MVPs: 0. Finals MVPs: 0. All-NBA 1st Team: 0. 2nd Team: 2. All Star: 6. MVP: 0.
Defensive POY: 0. All-Defense Teams: 0.
#18 Career PPG.
Points Champ: 2.
Career Averages: 24 PPG/ 6 RPG/ 3 APG/ 1 SPG/ .2 BPG/ .540 eFG%/ .818 FT%.
Best Season: 31/ 6/ 4/ .8/ .1/ .558/ .859 (1983-84).
Postseason Averages: 21 PPG/ 5 RPG/ 2 APG/ .9 SPG/ .1 BPG/ .525 eFG%/ .796 FT%.
Best Postseason: 32/ 7/ 4/ .9/ .1/ .504/ .863 (1984).
Championships: 0. Runner-ups: 1 (#2 player).
Why he's below Russell Westbrook: I actually had these two players switched before Westbrook and the Wizards got hot and made the playoffs. Like Westbrook, Dantley was a player with big numbers who rarely seemed to make his team better. Dantley doesn't have any glaring negatives to his game like Westbrook does, but he also doesn't have the MVP or 1st Team All-NBAs that Westbrook does. Voters at the time saw Dantley's effect on a team more than his scoring numbers and didn't appreciate his abilities as much as I'm about to.
Why he's above the rest: Dantley was one of the most effective scorers in league history, and though he was never able to use that ability to lead teams to deep playoff runs, I blame that more on 80s coaches for not knowing how to use an efficient scorer. His one Finals appearance came with the Pistons when he wasn't the team's first option, and I don't think that's a coincidence. He was a talented isolation scorer who was great at getting to the free throw line (led the league in FT made 5 times). On a team where he's the first option, he could kill the flow of an offense, but as an emergency valve who got the ball with 10-12 seconds left on the shot clock, I think he could have been a more valuable player. His career true shooting percentage (which factors free throws made into a player's shooting percentage) is #8 all time, ahead of players like Kevin Durant and Reggie Miller. The only player his height or shorter above him is Stephen Curry. Dantley was a great player who was stuck in the wrong era on the wrong teams. With more luck, he could have been remembered as an all-time great.
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