[Let’s finish off the month of June with one last post. This one catches up with Adrian Dantley as a disappointed Detroit Piston after a near NBA championship. The article, written in the summer of 1988, was published in the February 1989 issue of Hoop Magazine. That’s also the month that the Pistons dealt Dantley to Dallas. Oops.
Dantley was stunned by the trade, and so were some of his teammates. Take Joe Dumars and this story from the Detroit Free-Press hours after the trade. “As he checked out of his hotel room Wednesday morning, Joe Dumars rested his head in his hand. His eyes were watery and a look of disbelief enveloped his face. He looked as if he lost his best friend. He had.”
Dumars’ reaction just shows you that while Dantley could be notoriously aloof, he could be a loyal friend. That is, if he’d let his guard down and open up to you. In this magazine article, the Detroit News’ Shelby Strother tries with some success to get Dantley to open up, and that makes his words still worth reading all these years later.
As a side note, Strother tragically died of cancer two years later in March 1991. He was just 44 years old. So beloved was he, the Pistons wore armbands in Strother’s honor for the remainder of the 1990-91 season. By then, Dantley was in Milwaukee finishing up the last of his 15 NBA seasons.]
His disappointment and frustration stopped at the wall. If it is hard to climb inside the fortress of aloofness that Adrian Dantley apparently has chosen to live within, it’s just as difficult to let out any evidence there is a real person inside the ice castle.
“We came close to the ring, but we didn’t make it. We can’t be known as champions . . . yet. Almost—that don’t cut it. And now, it’s history. Last year’s gone. Nothing to do but look ahead to the next one.”
Then, stopping for a deep sigh, the dinosaur forward of the Detroit Pistons added, “And try to be better.”
The Detroit Pistons’ seven-game NBA Finals loss to the Lakers wound tightly around Dantley’s heart. It’s a confession, he says. Shouldn’t be, he adds. People should know. You shouldn’t have to say it. People should know.
“I’ve been in the league 13 years. I’m not supposed to get all caught up in things, right?”
And then, the distance is gone. The sneer is pure contempt. Like some zoom lens has suddenly brought Adrian Dantley so close he can be touched. Up close and personal. A.D. with his guard down. You’d better duck before you get zapped.
By the real Adrian Dantley.
“People don’t know me. They never have. They perceive. They guess. Because I don’t offer a lot of input, they go ahead and make up their mind about me anyway. They think because I’ve been in the league 13 years, losing one game, doesn’t get to me? Man—they don’t know!”
He has the whole NBA Finals on tape, the entire seven-part melodrama that ended three points shy, from his viewpoint. “I haven’t seen Game 7. For some reason, I can’t bring myself to watch it. I’ve seen the other six a couple of times. But the seventh—maybe it’s because it got so close to being real, being ours.
“I’m not bitter—we lost, and you better deal with losing. But usually, I can watch games. I use the VCR a lot. Remember the year before when me and Vinnie [Johnson] knocked our heads together going for that loose ball in the seventh game with the Celtics? I’ve watched that six or seven times. But the seventh the game with the Lakers? Can’t watch it.”
Like his arsenal of offensive moves, which if you could put them on close hangers would fill up the largest closet, Dantley also has a huge repertoire of looks. Someone else might say they’re nothing but a series of scowls, each ranked according to its ability to unnerve whoever gets in the line of sight.
And right now, in a summer interview after the great disappointment, the disappointment he cannot allow himself to even review from the safety of time and distance, the look of Adrian Dantley is strangely unforeboding. No disdain or surly anger or deep moodiness in sight. He somehow seems soft.
Adrian Dantley must excuse himself. Gotta go. Weight training with Jerry. It’s still a month from training camp, four full weeks before the 14th season of Adrian Dantley being too short to play forward in the NBA. But who’s keeping track of time?
“I keep track of time. If I say be there at eight, I don’t mean one minute after eight. That’s why I gotta go.”
Soft had become curt.
Jerry Roussilion is a fireman and a paramedic. He moonlights as Dantley’s strength coach. “I pay him to challenge me. Jerry’s tough; he knows what he’s doing. We’re into circuit training, slow-motion workouts, no rest in between. It only lasts an hour and 20 minutes.”
And yeah, not a minute more, not a minute less. Dantley says physical conditioning is more than a matter of pride or vanity. It’s as much a necessity to playing pro basketball as wearing sneakers.
“The reason I’ve lasted so long, 14 years, is I’m a great player,” Dantley says with a half-smile. “But so is everyone else in the league. Staying ready, getting ready, being physically prepared—that’s not a whole lot to do for the money we get paid. The main thing conditioning does is help you stay healthy. The best player in the league ain’t worth a thing if he’s injured.
“It’s sort of the respect I have for the game. I watch what I eat. I do the weight work. I run. I play ball. It’s respect, I guess. But it’s also my job.”
Dantley still loves the game. All these years, the glorious highs—Montréal and the 1976 Olympics, the gold medal, Notre Dame, playing in the game against UCLA that stopped the Bruins’ 88-game winning streak, leading the NBA in scoring, getting that 20,000th point a couple seasons ago—and the ignoble lows—the three trades before he was 22, the bitter feud with Utah’s Frank Layden, the wrist injury that almost ended his career, that ankle injury that almost knocked him out of the most-fulfilling season of his career—the same thrill triggered by the sound of the ball bouncing is there. It goes back to his childhood, when basketball was his best friend. He was an only child. His father had bolted when Dantley was three years old. That left basketball.
“Yeah, the game’s the same; I still enjoy it. But that’s not why I play it in the NBA. If I just wanted to have fun, I’d go back to the parks and rec centers around D.C. I play for the money. Any player who tells you different, he’s lying. The money’s too good.”
And this time, the look that clicks into place is a shrug. Telling people something so obvious and seeing a reaction of surprise irks Adrian Dantley. Pro means play for money. That’s like the workouts with Jerry Roussilion. They’re hard, but man, when they’re throwing around money, big money, for being able to play hoops, well, who wouldn’t do that?
Dantley shakes his head. Contempt sneaks over his face. Hard to figure.
Dinitri Dantley answers the phone. Her husband’s not there. He’s out running. He’ll be back around dinner. In the background is heard the cry of a baby. Dinitri, a corporate lawyer, is on a leave of absence; she’s a full-time mother now.
“I’ve got a great wife,” says Dantley. “We both realize how important the feeling of family is. I had some great women in my family growing up—my mother, my aunt, my grandmother. Dinitri’s like them. Family is important. And she’s giving up her practice for now to play Mom.”
How about playing Dad?
“Nothing to it. Just care. Care enough, and the kids are going to be okay.”
Can it be that beneath the churlish armory bears the heart of a softie? The question bounces off like a half-hearted screen. He won’t even answer it. Don’t be talking soft.
Talk tough. Talk respect.
“Adrian’s so focused,” Laker coach Pat Riley said. “He’s hungry. You’ll find that a player who’s been on weak teams who suddenly finds himself with a chance to win it all will become very lively and animated. Adrian’s there now. He knows the Pistons are close. He’s doing the extras.”
Respect. The word is one of Dantley’s favorites. Lip service not being his style, he doesn’t care to get into semantics about how he plays the game. He doesn’t care to play mind games as to how good he would have been had he been, say, 6-feet-8 instead of 6-feet-5. He will talk about respect.
“I got it. I really don’t need ink. The other coach will give me all the publicity I need. He knows about me. The other players know. They respect me.”
Playing forward at his size, with this style which is a post-up game, Dantley earns respect simply by surviving. The game has evolved beyond the parameters of 6-feet-5 forwards.
“What am I supposed to do? Quit? I’ve always been small compared to who I was playing opposite. Lying in bed, wishing and praying I’ll grow—that’s a waste of energy.”
Then the flicker of mischief flies past. And the smile is warm as he adds, “I know. I tried.”
So you play the cards you’re dealt. You play your best cards, your wisdom and innate sense, your feel. You develop the finest footwork in the league. You use the head fake as an ax to cut the giants down to size. You smooth and refine moves and shots and hey—all those points didn’t get there by divine intervention, you know.
“I can play,” says Dantley.
Notice he did not say, “I can shoot,” or “I can score.”
“People see me as one-dimensional. At least they used to. I think maybe the playoffs helped get rid of some of that. Maybe people saw how I played Larry Bird in that series and said, ‘Hey, he can play defense.’ Maybe they saw me kick the ball over to the open man when I got double-teamed by everyone, and they said, ‘Hey, he can pass.’
“Maybe they saw me trying to do whatever it took for us to win, and they said, ‘He’s . . . what’s the word? Focused? He’s dedicated.’
“Maybe now people understand me better, what I’m about. I’m a private person. But I’m not off-limits. The media’s scared to ask me things, though. They might be scared because they know I’ll tell them the truth.”
The Layden feud is stiff-armed in mid-question. “Long time ago,” Dantley says. “Let it go.”
There are other traces of bitterness to flush out. Going from Buffalo to Indiana to Los Angeles in his first two seasons, like some sort of transcontinental pinball, took some of the wind out of him. Utah finished the job. Forget about roots. Be ready to go. Rent, don’t buy.
“Don’t take anything for granted. My wife says I get these looks sometimes, and she knows I’m thinking about the old days when I was a kid and there wasn’t a whole lot of money for me and my mother. She says I’m afraid of those days returning, and that’s why I work so hard and prepare myself so much and take care of my money so well. But I think I know those days are never going to come back. Never. Never. Never.”
Dantley says poverty is what you make of it. He always had money in his pocket, he claims. Sometimes as much as a dollar.
“If you took a bath, you got hot water. Whoever was next, though, had to wait about an hour.”
Now his laugh is real. It’s almost a cleansing laugh. “Common sense. I always had it. I knew the streets, stealing an apple, stuff like that. I also knew the bad company.
“I’d be with them right up to the point it was time to go good or bad. That’s when Adrian would take it on home. I still see some of those people. They’re still on the street. I’m still making good decisions.”
Now, he’s in his 13th season. No change.
“My body can still do all the things that it used to. I do need more stretching time, more time to get warmed up. But I’m still the same player on the court.”
And off the court? Do the younger Pistons, other players, treat him as some sort of roundball Yoda? John Salley, for one, refers to Dantley as “the Teacher.”
“If someone asks me questions, I answer. I don’t go offering free advice. Nobody likes to be preached to.”
But just once, A.D., what’s the secret?
“Discipline. Keep yourself and your goals in the same tunnel. Don’t see anything else. Back when I was hanging out with the worst people in D.C., I still had my goals. I knew when it was time to leave them alone.
“People don’t think I have fun. People don’t know. I pick my spots. I’ve been on the rim doing chin-ups, shooting hook shots from half-court, giggling and laughing and acting silly. I have fun. I laugh. I enjoy myself. Just like eating. I watch my diet—low fats and lots of fish. But when we beat Boston and made it into the Finals, that night I went home and ate a whole apple pie.”
His laugh vibrates. “I pick my spots. But the next day, I ran hard, working that stuff outta my system. I kept my tunnel vision. I always do.”
And after the loss in Game 7 to the Lakers? Where did he go? What did he do?
“That one hurt. We’re close, but that’s all. It’s history. I had a basketball camp in Utah I did. Then I went fishing.”
Catch anything?
“I don’t know. I don’t care. I just needed some time. That one hurt. It’s funny, the series with the Lakers is probably the highlight of my basketball life so far. And it’s also the one thing I can’t deal with yet. We gotta get that ring to make it totally satisfying.”
Reminded that close doesn’t count in fishing, Dantley smiled and said, “Yeah. Now we gotta catch the big one.” This time, the laugh is gentle. The walls are down. Adrian Dantley, venerable and vulnerable. Still too small to play forward in the NBA. Suddenly bigger, more life-like. A man climbs into the tunnel for the 13th time. How many more?
“If we win it all, there’s another tunnel. You always have goals.”
From Way Downtown 