Before Tim Duncan hit the boards at the left 45 with skillful rhythm to the basket, before David Robinson showed the world a gazelle-like running and jumping ability, and before George Iceman Gervin was crowned scoring champion four times with his finger roll stunts, the San Antonio Spurs' frontrunner was a 6-foot-2 super guard nicknamed Captain Late. After scoring 20+ points in the fourth quarter of many games, James Silas was given this symbolic superhero nickname by Spurs TV commentator Terry Stembridge.
Bobby Slick Leonard coached the Indiana Pacers to three ABA titles. He was also captain of the Indiana Hoosiers, the 1953 NCAA championship team. During his seven-year NBA playing career, he played with legends such as Elgin Baylor, Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell and Jerry West. He has no qualms about saying of Silas, "Jimmy Silas should definitely be in the Hall of Fame. He's a lot like Sam Jones in Boston. Against the Spurs, we had to double-team him between the three-point line and the free-throw line and try to keep him from catching the ball on offense. It's tough to guard this guy, he's got a very solid sharpshooting jumper, is physically strong, and is a good defender and passer. I mean, he's a really great basketball player. You hear people talk about legendary players in the NBA, and I think Silas is as great as they come."
Silas and the Spurs pushed the defending champion Pacers to a Game 7 in the 1974 ABA playoffs, and the teams met again in the postseason in 1975, with the Pacers advancing after six hard-fought games. Although Silas was surrounded by future Hall of Famer and one of the NBA's Top 50, Gervin, the Pacers still had to double-team him.Leonard said, "He had us on edge.After the Spurs moved their home court from the HemisFair to the Alamodome, if you've ever been to San Antonio, you would have seen large pictures of two players hanging behind the backdrop of the arena - George Gervin and Jimmy Silas. "Despite being keyed on by opposing teams, Silas averaged 18.8 points per game in the 1975 playoffs and delivered an an ABA league-high 10.0 assists.
Informed that he had been called the most underrated guard in ABA history by Leonard, Silas replied, "I feel the same way." , "I've always looked up to Indiana because they were champions at the time.The Pacers had a lot of great players -- Roger Brown, Mel Daniels, George McGinnis, Freddie Lewis and Don Buse to name a few. They were a great team and you had to give your best when you played them. That's what I love - I love the competition and I showed my strengths when I played against them."
Bob Bass, a two-time NBA Executive of the Year who was the Spurs' head coach at the time, said, "They double-teamed him to stop him from catching the ball, which wasn't very common back then. A lot of people use double-team sacks today. Even though we already had Gervin, he was the most trusted player at the end of the game. We let him dictate the game because he's a penalty killer. He can easily disrupt the other team's defense, like Oscar Robertson, and if you take a double-team, we leave him enough space to dictate the game, execute the play or pass, or shoot, or create fouls. He's always going to make the magic plays at the end when it counts."
Captain Late often shows his destructive power around the basket, Bass said, "He reminds me of Baron Davis, not in the way they play, but in the way he plays. Silas shoots his jumpers with the ball high above his head so that defenders can't affect his shot. He can easily shoot from 12 or 14 feet from the basket, and he leans slightly when he shoots, making him almost impossible to guard without a double team."
Silas, who was unaware that Bass was comparing him to Baron Davis, said of players similar to him, "Sam Cassell and Baron Davis rolled into one -- Sam's ability to shoot from anywhere and Davis' strength and speed. Those two are the closest players I've seen in the league to my style of play." On the Captain Late nickname, Silas said, "I play well for 48 minutes of the game or when I'm on the floor, so I attack at the beginning of the game because the nickname means I only come out at the last minute. But Captain Late fits me and I like the nickname."
Silas' numerical stats rose every year of his ABA career, averaging 13.7 points and 3.1 assists per game as a rookie for the Dallas Chaparrals (the name of the team before the Spurs moved to San Antonio) in 1972-73, 15.7 points and 3.8 assists in 1973-74 and 1974 -75 season to 19.3 points and 4.9 assists. He repeatedly controlled the game down the stretch; even if the coach's initial setup wasn't Silas, the puck usually ended up in his hands, Bass said, "One time I designed a specific play for Gervin, and that night the opposite defenseman on Gervin was consistently underdogged because of Gervin's height advantage. I wanted Gervin to take control of the offense at the end, and he said, 'Give the ball to Jimmy Si and let him take care of it.' For a player as great as Gervin to say something like that, you can imagine the kind of prestige James Silas has on our team."
In 1975-76, Captain Late was sixth in scoring (averaging 23.8 points per game), fourth in shooting (51.9 percent), fourth in free-throw shooting (87.2 percent), fifth in assists (5.4), fifth in minutes played (3,112), and ninth in steals (1.8). He was named to the ABA Best XI ahead of Gervin (who averaged 21.8 points and 2.2 assists per game), while the legendary Julius Dr. J Erving won the MVP battle. In the playoffs, Erving's Nets and Silas' Spurs met, but Silas' breakout season came to an abrupt end in their first game, when Silas accidentally stepped on Nets guard Brian Taylor's foot after a jumper, spraining his ankle. the Nets eliminated the Spurs and eventually won the final ABA title. The Nets eliminated the Spurs and won the final ABA championship. Over the summer the ABA merged into the NBA and the Spurs were one of four remaining ABA teams to become part of the 22-team NBA. It looks like Silas will finally get a chance to show what he can do on a bigger stage.
By the time the 1976 NBA preseason began, Silas had fully recovered from his injury, and the Spurs, who had lost the Eastern Conference Finals the previous season due to an injury to their star player, looked to be on track to make a name for themselves in the new league. However, tragedy struck again when Silas suffered a severe cartilage tear in his knee after a collision with Bill Robinzine in a preseason warm-up game against the Kansas City Kings, recalling, "It was a common injury, but the timing of the first surgery was obviously not right, and I had to have surgery again. I had to have surgery again. At that time, we didn't have the advanced medical equipment that we have now, and it took a long time to recover from the injury. I wasted at least a year and a half of my career as a result."
It was widely recognized at the time that knees took a long time to heal after surgery, and Bernard King, the New York Knicks' All-Star forward who tore his ACL in 1985, was one of the first to benefit from an aggressive recovery regimen after the operation, Silas said. I think if I had known what I know today, I would have done whatever it took to come back. I've been told a lot of times to do this and not to do that, and I've been doing what the doctors tell me to do. I envied Bernard King's career when he was warned that that kind of recovery training could ruin his career, and I've seen footage of him training hard. I thought, 'Wow, if I did that, I'd recover faster.'"
Silas had played more than 3,000 minutes in each of the previous three seasons, but in 1976-77 and 1977-78 he played in only 59 of the 164 regular-season games, totaling only 667 minutes. He was never again able to play 2,300 minutes in a season. Bob Bass described the impact of the injury on Silas this way: "He no longer has the destructive power he once had. Before the injury, he was really flying when he broke into the lane. He'd take the ball to the basket and he'd get under a defender's skin and still finish the shot - probably the best I've ever seen him do that. He's strong, so when he's flying he's still able to shoot against the defense. He's a good free throw shooter - George Gervin is a four-time NBA scoring champion, but surprisingly, he doesn't shoot as many free throws as you'd think. He has a variety of scoring tools, and can hit a jumper right in front of you as well as a breakaway layup. But it's James Silas who can create fouls and get free throws like nobody else."
Spurs After joining the NBA, Bass stepped back to become part of the team's management, and Denver Nuggets assistant coach Doug Moe was hired as the Spurs' head coach. He lamented that he had to watch Silas in his prime as a rival: "Silas was a real eye-catcher when he played against us before he got hurt. He was very good. Unfortunately, he suffered a knee injury, and while he's still a great player, he's not the same player he was before, and if he hadn't suffered that injury, who knows how great he would have been. It's a shame people in the NBA never got to see the real Silas. He was the real 'Captain Late' and he was the best of the best."
Silas had his first full season in the NBA in 1978-79. After going just 14-14 in a reserve role early in the season, the Spurs rebounded significantly after he returned to the starting lineup, going 34-20 over the remainder of the campaign and eventually winning the Central Division with the second-best record in the Eastern Conference. Silas averaged 16.0 points and 3.5 assists per game in the regular season, rising to 19.1 points and 4.7 assists per game in the postseason.The Spurs came even closer to reaching the finals in the postseason, falling to the Washington Bullets in the Eastern Conference finals.Silas said, "I think we have the ability to beat them, even though they are a I think we had the ability to beat them, even though they were a good team with Elvin Hayes, Wes Unseld, and we were up 3-1 overall at one point, and Washington came out and played a lot tougher and rougher the rest of the way, and I think that was the turning point in the series. We weren't a tough team. For some reason, we never found a way to contain their rough style of play.
"Captain Late" had a chance to tie the game late in the fourth quarter of the Game 7 showdown. He thought he should have gotten two free throws: "On the last possession, if you've seen the game tape, I know, and Elvin Hayes knows, he fouled me when I took the shot. I jumped and he followed and hit me, but the referee didn't blow the whistle. When I saw him running toward me I realized he was off balance and I knew I could make physical contact with him and earn the foul, which I did, but he wasn't whistled for the foul."
Silas upped his stats to an average of 17.7 points and 4.5 assists per game in the 1979-80 season, his second full season after recovering from injury. The Spurs finished the regular season with 41 wins and 41 losses, and were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs, 1-2, by the Houston Rockets. 1980-81 saw the NBA add a team in Dallas and re-divide some of its teams, with the Spurs moving from the Central Division in the Eastern Conference to the Midwest Division in the Western Conference, as well as hiring a new head coach, Stan Albeck. Silas averaged 17.7 points and 3.8 assists per game in the regular season, and the Spurs rebounded to go 52-30 and win the Midwest Division. However, in the West Division semifinals, the Spurs lost again in a 105-110 home loss in Game 7 of a seven-game series at Rockets. After this disappointing loss, the Spurs made roster changes, including the transfer of Silas to the Cleveland Cavaliers, who opted to retire after one year with the Cavaliers. During his ten-year career, Silas averaged 16.1 points and 3.8 assists per game on 49.5% shooting from the field plus 85.5% from the free throw line.On April 15, 1983, James Silas was inducted into the Spurs roster, along with George Gervin, Artis Gilmore, Mike Mitchell and Mark Olberding. On April 15, 1983, James Silas was named to the Spurs First Ten Years Team, along with George Gervin, Artis Gilmore, Mike Mitchell and Mark Olberding, and on February 28, 1984, Silas retired his number 13 jersey with the Spurs. He was the first player in Spurs history and only the second in Texas professional sports history to be so honored (Houston Rockets' Rudy Tomjanovich's No. 45 was retired on Jan. 28, 1982).
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