Charles Barkley: Stats guys "never played the game"

Actually, in terms of sheer stats, Dantley and Aguirre were quite equivalent. It's actually quite an interesting case study since the trade was made at almost exactly midseason.

1988-89 Detroit Pistons Roster and Stats | Basketball-Reference.com

AD took a lot more FTs (which in itself had value by getting opponents deeper in foul trouble) but OTOH Aguirre was an adequate 3PFG shooter and did provide the Pistons a second 3P threat besides Laimbeer while Dantley literally never took a 3.

Ragu's point on future career vs past career is a big one too -- Dantley was 32 and Aguirre 29, a huge difference in NBA career expectations.

But mainly the deal headed off a growing schism between the camps of Isiah (Laimbeer, Mahorn, Rodman as a somewhat loose satellite) and Dantley (Dumars, Salley, Vinnie Johnson) which could have gotten worse if allowed to fester.

 

That statement can stand for just about every player in the NBA in the 1980s and '90s.

 

Really Isiah didn't force the trade himself per se; but Daly and McCloskey realized if they left things as they were the team was likely to divide into two major factions.

Dantley hasn't helped his own case much -- the only contending teams he really played for as a player were led by Isiah, and Dantley's own post-playing career as an end-of-bench third assistant indicates his strategic input doesn't have much to do with building winning teams.

Isiah and Dumars both have had roughly comparable careers as management/coaching figures: a brief burst of reasonable effectiveness (it could be argued Isiah did OK as a GM in Toronto and coaching in Indiana) followed by longer stretches of utter disaster.

 

Knicks fans would kill for Dumars' disasters.

 

They should have had Vinnie Johnson come in and run the team for a few days each month.

 

Ah yes. The killjoys can say what they want but Tiny is in the Hall of Fame and on the NBA's 50th anniversary all-time team.

I'm a lifelong Celtics fan and I have fond memories of him as a C, especially in the 1981 championship season.

 

The killjoys?

 

You're probably well aware, then, that Archibald is in the HOF mainly off his late- career accomplishments with the Celtics.

He's in the HOF because he quit doing things that showed up in the scoring column and instead did things that showed up in advanced-metrics analysis like assist/TO ratio. If he was still throwing up 30 shots a game the Celtics would never have been interested.

He'd still be in the HOF if he had been a 10 ppg/10 apg playmaking PG for the title-contending Cowens-Havlicek Celtics the first 6-8 years of his career instead of scoring 30 for the sad-sack Royals-Kings.

 

Aguirre always had the rep of having a bad attitude, bad on defense, bad teammate.

Dantley had that crazy FG% and FT%.

 

Dantley was known to be quite prickly as well. When he was brought in in a trade for Kelly Tripucka, it was well known in Detroit that Dantley had pretty much worn out his welcome in Utah.
Dantley was smarter than Aguirre and kept most of his temper tantrums out of the media so his public image was better.
Dantley was also a defensive liability (as Tripucka had been) because he was too short to guard 4s and too slow to guard 3s.

 

Oh absolutely. No question about that.