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RETIRED · No. 4

Forward · 1979–86

Adrian Dantley

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 after taking 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: 1956, Washington, D.C.
Height: 6′5″ (196 cm)
Weight: 209 lb (95 kg)
College: Notre Dame
Drafted: 1976, 1st round (No. 6), Buffalo

Signatures in the archive

2017-18 Absolute Memorabilia Precision Signatures #32 /99
2019-20 Spectra Illustrious Legends /49 Interstellar Prizm
1979-80 Utah Jazz Team-Signed Posterboard 11x14
1980-81 Utah Jazz Team-Signed Poster 8x10.5

No photograph of this signature is online yet.

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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 · 11 NOTES

Scored 73 points against Houston on 4 January 1984 — still the highest single-game total in franchise history.
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 thirty pieces of silver, a pointed joke about betrayal — and was traded to Detroit for Kelly Tripucka, who is 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 the 73-point game tied Wilt Chamberlain's single-game NBA record, a mark that stood for over 42 years.
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.