Signed
COMPLETED
Adrian Dantley
One collector is trying to find a single signature from every man who ever played for the Jazz — all 370 of them, from the 1974 New Orleans team to today. For many of them, this page is the only one on the internet. Here is Adrian Dantley: what he did on the floor, a few things most people never knew, and every card that carries his name. If you have a better example of his signature, or a story about it, the note at the foot of this page still stands.
From DeMatha Catholic to Notre Dame — where as a freshman he helped end UCLA's 88-game winning streak — Dantley led the 1976 Olympic champions in scoring, won Rookie of the Year in Buffalo, and landed in Utah in a 1979 trade for Spencer Haywood. There he became one of the purest scorers the game has known: two scoring titles, four straight seasons over 30 points, 57 against Chicago in 1982, and all six of his All-Star selections.
A feud with coach Frank Layden — including a symbolic fine of 30 dimes — ended the Utah years in an August 1986 trade. Dantley finished his economics degree in 1978, spent 2003–11 as a Nuggets assistant coach, and entered the Hall of Fame in 2008.
HOW HE CAME & WENTLos Angeles had no room for two starting small forwards and chose Jamaal Wilkes, so on September 13, 1979 it shipped him to Utah for Spencer Haywood — a deal the LA Times later called lopsided. Seven seasons and a feud with Frank Layden later, the Jazz traded him to Detroit.
- Full name
- Adrian Delano Dantley
- Utah Jazz tenure
- 1979–86
- Position
- Forward
- Born
- 1955, Washington, D.C.
- Height
- 6′5″ (196 cm)
- Weight
- 209 lb (95 kg)
- College
- Notre Dame
- Drafted
- 1976, 1st round (No. 6), Buffalo
With the Jazz
ADRIAN DANTLEY · 1979–86 · PER GAME| SEASON | TEAM | G | MPG | PPG | RPG | APG | SPG | BPG | FG% | 3P% | FT% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1979–80 | UTA | 68 | 39.3 | 28.0 | 7.6 | 2.8 | 1.4 | 0.2 | .576 | .000 | .842 |
| 1980–81 | UTA | 80 | 42.7 | 30.7 | 6.4 | 4.0 | 1.4 | 0.2 | .559 | .286 | .806 |
| 1981–82 | UTA | 81 | 39.8 | 30.3 | 6.3 | 4.0 | 1.2 | 0.2 | .570 | .333 | .792 |
| 1982–83 | UTA | 22 | 40.3 | 30.7 | 6.4 | 4.8 | 0.9 | 0.0 | .580 | — | .847 |
| 1983–84 | UTA | 79 | 37.8 | 30.6 | 5.7 | 3.9 | 0.8 | 0.1 | .558 | .250 | .859 |
| 1984–85 | UTA | 55 | 35.8 | 26.6 | 5.9 | 3.4 | 1.0 | 0.1 | .531 | — | .804 |
| 1985–86 | UTA | 76 | 36.1 | 29.8 | 5.2 | 3.5 | 0.8 | 0.1 | .563 | .091 | .791 |
| JAZZ TOTAL | 7 SEASONS | 461 | 38.8 | 29.6 | 6.2 | 3.7 | 1.1 | 0.1 | .562 | .185 | .818 |
Season by season, regular season, with this franchise only. More info: Basketball-Reference ↗ · Wikipedia ↗
Did you know
ADRIAN DANTLEY · 10 NOTES- His No. 4 hangs in the rafters in Salt Lake City.
- NBA Rookie of the Year in 1977, before he ever wore a Jazz jersey.
- Left Utah in a genuine feud with coach Frank Layden — after one clash Layden fined him 30 dimes, a pointed Judas joke about betrayal — and was traded to Detroit for Kelly Tripucka and Kent Benson, both also on this checklist.
- He was the leading scorer on the 1976 US Olympic team that won gold in Montreal.
- His 28 free throws in a 46-point game against Houston in January 1984 tied Wilt Chamberlain's single-game NBA record.
- In retirement he worked as a school crossing guard outside a Silver Spring middle school, explaining that he had simply gotten bored sitting at home.
- At 71 he still officiates more than 200 recreational and high school games a year in Montgomery County, Maryland.
- In ninth grade he scored 99 on a history test when nobody else topped 80, and coach Morgan Wootten quizzed him in front of the class until convinced.
- Six credits short when he turned pro, he kept a promise to his family and returned to Notre Dame for an economics degree in 1978.
- The long freeze with the Jazz finally thawed in January 2023, when he came back to Salt Lake City for the organization before All-Star weekend.
All photographs
2 PHOTOS