Sam Jones was named to the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1984. In 1996, he was named as one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History.

He spent all of his twelve seasons in the NBA with the Boston Celtics, who drafted him in the first round in 1957. Jones was known as a clutch scorer, and scored over 15,000 points in his career.

Jones played on ten championship teams (1959-66 and 1968-69) — a total exceeded only by teammate Bill Russell in NBA history.

Jones displayed perfect form when shooting a jump shot, and is known for his great clutch shooting in decisive games. At 6-foot-4, Jones was the prototype of the tall guard who could run the floor, bang the boards and had a rangy offensive game that gave opponents fits.

He led Boston in scoring in the 1962-63 NBA season (19.7 points per game), 1964-65 NBA season (25.9) and 1965-66 NBA season (23.5).

Sam Jones had a perfect record (9-0) in Game 7s. He averaged an astonishing 27.1 points in those potential season-ending, elimination games, including a Game 7-record 47 points in the 1963 East Finals.

"In the years that I played with the Celtics, in terms of total basketball skills, Sam Jones was the most skillful player that I ever played with. At one point, we won a total of eight consecutive NBA championships, and six times during that run we asked Sam to take the shot that meant the season. If he didn’t hit the shot we were finished – we were going home empty-handed. He never missed." -Bill Russell, in an interview with Celtic Nation