An End to the Chopped Liver Travesty

Nuggets Assistant Adrian Dantley finally gets his due

By Chuck Mindenhall

Salt Lake City – The Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield is likely to be the next to induct Adrian Dantley — which would have been awkward if the team that he gave an identity to hadn’t at least retired his jersey first. The proverbial elephant in the corner was addressed when Dantley was honored by the Utah Jazz before a sellout crowd at EnergySolutions Arena.

One of the words that was repeated throughout the halftime ceremony to retire Dantley’s jersey was “credibility.” Utah Jazz owner Larry Miller (still somewhat reluctantly) echoed what Dantley’s former coach Frank Layden and fellow Jazz great John Stockton had already said, that A.D. brought a foundering team that had just relocated to Utah credibility by averaging nearly 30 points a game (from 1979-86) en-route to clinching the first of 21 straight playoff appearances.

Salt Lake City rejoiced, the current Nuggets and Jazz stood in reverence, and Adrian “What Am I, Chopped Liver?” Dantley finally got his due.

At halftime of the Nuggets/Jazz game, there was a sustained standing ovation for the Denver Nuggets assistant coach as the Jazz played a video clip on the jumbotron of Dantley & Friends. Everybody was at once nostalgic who remembered the 6-foot-5 “ballerina” who posted up among the giants, the king of the old Salt Palace, the window wiper on the offensive glass. Those who weren’t around back then noted the knee-length socks and short shorts with curious envy. There were nice words from George “Iceman” Gervin, Rick Barry and Dominique Williams (who said he “feared” going against Dantley), and then Stockton, Layden, his high school coach Morgan Wootten took turns on the mic — all while Adrian looked on like a man who’d just swallowed a chickadee (spotlights aren’t — and never were — his strong suit).

But perhaps the most interesting (and ultimately anticlimactic) moment was when Miller, who received a lukewarm response from a crowd that was otherwise buzzing, gave his long-awaiting nod to Dantley as a Jazz legacy. Miller and the Jazz brass had kept a merciless grudge towards Dantley because, at least in part, A.D. held out in a contract dispute in 1984. That’s 1984, as in Van Halen 1984, as in 23 years ago.

That and it was mentioned (probably correctly) that A.D. was standoffish, unsociable and unknowable — as if these things should prevent his jersey hanging under the banner of heaven. Miller seemed proud (or perhaps relieved) that Dantley had “opened up” with him. Even the fans remember the divisive details as, when Dantley thanked his agent David Faulk (one in a messenger’s scroll of gratitudes that he dished out like dimes), a small faction of the crowd booed — remembering back to the dispute that has kept him out of the rafters until now. It’s an acute crowd in Utah.

But Dantley was lighthearted about it.

“They still remember,” said Dantley, laughingly. “They still remember.”

Most remember the player for being a scoring machine. Back in the day, Dantley got to the charity stripe like nobody’s business (he once made 28 free throws in a single game), and groped the basketball like a PBA player rubs off his bowling ball. His shots were nearly unblockable. He was the “cornerstone” of the franchise, and one of the more memorable players in that he possessed both grace and doggedness in the paint. He played in 461 games for the Jazz, scored 13,635 points with a .562 shooting percentage, and added 2,845 rebounds. He also led the league in High Church posture from 1982-86 with an Oxford man’s straightness of spine (seldom reported on). He deserves to be alongside “Pistol” Pete Maravich, Mark Eaton, Darrell Griffith, Frank Layden, John Stockton and Karl Malone — and in some cases, he deserves it more than they deserved did. Without Dantley, whom Wootten said, “if God doesn’t make perfect players, he came awfully close with Adrian,” some of those others wouldn’t have been as effective.

“Good things come to those who wait,” A.D. said when it was his turn to speak. He then did what all honest chaps do in a situation like this — throw some of his players under the bus. He called out Marcus Camby and Carmelo Anthony whom he said, for the last four years “every time we visit Utah give tell me that I wasn’t any good because my jersey isn’t in the rafters.”

Now A.D. won’t have to explain himself to the younger generation, because his #4 is hung up forever next to the other Jazz greats. And that is how it should be. That is justice.

Just as he was finishing his speech, Dantley, sensing that everything between he and Miller is now copasetic, said that once Jerry Sloan hangs up the whistle he expects an interview for the head coaching job. The crowd roared its approval. Miller laughed nervously. And wasn’t that just like classic Dantley, to get hacked by a giant, and yet still have the audacity to get the shot off anyway?

Back to the charity stripe, A.D.