{{short description|American basketball player and coach}} {{Use mdy dates|date=July 2024}} {{Infobox basketball biography | name = Jimmy Darden | image = | width = | caption = | number = 25 | position = Point guard | height_ft = 6 | height_in = 1 | weight_lb = 170 | team = | team_link = | birth_date = {{birth date|1922|06|19}} | birth_place = Cheyenne, Wyoming, U.S. | death_date = {{death date and age|1994|04|29|1922|06|19}} | death_place = | high_school = Cheyenne Central<br/>(Cheyenne, Wyoming) | college = Wyoming <br/>Denver | draft_year = 1947 | draft_round = – | draft_pick = – | draft_team = Chicago Stags | career_start = 1947 | career_end = 1951 | years1 = 1946–{{nbay|1949|end}} | team1 = Denver Nuggets | years2 = 1950–1951 | team2 = Denver Refiners | cyears1 = 1949–1950 | cteam1 = Denver Nuggets | cyears2 = 1950–1951 | cteam2 = Denver Refiners |stats_league=NBA | stat1label = Points | stat1value = 211 (8.1 ppg) | stat2label = Assists | stat2value = 67 (2.6 apg) | stat3label = Games played | stat3value = 26 | bbr = dardeji01 | letter = d }}
'''James Wesley Darden''' (June 19, 1922 – April 29, 1994) was an American professional basketball player and coach.<ref name=Marcus>{{cite book|last1=Marcus|first1=Jeff|title=A Biographical Directory of Professional Basketball Coaches|date=2003|publisher=The Scarecrow Press, Inc.|location=United States of America|isbn=0-8108-4007-3|pages=96–97}}</ref>
Darden played college basketball for the Wyoming Cowboys and Denver Pioneers. He was a member of the Cowboys team that won the 1943 NCAA championship, but did not play in the actual tournament because he was serving in World War II at the time.<ref name=CSHOF>{{cite web|title=Jim Darden – Colorado Sports Hall of Fame|url=https://www.coloradosports.org/index.php/who-s-in-the-hall/inductees/item/68-jim-darden|website=Colorado Sports Hall of Fame|accessdate=23 April 2017}}</ref> After his discharge in 1946, Darden joined the Denver Nuggets, which was then part of the Amateur Athletic Union. The team joined the National Basketball League in the 1948–49 season, and Darden averaged 10.3 points per game in his first year of playing professional basketball.<ref name=Marcus /> The Nuggets became a part of the National Basketball Association in the league's inaugural 1949–50 season, and Darden served as a player-coach for the team. He coached 62 games that season, but only played 26 games before suffering an injury midway through the season.<ref name=Marcus /> He averaged 8.1 points as a player, and coached the team to an 11–61 record. The Nuggets left the NBA after one season to become a part of the National Professional Basketball League, and Darden coached the team, who were renamed the Refiners, to an 18–16 record while also having to play three games after some players left the team during the season.<ref name=Marcus /> The Refiners disbanded due to financial constraints in early 1951.
Darden became the coach of the basketball and baseball teams at Colorado School of Mines in 1954, and coached both sports at the university until he retired in 1992 at the age of seventy.<ref name=Marcus /> CSM's baseball field was renamed Darden Field in his honour.<ref name=CSHOF /><ref>{{cite web|title=Jim Darden Field – Colorado School of Mines|url=http://minesathletics.com/facilities/?id=3|website=Colorado School of Mines|accessdate=24 April 2017}}</ref> Darden was inducted into the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame in 1989.<ref name=CSHOF />
==NBA career statistics== {| class="toccolours" style="font-size: 90%; white-space: nowrap;" |- ! colspan="6" style="background:#f2f2f2; border:1px solid #aaa;"| Legend |- | style="background:#f2f2f2; border:1px solid black;"| GP | Games played |- | style="background:#f2f2f2; border:1px solid black;"| FG% | style="padding-right: 8px" | Field-goal percentage |- | style="background:#f2f2f2; border:1px solid black;"| FT% | Free-throw percentage |- | style="background:#f2f2f2; border:1px solid black;"| APG | Assists per game |- | style="background:#f2f2f2; border:1px solid black;"| PPG | Points per game
|}
===Regular season=== {| class="wikitable sortable" style="font-size:95%; text-align:right;" |- ! Year ! Team ! GP ! FG% ! FT% ! APG ! PPG |- |style="text-align:left;"| 1949–50 | style="text-align:left;"| Denver | 26 || .321 || .688 || 2.6 || 8.1 |- |style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career | 26 || .321 || .688 || 2.6 || 8.1 |- |}
==Head coaching record== {{NBA coach statistics legend}} {{NBA coach statistics start}} |- | style="text-align:left;"|Denver | style="text-align:left;"|{{nbay|1949|trunc=y}} |62||11||51||{{Winning percentage|11|51}}|| style="text-align:center;"|6th in Western|||—||—||—||— | style="text-align:center;"|Missed Playoffs |- class="sortbottom" | style="text-align:left;"|'''Total''' | ||62||11||51||{{Winning percentage|11|51}}|||| —||—||—||—|| {{s-end}}
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== * Career statistics and player information from [https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/d/dardeji01.html Basketball-Reference.com] * NBA career statistics as a coach from [https://www.basketball-reference.com/coaches/dardeji01c.html Basketball-Reference.com]
{{1943 Wyoming Cowboys basketball navbox}} {{1947 AAU Men's Basketball All-Americans}} {{1948 AAU Men's Basketball All-Americans}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Darden, Jimmy}} Category:1922 births Category:1994 deaths Category:Amateur Athletic Union men's basketball players Category:American men's basketball coaches Category:American men's basketball players Category:Basketball coaches from Wyoming Category:Basketball players from Wyoming Category:Chicago Stags draft picks Category:Colorado Mines Orediggers baseball coaches Category:Colorado Mines Orediggers men's basketball coaches Category:Denver Pioneers men's basketball players Category:Denver Nuggets (1948–1950) coaches Category:Denver Nuggets (1948–1950) players Category:Basketball player-coaches Category:Sportspeople from Cheyenne, Wyoming Category:Wyoming Cowboys basketball players Category:Point guards Category:American military personnel of World War II