Adrian Dantley alltime offensively and vs Durant

[migya]

Below is footage posted by 70sfan in the Game footage thread, props to you.

Watch on YouTube

I think Dantley was a monster offensively in a number of different ways, posting up, midrange and to a lesser extent taking it to the basket but still very effective particularly drawing fouls.

How does he rate alltime in scoring? How does he compare to the greats in scoring.

The comparison I want to make here is with Durant. Comparing scoring and scoring repertoire.

Post the stats yourselves.

I think with Dantley's diverse scoring game, including the very valuable and seemingly ignored, player's effectiveness drawing fouls, make him a better scorer overall.

[One_and_Done]

Dantley was an offensive monster. No 3s though, which is a problem in today's game.

[tsherkin]

Dantley was an offensive monster. No 3s though, which is a problem in today's game.

81-84 (his 30+ ppg seasons), he posted 63.7% TS. 62.2, 63.1, 66.1 and 65.2%.

So you're looking at a dude who was at +4, +5, +8 and +7% rTS without taking threes...

[migya]

Dantley was an offensive monster. No 3s though, which is a problem in today's game.

81-84 (his 30+ ppg seasons), he posted 63.7% TS. 62.2, 63.1, 66.1 and 65.2%.

So you're looking at a dude who was at +4, +5, +8 and +7% rTS without taking threes...

I can't think of anyone with that efficiency anywhere near that scoring ability.

[lessthanjake]

My main concern with Dantley is that his offensive heights came on some bad teams. The numbers are super impressive, but sometimes teams don’t exactly try their hardest against teams that are pretty bad. He was still good before and after that (when he was on good or great teams), but I’m not certain if the true heights could’ve happened on a good team.

[tsherkin]

My main concern with Dantley is that his offensive heights came on some bad teams. The numbers are super impressive, but sometimes teams don’t exactly try their hardest against teams that are pretty bad. He was still good before and after that (when he was on good or great teams), but I’m not certain if the true heights could’ve happened on a good team.

Utah was a 45-win team in 84, 9th-best O in the league. Dantley was at 30.6 ppg that season. 41 wins the year after, 26.6 ppg. 42 the year after at 29.8.

His scoring seemed to work whether the team was winning or not. Which, to be fair, is a bit the rub with a guy like him. His possessions? Astonishingly efficient. Not really driving team offense, though. He only used a little more than a quarter of team possessions while he was on the floor, wasn't hugely turnover-prone and was outstandingly efficient. But he wasn't a primary playmaker by any means.

The team around him sucked a lot, but you'd expect that kind of scoring to correlate a little more with winning and they were absolute trash from 80-83. Now, in 83 particularly, he only played 22 games, though that was the highest win total they'd had since his arrival. They were 9-13 with him (34-win pace), 21-39 without (29-win pace), so take that for what it's worth.

[70sFan]

What I can say for certain is that Dantley is so much more fun to watch than Durant that I don't care about the difference in value between them.

[tsherkin]

What I can say for certain is that Dantley is so much more fun to watch than Durant that I don't care about the difference in value between them.

Dantley's fun to watch, isn't he?

[ty 4191]

Dantley was an offensive monster. No 3s though, which is a problem in today's game.

81-84 (his 30+ ppg seasons), he posted 63.7% TS. 62.2, 63.1, 66.1 and 65.2%.

So you're looking at a dude who was at +4, +5, +8 and +7% rTS without taking threes...

I can't think of anyone with that efficiency anywhere near that scoring ability.

Looks like prime Oscar Robertson and prime Reggie Miller contend for that title, roughly. Oscar, without the threes, of course.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1afojrJqsES8vRBmmyKeQ9-5TZCgp-Zh18XNg41wUL_Y/edit#gid=0

[lessthanjake]

My main concern with Dantley is that his offensive heights came on some bad teams. The numbers are super impressive, but sometimes teams don’t exactly try their hardest against teams that are pretty bad. He was still good before and after that (when he was on good or great teams), but I’m not certain if the true heights could’ve happened on a good team.

Utah was a 45-win team in 84, 9th-best O in the league. Dantley was at 30.6 ppg that season. 41 wins the year after, 26.6 ppg. 42 the year after at 29.8.

His scoring seemed to work whether the team was winning or not. Which, to be fair, is a bit the rub with a guy like him. His possessions? Astonishingly efficient. Not really driving team offense, though. He only used a little more than a quarter of team possessions while he was on the floor, wasn't hugely turnover-prone and was outstandingly efficient. But he wasn't a primary playmaker by any means.

The team around him sucked a lot, but you'd expect that kind of scoring to correlate a little more with winning and they were absolute trash from 80-83. Now, in 83 particularly, he only played 22 games, though that was the highest win total they'd had since his arrival. They were 9-13 with him (34-win pace), 21-39 without (29-win pace), so take that for what it's worth.

Yeah, I know they were at least okay in one or two of those years. Which mutes the force of my point a bit, but I don’t think teams generally even play a 45-win team as hard as they do a really good team. But yeah, that 1983-1984 season is the best evidence for Dantley IMO.

[tsherkin]

Looks like prime Oscar Robertson and prime Reggie Miller contend for that title, roughly. Oscar, without the threes, of course.

Reggie doesn't really come close in volume, though. Leastwise in the regular season. Come the playoffs, he had a couple of first-round series where he was just completely on fire from 3 and averaged around 30, but generally speaking, volume scoring wasn't what Reggie did. And certainly not with the relentless consistency Dantley managed.

Oscar didn't hit Dantley levels of efficiency, but he was a 56% TS guy in the 60s and the first half of the 70s, so that relative TS% was huge. He was a +6.8% rTS guy over his career, but +8.6% in the 60s. Fairly revolutionary in that respect. Wilt was a +7.2% rTS guy on his career, +6.2% in the 60s, +14.9% over his final two seasons when he was making a point of it on lower volume, +4.9% when he was scoring 30+ ppg. Which is wild, but it throws some context here. Oscar with a 35% 3ball and maintaining his draw rate would be pretty competitive in today's environment without too much change, as far as volume/efficiency and such.

[tsherkin]

Yeah, I know they were at least okay in one or two of those years. Which mutes the force of my point a bit, but I don’t think teams generally even play a 45-win team as hard as they do a really good team. But yeah, that 1983-1984 season is the best evidence for Dantley IMO.

I mean, I think we are close to on the same page, just coming to the same endpoint from a different road. I don't think Dantley got in the way of winning with his offense, I believe he didn't facilitate great team offense because he wasn't really doing much for anyone else on the team. You put him next to a properly great guard, and you'll see some different results, I suspect. Dantley's problems were a little more with defense and rebounding.

And yeah, while an elite team might not get up for a 45-win squad quite as much, he was enough of a threat that if you didn't defend him, you could be in trouble. So for example in 1981, Utah won 28 games. They won 23 of those when Dantley scored 30+, and 9 of 10 when he scored 40+. There's a similar theme in other years. 21-25 when he scored 30+ in 82, and they won 25 on the season. I could go on, but you see the theme. They were 9-13 in 83 when he played, 7-6 when he scored 30+.

In 1984, they were 32-15 when he scored 30+. They won 45 games that year. Instead of Jeff Wilkins, James Hardy and Ben Poquette, they had Mark Eaton, Thurl Bailey and Rich Kelly. I mean, Wilkins was playing 20 mpg off the bench, but you get the idea. Eaton actually joined the team the year before. He led the league in blocks per game for the first time in 84 and represented a large upgrade, which is also why you see some mitigation in terms of the team winning without Dantley.

In 85, they brought Stockton aboard. Dantley only played 55 games that year, but the Jazz (who won 41 games) were 28-27 when he did play, and 14-7 when he scored 30+. That's another good example of his offense scaling well as team quality improved around him.

In 86, they added Karl Malone, who became a starter very quickly. They were 38-38 when Dantley played (76 GP), 28-18 when he scored 30+.

Lost in this specific threshold is that they tended to win more when he scored more. 40+, that winning percentage is higher every season. So when you let Dantley go off, the Jazz tended to win. And they were winning more and more as the team improved around him.


70sFan can probably speak more to this, but the Jazz were not good around him and of course, Dantley was no kind of defensive anchor or anything like that, nor a facilitator, so he had trouble really pushing his team forward. But keep in mind that MJ's first couple of teams won 38 (rookie), 30 (played 18 games, started 7, they were 9-9 when he played, 5-2 when he started; they added Oakley and Paxson), 40 (haha, they had Ben Poquette) and then finally 50 games (they added Pippen and Grant that year).

Just some food for thought while we discuss what Dantley does and does not mean to a team's success rate, you know?

[penbeast0]

Dantley was an offensive monster. No 3s though, which is a problem in today's game.

81-84 (his 30+ ppg seasons), he posted 63.7% TS. 62.2, 63.1, 66.1 and 65.2%.

So you're looking at a dude who was at +4, +5, +8 and +7% rTS without taking threes...

I can't think of anyone with that efficiency anywhere near that scoring ability.

No one else in his era was shooting 3's. Even by the end of his scoring prime, 84, the TEAM that shot the most 3's in the league averaged less than 4/game! And that team was actually Utah, as Darrell Griffith had aged out of his Dr. Dunkenstein days into the league's primary 3 point specialist for at least one year, leading the league in 3PA, 3PM, and 3pt%. Which does imply that Dantley had some gravity.

Best comp I've always thought is Barkley without the rebounding (slightly less volume actually but on better teams). 5 years of >300 TS ADD v. 3 years of >350 TS Add. Chuck did it by physically abusing opponents, Dantley more with guile and misdirection, but in terms of pure scoring efficiency without the corresponding spacing effect, they are amazing (and yes, fun to watch).

[LukaTheGOAT]

I prefer Durant as a scorer. I think he is a better playmaker which does help in keep defenders honest. He's better from 3. If you look at his midrange numbers, he is in contention for GOAT midrange scorer. No we don't have numbers for Dantley, but I doubt an argument could be made for Dantley to be a clearly better scorer than Durant in that range.

This chart is from March 2023

Read on Twitter

[Samurai]

What I can say for certain is that Dantley is so much more fun to watch than Durant that I don't care about the difference in value between them.

Not fun if you were rooting for the team he was playing against! You can only yell "STOP FOULING HIM!" at the TV so often before you lose your voice.

[tsherkin]

I prefer Durant as a scorer. I think he is a better playmaker which does help in keep defenders honest. He's better from 3. If you look at his midrange numbers, he is in contention for GOAT midrange scorer. No we don't have numbers for Dantley, but I doubt an argument could be made for Dantley to be a clearly better scorer than Durant in that range.

This chart is from March 2023

Read on Twitter

Jordan's 97 season was absurd.

[ty 4191]

What I can say for certain is that Dantley is so much more fun to watch than Durant that I don't care about the difference in value between them.

70's, it can't a coincidence that Dantley's massive scoring years were all with Utah, before Karl Malone got there IIRC. Without looking in depth at rosters and knowing roles....what's the story with that and his scoring?

[wojoaderge]

What I can say for certain is that Dantley is so much more fun to watch than Durant that I don't care about the difference in value between them.

70's, it can't a coincidence that Dantley's massive scoring years were all with Utah, before Karl Malone got there IIRC. Without looking in depth at rosters and knowing roles....what's the story with that and his scoring?

That's the story

[One_and_Done]

Dantley was a very underrated player who gets too much crap. The Pistons didn't win the title because he was traded. They lost because Isiah Thomas was playing on one ankle in 1988, and the Lakers still had enough left in the tank to get over the line in 7 games (by 3 points in game 7). The next year the Lakers were year older, and Thomas wasn't literally hobbling down the court. For all the people made him out to be a hero for playing on that ankle and putting up lot of points in game 6, his inability to move was a huge defensive liability which probably did more harm than good in game 7 once the ankle had time to swell up. Magic was also hurt next year in the finals, so yeh that helped too.

After being traded Dantley actually lost interest in playing before long, and retired, which was a shame because it allowed people to forget bout him and malign him for the Pistons failure to get over the top which was absurd. He made 6 all-star teams, 2 all-nba 2nd teams, got MVP votes 5 times including being as high as 7th place, and led 2 Utah teams to the 2nd round of the playoffs while having some other minor postseason success prior to that. He then went to Detroit and was one of the best players on a contender 3 years in a row. I'd call that a good representation of where his value was.

That said, Dantley can't shoot 3's. That's big disadvantage today, so he's not going to do well in a comparison with Durant. That's the context that is vital.

[DNice68]

What I can say for certain is that Dantley is so much more fun to watch than Durant that I don't care about the difference in value between them.

Watching a 6’4, 6’5 guy in Dantley score the way he does is a thing of beauty!