Hall of Fame
- Induction:
- 1965
He came out of Kuttawa, Kentucky and into Philadelphia to leave his brand on the game of basketball as no one had before him. And on his way, he stopped at Murray State Teachers College, and played as a Thoroughbred in 1941 and 1942.
Fulks won a basketball scholarship to Murray State and although freshmen were excluded from varsity play, Jumpin’ Joe average 16.6 points a game on the 9-1 freshman team.
The wavy haired 190 pounder managed 13.2 points a game over his next two varsity years. Fulks was a standout at Murray State College (now University) during his two-year stint and helped lead the team to a 39-9 record over that span. He was named All-Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference in 1942 and 1943 and earned All-America honors at the National Association of Intercollegiate Basketball Tournament in 1943.
The war took Fulks away from Murray in his second season. He left Murray State in 1943 to join the United States Marine Corps as World War II reached its peak.
His basketball skills were showcased as a part of the Fleet Marine Force team at Pearl Harbor, where he went up against some of the best players in the country.
Eddie Gottlieb, who ran the Philadelphia Warriors franchise of the BAA, heard about Fulks from Petey Rosenberg, one of Gottlieb’s players on the old Sphas. Rosenberg had seen Fulks in basketball action at Pearl Harbor and recommended him so enthusiastically that Gottlieb signed up the Kentuckian for a professional contract for the league’s first season. He wouldn’t take the $5,000 a year offered by Gottlieb to play for the Philadelphia Warriors; Fulks said he wanted $8,000 a year. Gottlieb backed down and Fulks started earning his money. He started earning it with 25 points in his first Warrior game. He kept earning it as the Warriors went on to take the league championship in 1947. He lead the league with a 23.2 points-per-game average; no one else in the league average over 17 points that year.
In his first professional game, Fulks scored 25 points. Within a week Ned Irish, president of the New York Knickerbockers, told Gottlieb, “You’ve got the best player in the country.” He went on to lead Philadelphia to the league championship in 1947. In his first season with the Warriors, he led the league in scoring with 1389 points, a 23.2 average. His stats were far and away the best in the league as no other player averaged more than 17 points per game.
The next year he finished second in scoring with 949 points, but rebounded in 1948-1949 to lead the league with a 26-point average, 1560 points.
On the night of February 10, 1949, the skinny 6-5 cornerman pumped in an unheard of 63 points. He had his jump shot working to perfection that evening, canning 27 field goals to go with nine free throws. Indianapolis Jetscoach Burl Friddie, exasperated over his team’s inability to stop the Warrior scoring machine, finally inserted a substitute named Leo Mogus, with these instructions: “Go to the official scorer and report for Fulks. Maybe we’ll get rid of him that way.” This record stood unchallenged for 10 years.
Fulks’ entire eight-year career was spent with Philadelphia. This member of the Hall of Fame doesn’t show up on many career record charts because he was already 26 when he began in the pros. But as the BAA’s (NBA) first big scorer, as a pioneer of the jump shot and as the author of the unforgettable 63 point game, he qualifies as a basketball immortal.
Fulks recalled the 63-point night in an interview after his retirement. “After making only one of my first seven shots I hit 11 straight, and then I came back in the second half with 10 or 12 in a row. But the rest of the time I was struggling, so I probably finished the night with about 50 percent,” Fulks said. His official statistics for the night: 27 of 56 from the field, 9 of 14 from the line.
Gottlieb, then his coach, recalled the night as well. “I called time out late in the game and told him to basket hang (play around the basket), and he refused. He said he didn’t want points that way; he wanted to earn them.”
His stock in trade was the jump shot, which some called the “ear shot” because Joe seemed to toss it off his ear. Jumpin’ Joe Fulks never claimed he invented the jump shot; other folks claimed it for him. “People like to say I’m the guy who discovered the one hand jump shot. I guess that’s all right. I don’t mind taking a bow.”
Known by the nickname “Jumpin’ Joe”, Joe Fulks was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1977. Often credited with inventing the jump shot, Fulks made his fame with his uncanny ability to hit that jumper time after time, making him the greatest scorer in the early days of the Basketball Association of America (BAA), which would evolve into the National Basketball Association (NBA).
Many years later, Fulks would say, “I know now you can’t teach a boy to shoot. It’s something that comes naturally. You either have the knack or you don’t.”
“I played against a number of so-called All-Americans overseas,” Joe said, “and I wasn’t very impressed with them. Their press clippings couldn’t buy them a basket or a rebound. When I was approached about playing pro ball, I knew I could play.”
Fulks called himself a streak shooter. “When I was hot, I was really hot. But when I was cold, sometimes it was bad.” Fulks described the basketball revolution he started very simply. “People were shooting on the run during those days,” he said. “But I discovered that by stopping and jumping I was much more accurate and able to get open for better shots.”
He didn’t call himself superstitious, but others might have. Fulks always put on his right shoe first, he never picked up a basketball in the locker room, and he insisted he be the last player to shot a basket when the team left the floor after pregame drills.
His teammates called him “Dishrag Joe” because of his knack for relaxation.
After his retirement in 1954, came back to the area to work as a foreman at the GAF Corp. in Calvert City. He also worked as a Philadelphia 76ers scout, covering the Kentucky and Tennessee area, and as an athletic aide at Kentucky State Penitentiary in Eddyville.
The four-time all-NBA selection was named to the league’s Silver Anniversary Team in 1971. Unfortunately, that was an honor he was able to enjoy only briefly, as a shooting incident claimed his life in 1976 at the age of 54.
Murray State Alumnus, November 1965; The Murray State News, October 19, 1984;The Greatest Players
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| Hall of Fame Class of 1965 & 1967 Left to Right: Harlan Brodie, Walter Wells, John Powless, Joe Fulks, Floyd Burdette, Willard Bagwell, Howard Allen, and Hugh May |
