NBA Obsessed takes you into the hit and run game of NBA Basketball.

Adrian Dantley guarding Larry Bird

source newscom

Wow! That is all you can say about a Hall of Fame class including Hakeem Olajuwon, Patrick Ewing, Pat Riley.

But for me there is a double Wow for Adrian Dantley.

Pat Riley had this story about Adrian Dantley and it says it best.

Dantley was playing for the Los Angeles Lakes in the late ’70s, and Riley was the traveling secretary.

It was Riley’s job to assign seating on planes, and he always sat Dantley next to the reticent Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Dantley always wanted another seat, but Riley kept rejecting his request.

“He was the only guy who wasn’t scared of Kareem,” Riley said.

source

Adrian just had a knack for scoring that you can’t teach.

NBA Adrian Dantley factoid - Dantley led Notre Dame in scoring in 1974-75 (30.4 points per game) and 1975-76 (28.6 points per game), while also leading the team in rebounding those two seasons with marks of 10.2 and 10.1 rebounds per game, respectively. He was also the leading scorer on the 1976 US Olympic team that captured the gold medal in Montreal and was drafted sixth overall, by the Buffalo Braves, in the 1976 NBA draft. He became the third Buffalo player in five years to receive the NBA Rookie of the Year Award when he won it after the 1977 season.

Adrian played briefly for my Detroit Pistons (Ok, Bill Davidson is the owner, not me, and he is also going into the Hall of Fame, not me. Go figure, could have been me.).

The Pistons were in their glory years with Isiah Thomas, Bill Laimbeer, and Joe Dumars, but Adrian was so good offensively in the half court that the Pistons would be caught just standing around as Adrian stared his man down and then took off for the hoop with some amazing move that resulted in a basket or foul. The Pistons wanted to run more so Adrian was sent packing and an aging Mark Aguirre was brought in.

As always, any NBA Basketball related comments are welcome.

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NBA Obsessed takes you into the hit and run game of NBA Basketball.

Ray Allen shooting over Rodney Stuckey and Antonio McDyess has had his struggles in the playoffs

Image details: Detroit Pistons v Boston Celtics - Game Five served by picapp.com

Ray Allen for Hall of Fame

Had a friendly discussion with my best friend RonB about the possibility of Ray Allen making the Hall of Fame. My choice is that he is a lock. RonB feels he has to win something. Winning was not done a whole lot in those years with Milwaukee and Seattle.

So for comparison sakes here are the stats.

Reggie Miller will be used as a comparison.

Reggie played for 18 seasons
averaged 18.2 points
scored 25,279 regular season points.
(please note Reggie’s last 3 seasons were subpar at 12.3, 10.0, and 14.8)

Ray Allen has played 13 years (-5 to Reggie)
averaged 21.1 points (+2.9 to Reggie)
scored 18,227 regular season points (-7,052 to Reggie in 5 less years)

Ray scored 1,273 points this past year (down for him). 1,273 X 5 years = 6,365. Putting him very close to Reggie Miller.

Let’s compare that to the player known as the next Reggie Miller, Rip Hamilton.

Rip Hamilton has played 9 years (-9 to Reggie)
averaged 17.9 points (-.3 to Reggie)
scored 12,059 regular season points (-13,220)

Rip scored 1,244 points this past year (down for him). 1,244 X 9 = 11,196. Putting him a few thousand from Reggie Miller.

Reggie Miller is 13th on the NBA All Time scoring list with his 25K points. For comparison purposes Kobe Bryant is 24th with 21,619, AI is 20th with 22.9K, and Shaq is 11th with 26K+. They are still active players on the list.

Ray Allen will move into the top 30 in the next two years with his current pace.
(NBA special note: Kevin Garnett will be in the top 30 early next year!)

The Top 30 NBA scoring list reads like a who’s who of the Hall of Fame.

As always, any NBA Basketball related comments are welcome.

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