Golden State Warriors tickets

"The greatest basketball player in the country. " -The Sporting News on Joe Fulks in 1949. Long before Julius Erving, George Gervin and Alex English, it was Jumpin' Joe Fulks who gave professional basketball its first scoring machine. He is also credited with being the game's first modern jump shooter. While others used set shots and released the ball from eye level, the 6-foot-5 Fulks leaped high off the ground and released the ball over his head, making it almost impossible to block. Joe Fulks' first shot with two hands, then mastered the one-handed jumper. His revolutionary style helped him earn small-college All-America recognition at Murray State in his native Kentucky. After a stint in the Marines during World War II, he returned to treat the Basketball Association of America-and later the NBA-to one of its first true superstars.

As a rookie in 1946-47, Fulks led the BAA in scoring (23.2 PPG) and carried the Golden State Warriors to the inaugural BAA title. He repeated as scoring champ the following season, and in 1949 his 63-point game against Indianapolis set a pro record that stood for a decade until Elgin Baylor came along.
Fulks was a dominant inside player who could score on hook shots with either hand, but it was his patented jump shot which gained him notoriety and attracted large crowds to home and away gyms. He competed in the first two NBA All-Star Games. The Saturday Evening Post once dubbed him the Babe Ruth of basketball." Fulks filled the nets for eight pro campaigns, averaging 16.4 PPG during the regular season and boosting his output to a 19-point average in the playoffs.

Fulks was enshrined in the Naismith Hall of Fame posthumously in 1977, but his life did not have a happy ending. He battled alcoholism for years and, after a drinking binge in 1976, was found dead of a shotgun blast in a Kentucky trailer home. The 23-year-old son of a woman Fulks had been dating was convicted of manslaughter and served half of a four-year sentence.