Flint Northern won back-to-back Michigan state titles with Furlow, and at Michigan State he led the Big Ten with 29.4 points a game in 1975-76 — his 50-point night against Iowa is still the school record. Philadelphia took him 12th overall in 1976, but he found his best NBA form only after a midseason trade to the Jazz, averaging a career-high 16.0 points in 1979-80 with two 37-point games.
In Lansing gyms he had drilled a teenager named Magic Johnson, beating him 15-0 until the kid improved. On May 23, 1980, weeks after the season ended, Furlow died at 25 when his car hit a pole at 120 mph in Ohio, cocaine and Valium in his system. Magic was a pallbearer at his funeral.
HOW HE CAME & WENTHe arrived midway through 1979-80, his third trade in under four years, and Utah was where his game finally opened up — before a car crash killed him that May.
No photograph of this signature is online yet.
| SEASON | TEAM | G | MPG | PPG | RPG | APG | SPG | BPG | FG% | 3P% | FT% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1979–80 | UTA | 55 | 31.2 | 16.0 | 2.8 | 4.0 | 1.0 | 0.3 | .476 | .315 | .876 |
| JAZZ TOTAL | 1 SEASON | 55 | 31.2 | 16.0 | 2.8 | 4.0 | 1.0 | 0.3 | .476 | .315 | .876 |
Season by season, regular season, with this franchise only. More info: Basketball-Reference ↗ · Wikipedia ↗