YouTube Gold: The Amazing Adrian Dantley
A 6-5 power player was, and remains, pretty unusual.
Adrian Dantley probably should have had a better career than he had, but the career that he had was really pretty great.
In high school, he played for legendary coach Morgan Wooten at DeMatha. As a freshman at Notre Dame, he was critical to upsetting UCLA and ending a phenomenal 88-game win streak.
At 6-5, he slotted in at small forward but earned a lot of him minutes in the post, where he was quicker and smarter than some of his bigger rivals.
In the NBA unfortunately, he wore out his welcome with teams more than once, demanding a bigger role than some were willing to give him.
Dantley played for Buffalo, Los Angeles, Utah, Detroit, Dallas and Milwaukee. In Utah, he got into a running conflict with long-time coach Frank Layden and when he was traded to Detroit, Utah’s GM said that “[w]e knew we had to get rid of him and we were never so happy to get rid of a guy in the history of the franchise.”
He did well with Detroit until Dennis Rodman emerged as a superior player and, hard though it is to believe, a less disruptive player.
Despite all that, Dantley carved out a unique role and did so very much against the odds since one of his legs is two inches shorter than the other.
In retirement, Dantley moved back to Utah and went to work as a crosswalk guard. He said that he appreciates the health insurance and also loves being around the kids.
Not your normal retirement plan, but Dantley never really fit into a box.