DavidStern wrote:drza wrote:1) Adrian Dantley, Ricky Davis and Mark Blount were among the most negative impacts in both measures.
In Dantley's case numbers are skewed, because data is from 3 AD's seasons including two of his last 3 in the NBA.
And of course in most of these games he was replaced by Rodman, so it also affected the results.
Good points.
I question Dantley's poor reputation. I know his stats look suspect when Utah essentially sucked with him putting up enormous production. He DID work slow, and it did bog down offenses at times.
However, when he went to Detroit in 1987, the team didn't crash. In fact, they improved slightly and almost made it to the NBA Finals. Dantley was an efficient 20 ppg second option in the playoffs for them.
The next year's version of Detroit- possibly the best version considering who they beat this year and how they were constructed- got to the Finals and were basically good enough to be champs. They were right there with Dantley once again as a 20 ppg scorer on excellent efficiency as the second option. They had the sixth best offense in the league in the regular season.
Now, I know what happens next. Dantley gets traded mid-season and Detroit ends up with 63 wins and wins the title in 1989.
My question is this: should what happened in 1988 put to rest the notion that Dantley was bad for teams (at least relative to his stats)? His stats took a hit- though were still very good- and he was the second option on a team that almost won a championship.
I remember Warspite telling me Dantley was valuable for Detroit because the majority of the time when he used Piston offensive possessions, the result yielded allowed Detroit to set up their vaunted defense in the half-court. Now, all efficient scorers have that effect, but Dantley was very efficient. Combine great efficiency with his style (low-post or deeper mid-post, which meshed nicely with Laimbeer and created an inverted offense) and penchant for drawing fouls at ridiculous rates (disregard the efficiency advantage of the fouls drawn, and think about the stoppage of time and the physics of what that does on the court), and it would appear Dantley probably could be a great piece on the right team.
He found that right team in Detroit. They just came up short in 1988, against the Showtime Lakers. No shame in that.
What kind of credit does Dantley deserve? How much does Dantley's successful seasons with Detroit change the way you see him or his prior season, if at all? Did he actually change gears a la Paul Pierce in 2008, or was the decrease in stats and simultaneous increase in Detroit's level of play attributable to other factors such as the growth and improvement of a balanced squad?
