Adrian Dantley scored 23,177 points during his 15-year NBA career. He ranks 14th on the all-time career scoring list. Before that, he won an Olympic gold medal.
But he isn't in basketball's Hall of Fame.Dantley averaged 29.5 points per game in seven seasons with the Jazz. He won two NBA scoring titles. He played in six All-Star Games.
But his jersey isn't hanging from the rafters of the Delta Center.
Dantley was the consummate professional. He ran three to four miles a day in the off-season and came to camp in shape. He lifted weights on his own at a time when few other players did. He didn't drink alcohol and watched what he ate. He put himself through a stretching and exercise regimen at home before practice and games. Karl Malone and Joe Dumars credit Dantley for showing them how a professional should approach the game.
But when Dantley retired from the game -- or, really, after he left the Jazz years earlier -- it was as if he no longer existed.
Dantley was Karl Malone before Karl Malone. He was a prolific, methodical scorer. He carried the Jazz. He brought credibility to a struggling franchise. Aside from John Stockton and Malone, what player did more for the Utah Jazz than Adrian Dantley?
But the Jazz front office doesn't even have his telephone number. Dantley says he has had almost no contact with the Jazz since he last played for the team in 1986. Since then, the Jazz have retired the jerseys of Pete Maravich, Mark Eaton and Darrell Griffith. But not Dantley's. Eaton played in one All-Star Game; Griffith none.
The failure to recognize Dantley's accomplishments, of course, extends beyond the Jazz. He has been retired for eight years, and still the Basketball Hall of Fame hasn't found a place for him.
"I've heard there are people on the board who are against me," he says. "If you base it on numbers or merit, I should be on there. There are certain guys in the Hall of Fame I dominated. And I never had any problems off the court. I just didn't go out and promote myself like some of those guys in the Hall did."
On Nov. 13, Dantley finally will get a measure of what is due him. He will be one of the first two professional players inducted into the new State of Utah Basketball Hall of Fame during a ceremony at the Double Tree Hotel. It took an impartial third party -- one not connected with the NBA or the Jazz -- to bring Dantley back for a bow.
"It's quite an honor," he says. "I'm looking forward to it."
In the annual NBA Register, Dantley's biography appears in the section called "All-Time Great Players." Dantley was only 6-foot-5, tops, but he played in the post and scored with almost boring regularity. The late Wilt Chamberlain once observed, "I can't figure out how a guy 6-foot 5-inches can score inside like that . . . I always said the only people who could score regularly from that position were Kareem and myself. Now there are three."
Dantley averaged 24.5 points per game during his career. For years, he was the Jazz. Clearly, his performance was enough to get him into the Hall.
"There might be some other factors," says Dantley, coyly.
It's no secret that Dantley offended more than his share of people in basketball circles, and, right or wrong, that seems to count as much as statistics and championships for post-career honors. Dantley was reticent, aloof and serious. His outward demeanor belied an intelligent, warmer man -- not unlike John Stockton. He did little to ingratiate himself with others, including his own teammates, of whom he once said, "I'm not all that close to them."
When Larry Miller bought the Jazz and tried to buddy up to the players -- he had his own locker in the player locker room and liked to shoot with the players -- Dantley resented it and gave him the cold shoulder. He and Miller were not pals.
"I wasn't close to Larry Miller like other players were," he says. "I respected him, but I wasn't doing a lot of things that players do. That's not my style."
"(Dantley) is a different guy, no question," says former Jazz coach Tom Nissalke, whom Dantley asked to be his presenter at the Hall ceremony. "But I don't have anything but good to say about him. You couldn't ask for an easier guy to coach. But it took time to get to know him. He called me once a few years ago out of the blue. I asked him, 'What do I owe this call to?' He said, 'I'm just networking.' I told him, 'You should have done that six years ago.' He laughed. It was so funny."
Dantley also was perceived as selfish on the court -- although he played on teams with few other options -- which hasn't helped his cause.
But the coups de grace were a holdout and a locker-room confrontation. He boycotted the 1984 training camp and the first six games of the season while seeking a salary increase. In 1986, he exchanged heated words with Coach Frank Layden in the locker room following a game in Phoenix and was sent back to Salt Lake City. Layden fined him "30 pieces of silver," and referred reporters to the Bible when they wanted to know the reason. After the season, Dantley was traded to Detroit. He left the team on bad terms.
"The only thing I did that you'd consider bad was holding out," he says. "If I had said some of the things Karl has said -- well, it's a good thing I didn't. I never said anything. I just held out one time."
Layden and Dantley have long since patched up their relationship, say Jazz insiders, and Layden says he wants to mount another campaign to get Dantley's jersey retired. Much will depend on Miller.
Dantley, who calls himself "a full-time dad," lives in Maryland with his wife and three children and has lived off his NBA earnings since retiring from the game. He makes a special point of saying that he has no complaints or bitterness, and that he wants to return to Salt Lake City on the best of terms.
"Nah, I've got no regrets," he says. "My wife always told me if I had schmoozed people I probably would have ended my career in Utah. Of all the (six) teams I've been on, I had the best time in Utah. Utah was my favorite place to play. It suited my style of living, and that's where it all started. That's when I really blossomed as a player."