K.C. Jones may be remembered for being on the opposing side of the Milwaukee Bucks, but he was once a member of the Milwaukee Bucks as a coach.
In a year that has been filled with loss on so many levels, the NBA lost a legend on Christmas Day.
News of K.C. Jones’ death broke on the league’s marquee slate Friday afternoon and just as the Milwaukee Bucks were about to take on the Golden State Warriors in what ultimately was a 39-point win for the Bucks.
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Jones’ Hall of Fame basketball journey was certainly defined by his time with the Boston Celtics, both as a player and as a coach. Jones was first well known for being a part of the Celtics’ dynastic run from 1959 to 1966 and went on to win eight NBA titles over his nine seasons as a player.
For as decorated of a run that he enjoyed as a player, Jones had to cut his teeth in his transition to become a head coach in the NBA, first with the then-Washington Bullets, the Boston Celtics and the then-Seattle SuperSonics.
It was in between Jones’ highly successful stints between the Bullets and Celtics, where he coached Hall of Fame talents like Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Robert Parrish, that Jones was briefly with the Bucks organization. Jones served as the Bucks’ assistant coach in Don Nelson’s first year as head coach during the 1976-77 season.
That year served as the dawn of a new era as it was notable for the abrupt changeover from the team’s original head coach, Larry Costello, to the franchise’s winningest head coach in Nelson 18 games into the year. In the face of Nelson’s promotion, the former player-turned-coach explained why he turned to his old Celtics teammate in Jones to be his right hand man in his first NBA coaching gig:
"Nothing, that is, until Don Nelson, thrown into the Bucks’ head coaching job when Larry Costello was fired, called on Thanksgiving to see if Jones would help him.K.C.’s specialty is defense and mine is offense,” says Nelson, who lost his four games as a solo act. “I thought it would be a beautiful relationship.”"
K.C. Jones went on to bigger and better things after his time with the Milwaukee Bucks, but it almost didn’t happen if it weren’t for Don Nelson.
Jones’ only year in Milwaukee had been far from a success as the Bucks eventually finished with a 30-52 record, their least successful season since the expansion year nearly a decade earlier. If anything, the Bucks’ struggles during that 76-77 season were more notable for what they got when they selected Marques Johnson with the third overall pick in the 1977 NBA Draft, which fully jumpstarted the Nelson-Bucks era.
After Jones’ one-year contract with the Bucks ended, he returned back to Boston to be an assistant coach during a time of great turmoil for the once- illustrious franchise. Bird’s arrival, though, sparked a new era of lasting success from the moment he entered the NBA, which Jones would oversee himself from the 1983-84 season to the 1987-88 season.
However, Jones wasn’t the first choice to oversee the Celtics after they were swept in four games by the Bucks in the 1983 Eastern Conference Semifinals that eventually prompted Bill Fitch’s resignation as Boston’s head coach.
Who was Auberach’s first choice to be the team’s head coach, you ask? That was Nelson and the Hall of Fame coach explained the factors behind why he passed on Auerbach’s advances to Marc Stein of ESPN in April of 2010:
"“There were two opportunities I probably should have made happen. One was when we beat the Celtics in the playoffs in Milwaukee [in 1983]. They were going to make a coaching change. I think Bill Fitch was their coach at the time. After the last game, Red [Auerbach] walked by and asked me, ‘Would you ever consider coaching the Boston Celtics?’“I said, ‘Red, it would be a dream come true. But the guy’s been so good to me here, I really couldn’t leave [Bucks owner] Jim Fitzgerald.’ But looking back as a career move, that’s probably something I should have done at that point. They had a really good championship-caliber team and that would have solved all the problems if I would have done that. K.C. Jones got that job and did a really good job and they won a few championships. Looking back, I was a loyal guy because Jim Fitzgerald was so good to me, so I don’t really regret not going. But as a career move I probably should have.”"
The rest, as they say, is history. Under Jones’ reign as their head coach, the Celtics won two NBA titles in 1984 and 1986 and Jones’ Celtics beat Nelson’s Bucks in each of the three playoff series they matched up against each other over that span.
While Jones will be best remembered in Celtic green, his five decades of playing and coaching in the NBA touched multiple franchises across the league and more often than not, for the better. Rest in peace to a true NBA legend.