As some of you might know, mainly those who have been members of the Pistons Nation message forum, I used to write the site zeke11.com (which no longer is up). It was an Isiah Thomas fan site. There’s a few different reasons why I stopped publishing that site but that’s neither here nor there. Since there isn’t too much going on in Pistons land I deceided to reprint an article I did for the Zeke11 site. It’s a look at the often enigmatic Pistons career of Adrian Dantley with an emphesis on his realtionship with team captian Isiah Thomas.
Pistons’ General Manager Jack McClosky had been coveting Adrian Dantley for two years, but Jazz GM, Frank Layden, wasn’t interested in dealing Dantley until Adrian held out for more money and the two began to fued.
Adrian Dantley came to the Pistons by way of trade on August 21st, 1986 in exchange for forward Kelly Tripucka and center Kent Benson. This was not the first time Dantley was dealt in his NBA career. He saw the “business end” of sports, in 1977 following his rookie year with the Buffalo Braves when he was traded to the Indiana Pacers where he played 23 games before being dealt to the Lakers. He spent the rest of the 1977-78 season in L.A. and played one more there before being again dealt to the Jazz where he stayed 7 seasons, his longest stint of his career.
Dantley enjoyed much individual success as a member of the Utah Jazz. He racked up four consecutive 30 plus points per game years that included two scoring titles to go along with his six All-Star births. But, Dantley did not realize much team success. His Jazz teams didn’t make it into the playoffs until his final two years in Utah, but they could get out of the second round.
Adrian now had a chance to get in Detroit what had eluded him to this point of his NBA career, a World’s Championship. Jack McClosky had been had been drafting and trading for years prior, assembling a team that could eventually overthrow the Celtics reign in the Eastern Conference, and A.D. was his latest prized acquisition. Dantley was a rugged low post player that was brought in to do battle with Boston’s famed front line of Bird, McHale, and Parrish. Continue Reading »
