A transformation that has shaped how every player shoots the ball every game.
And it was all thanks to Bud Sailors being too damn tall for his little brother Kenny.
“I never considered that it would turn out to be such a big deal,” he laughed to the Casper Star-Tribune. “I never gave it a thought. I was just trying to shoot over my brother.”
Is there any way to get permission from the Boston Celtics to use a picture of Kenny Sailors from the 1950's?
Another classic deep dive from Mr. Harris. I often see Paul Arizin credited as the player who made the jump shot popular. Is there any noteworthy connection between Arizin and Sailors to your knowledge?