Jones Is Great in the Ring, but Can He Go to the Hoop?

He wants to be Michael Jordan. He wants to be Bo Jackson. He wants to be Deion Sanders. But he also wants to be Sugar Ray Leonard. And Sugar Ray Robinson.

Nobody ever accused Roy Jones Jr. of lacking dreams. Or role models. Or ambition. Or talent.

A sense of reality, however, is another matter.

This much is real. Jones is considered the best super-middleweight in the world by most boxing experts. Some go even further, proclaiming him the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world.

He did nothing to discourage such talk with his second-round knockout of light-heavyweight Merqui Sosa on Friday night at New York’s Madison Square Garden, a victory that increased Jones’ record to 31-0 with 27 knockouts.

At 26, his potential seems unlimited. Jones is the International Boxing Federation’s 168-pound champion. He could move up in weight. Or, he could stay where he is, unify the crown and rule the super-middleweight division for years, justifying comparisons to Robinson and Leonard.

Only one problem. Jones has another goal. He wants to play in the NBA.

Say what?

Jones says he is bored with boxing, that he no longer feels challenged.

“There’s just nothing there,” he said. “The opposition is just not equal to what I am. There is no chance to impress the public.”

But, Jones admits, there is more to this talk of an alternate career than boredom. He has been deeply affected by recent injuries and deaths in the ring. The clincher was the recent revelation that former heavyweight Jerry Quarry is suffering from pugilistica dementia, a deteriorating mental condition caused by too many punches to the head.

“Quarry touched me deeply,” Jones said. “When I saw [what happened to] Quarry, I couldn’t take it anymore.

“It makes you realize how bad guys get after their career is over. They can’t even enjoy what they have. That’s not good. I don’t want that to happen to Roy Jones. Tomorrow is not promised to anybody.”

So Jones, who played basketball in the 10th grade, skipped the 11th, came back in the 12th and hasn’t played in anything more organized than a city league since then, hopes to keep his sanity and regain his enthusiasm by trying to leap from the ring into the NBA.

What makes Jones think he’s good enough to make such a seemingly impossible transition, from that city league, in which he now plays up to four times a week, to the NBA, the best league on the planet?

Because, he says, people keep telling him can.

Any other silly questions?

Jones’ teammates in the city league, some of whom have played in the minor league CBA, are among his biggest basketball boosters.

“They told me that with a little work, I could be just as good as those [NBA] guys,” Jones said. “They told me I could hold my own with them.

“I enjoy the game. It’s not as threatening as boxing. So why not take a chance and see if I can do it?”

If all this has a familiar ring to it, it’s because Jones seems intent on following the same rocky road Jordan took a couple of years ago, a road that led to a dead end for the basketball superstar.

Although both Jackson and Sanders excelled in two sports, they were sports the pair had played through high school and college. Jordan tried to play professional baseball after getting burned out on the NBA, but found transferring his skills, after years away from baseball, was too much even for his athletic talents.

It would seem that Jordan would be the perfect person for Jones to talk to about his plan. But Jones doesn’t see it that way.

“I talk to Michael Jordan, but not about that,” Jones said. “I don’t like to talk to people about my problems.”

Jones, at 5 feet 11, sees himself as a point guard.

“I’m a strong passer, although I have to work on my hands,” he said. “I shoot well in streaks, but I’m a better passer. All I need is some experience.”

Jones plans to begin his unlikely campaign in a European league this spring. He says it won’t take him long to know if the only place he will ever play pro basketball is in a fantasy league in his mind.

“It will take a little while to get used to it, but I think I can play,” he said. “I do not want to waste nobody’s time.”

If Jones is good enough to play at the European level, he will stay there until he feels he has progressed enough to come back home and push for an NBA tryout.

So eventually it will be hello to basketball and goodbye to boxing?

Not exactly. The way Jones has it figured, he can play in the NBA and still have time left for two or three fights a year.

“I ain’t walking out on nothing,” he said.

A reporter, marveling at Jones’ optimism over his basketball future, asked him if he really thought he could lace on a pair of shoes, pick up a basketball and soon be dribbling with the best in the world.

“How do you know I’m not the best?” he responded without hesitation. “You’ve never seen me play.”

*

This title fight is outside the ring: IBF heavyweight champion Francois Botha is vigorously denying charges that he was on anabolic steroids last month when he won the title from Germany’s Axel Schulz, charges that could cost Botha his crown.

“I have done nothing wrong because I have not taken any anabolic steroids,” Botha was quoted as saying in an interview with Berliner Zeitung.

The banned substance was discovered in a urine test conducted after the fight.

Botha, who won the vacant title from Schulz in Stuttgart, says he is being set up by the Germans, whom the South African called bad losers.

He said the urine sample had been taken in a German restaurant and that it was possible someone had spiked the food.

“It wasn’t just a question of finding traces. We found large quantities,” said Alois Teuber, president of the German professional boxing federation.

IBF officials say it will take at least two weeks of investigation before they can rule on the matter.

Even if Botha loses his title, it’s not the worst thing that could happen to him. That would be to keep his championship and go ahead with his plans to defend it later this year against Mike Tyson.

*

Boxing Notes

To hype their June 7 blockbuster fight, Oscar De La Hoya and Julio Cesar Chavez will tour 30 cities in this country and Mexico in March, side by side, each in his own personal jet. . . . Gabriel and Rafael Ruelas will fight on the same card in March at a Southern California site.