Adrian Dantley: Beating the Sophomore Jinx, 1978

[Adrian Dantley is often remembered for, well, being a jerk. Selfish to the core. He shot first and passed reluctantly. Or as the late Utah Jazz broadcaster Hot Rod Hundley once said of Dantley’s tenure in Salt Lake, “He would set the stat sheet on the water cooler as he got a drink and kind of glance at it with one eye . . .” 

But Dantley had reason to be selfish or, as he and others from his native Washington, D.C. might say, supremely self-confident. As Hundley also noted, “Dantley was as good a low-post player as I’ve ever seen at his height,” and he’d seen them all. Dantley, posting up defenders inside as a 6-foot-4 small power forward, somehow, someway thrived over 15 NBA seasons, finishing ninth on the all-time scoring list and landing in the Naismith Hall of Fame in 2008.

Back to Dantley’s supreme self-confidence. It came with personality, and you see his good nature in this short article published in the February 1978 issue of Basketball Digest. The Washington Post’s Paul Attner catches up with Dantley in a talkative mood early in his pro career. Dantley’s just been traded from Buffalo to Indiana, where he would play exactly 23 games before the Pacers traded him to the Los Angeles Lakers. In fact, when Attner’s story appeared in Basketball Digest, Dantley had been in L.A. for a couple of months.]

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Adrian Dantley was running “really slow” laps around Washington’s East Potomac Park in June when he first heard about the trade. “The radio said I might be traded to the Washington Bullets,” he said. “I might have broken the mile record getting to my car so I could get home and find out if it was true.”

It wasn’t, and Dantley’s dreams of playing in his hometown were dashed. But not his spirit. “I even liked the weather in Buffalo,” he said. “Maybe it’s because I’m young, and I have a good attitude.”

Nor was that attitude effected, he says, when Buffalo finally did unload him in a surprising deal with Indiana that saw Dantley and Mike Bantam move to the Pacers for Billy Knight. “I was kind of shocked, just because no one has ever traded off the Rookie of the Year that fast,” he said. “But I knew (Buffalo owner) John Y. Brown. We had 22 different players during my stay in Buffalo. He likes to wheel and deal.”

Now Dantley is enjoying life in Indianapolis, playing for his fourth coach in less than two seasons in the league while he learns to adjust to two of the most trigger-happy guards around, Ricky Sobers and John Williamson.

Dantley knew that getting the ball might not be easy at Indiana. But he is still averaging a couple dozen points a game. “Am I getting the ball?” he said while laughing. “Well, let’s say I’m getting it, but not nearly as much as I want it.

“But that’s up to the players and coach. We all have to learn to work together, and we are. This is going to be a good team, and I’m enjoying myself here. But I’d enjoy myself anywhere. That’s the type of person I am.“

Dantley has consistently defied predictions about his future in basketball. He has never been quick enough or big enough to feel he had security in the game, but somehow he has become a standout on every level he has tried. 

“They said I was too slow to be a good pro,” he said. “So I made up my mind I’d be Rookie of the Year, and I got it. I’m not like other players. I go around playing this game my own way.” 

This, he says, is his style:

“People say, I won’t get my shots here [in Indiana]. Well, I’m not like a jump shooter who can only do only one thing—take jump shots. There are other ways to get the ball and score. I’ve been hitting the offensive boards real hard, I’ve been running the fastbreak, filling the lanes, hustling.

“I want the ball because I know I can score, especially in crucial situations. Anyone who has confidence in himself wants to take the important shots. And my shots are different from other players. I just don’t get my points from field goals. I’ve already been to the free-throw line 47 times in four games. I’m using fakes to get a lot of my points.”

Dantley feels he’s gained respect throughout the league, pointing out the people who have guarded him so far this season—”people like Bobby Jones and Kermit Washington. They are all power forwards, the big strong guys. I think I’m not really a small forward, but a small power forward.

“No 6-5 forward in the league plays like I do. They don’t go to the boards and take the beating I take. That’s why I laugh when they say I’m slow. Why run fast when I don’t have to? I pace myself and use my energy properly,” says the former Notre Damer.

In a recent game, the Bullets shifted Dantley’s pace a bit. They put Bob Dandridge, not Elvin Hayes, on him and hoped Dandridge’s quickness and experience would neutralize the Indiana forward.

“We’re trying to blend four new starters in the lineup, and that takes time. So I really don’t know how good we could be. But the potential is there. I know I feel like a rookie all over again. I have to prove myself to these fans, just like I had to prove myself to the Buffalo fans. 

“And besides, I came into the season scared. Really. All I heard in the offseason was, ‘Watch out for the sophomore jinx.’ It worried me. I didn’t want to flop the second time around and have people pointing at me as a failure.”

Dantley is always fearful that no matter how he plays, someone somewhere is not satisfied with him. He uses criticism, both real and imagined, as motivation, which is one reason why he always plays consistently. 

“I’m hungry,” he said. “I’ve got a lot of playing time ahead of me, and I don’t want to get traded much more. You get a reputation if you move around too much.” 

Not even to the Bullets? “Now please, don’t blow this out of proportion, but that’s always been one of my hopes. It’s good to be home, that’s the type of person I am. Maybe one day they’d want me, but by then, I might be too old.”