'I had to trade Adrian': Famous Dantley for Aguirre trade still resonates

Around Valentine's Day in 1989, a trade that no one saw coming--not even the players involved--rocked the NBA.

Last week’s blockbuster Luka Doncic/Anthony Davis trade is still sending shockwaves through the NBA. You simply don’t see trades like that anymore—in any sports league. Especially with the season going on.

Friday is Valentine’s Day. You know what that means.

No, not candy, cards and flowers.

Thirty-six years ago on Feb. 15, Pistons GM Jack McCloskey made the bravest trade I’ve ever seen a FO executive make in Detroit. More than three decades haven’t changed my mind.

But to hear Jack tell it, the Adrian Dantley for Mark Aguirre trade in 1989 wasn’t brave at all. It was, however, necessary.

“Adrian had been having issues for quite some time,” Jack told me circa 2010 in an interview on “The Knee Jerks” podcast. “I implored him to talk to (coach) Chuck (Daly).”

But Dantley didn’t.

Despite a trip to the NBA Finals in 1988 and a stellar record the following season through January, all was not peaceful in Pistons Land.

Dantley’s style of play was grating on his teammates.

McCloskey traded for Dantley in summer 1986, swapping him for forward Kelly Tripucka in a deal with the Utah Jazz. The reasons for the trade were twofold: Tripucka wasn’t happy in his role as sidekick to Isiah Thomas; and Jack was enamored with the ability of the 6’5” Dantley to get to the FT line as a brilliant low post player, despite his size.

But by early-1989, Dantley’s penchant for getting the ball in the Pistons’ half court offense and keeping it forever as the shot clock wound down, annoyed his teammates. They called it “The Black Hole.”

Dantley sensed the tension and became estranged from the Pistons family.

“Go talk to Chuck,” McCloskey told him. But Dantley chose to sulk.

Meanwhile in Dallas, Aguirre and his Mavericks teammates were playing out their own soap opera.

Dick Motta, who coached Aguirre through 1987 in Dallas, had at various times called Aguirre a “coward” and a “jackass.”

And even after Motta was succeeded by John MacLeod, tensions remained high, as Aguirre had repeated conflicts with teammates Rolando Blackman and James Donaldson.

So all was not well in Dallas, either.

I call the trade brave because the stakes were so high.

The ‘88 Pistons lost in the NBA Finals to the Lakers in seven games—a series in which they led 3-2. A “phantom” foul against Bill Laimbeer in the closing seconds of Game 6 will be replayed in infamy in the minds of Pistons fans.

The following season had a sort of “Championship or bust” feeling to it, starting on opening night.

After all, the Pistons’ ascent was done in neat, tidy steps.

First round KO in 1986. ECF in 1987. NBA Finals in 1988.

There was only one more step to take.

The ‘88-89 Pistons were 32-13 and on a six-game winning streak when the team made one of those west coast trips that can be debilitating. And those 10:30 pm ET starts that taxed fans back in Michigan.

Nothing indicated that the Pistons were going to make a trade, much less one of great magnitude.

“Adrian wasn’t happy in Detroit and Mark Aguirre wasn’t happy in Dallas,” McCloskey told me. “I didn’t want to trade Adrian but he didn’t want to be with us, the way things were going on the court.”

But there was no chatter. Even with this being before the internet, there still wasn’t anything in the papers or on the radio or TV that suggested the Pistons would trade Adrian Dantley.

The trade rocked Detroit and Dallas. The ‘88 Mavs had gone all the way to the WCF, but the ‘89 version struggled to play even .500 ball. While their season was going down the drain, the Pistons had their eyes on nothing less than a championship.

The risk was immense, I thought.

Would Aguirre disrupt the vibe in Detroit? Dantley may have been partly estranged, but what is it they say about the devil you know vs. the devil you don’t know?

No worries. The Pistons, led by Laimbeer and Isiah Thomas, took the new Piston to dinner in California.

There, the law was laid down to Aguirre.

“I have heard a lot of bad things about you,” Laimbeer told Aguirre in so many words. “But Isiah is vouching for you, so we’re going to give you the benefit of the doubt.”

Aguirre and Thomas both grew up in Chicago and honed their skills on the playgrounds of the Windy City. Aguirre and Thomas were drafted 1-2 overall, respectively, in 1981.

They were friends off the court.

As for Dantley, despite his sulking, he didn’t take the trade well—at all.

Convinced that the trade was engineered by Thomas—something that Jack McCloskey vehemently denied to me (“I traded Adrian, no one else”)—Dantley to this day doesn’t forgive Isiah. In the past, Dantley has called Thomas “a con man.”

To Dantley, Isiah ushered him out of Detroit so he couldn’t win a championship.

Thomas has long denied that.

Regardless, NBA observers questioned whether Mark Aguirre would accept a lesser role on offense with the Pistons than he had in Dallas. The fears were valid, given Aguirre’s run-ins with Blackman.

But those same observers thought that if any player could make Aguirre get with the program, it was his friend Isiah.

Aguirre was fine in Detroit—sometimes even coming off the bench.

The allure of sipping champagne was too much of a pull for Aguirre to cause any trouble.

The Pistons won back-to-back titles with Aguirre playing about 25 minutes a night, down 10 minutes from his days in Dallas.

As for Dantley, his return to the Palace in March 1989 was famous for some sweet nothings he whispered into Isiah’s ear before the opening tip. Words that Isiah, to this day, won’t reveal.

Dantley played well enough for the Mavs in 1989, averaging about 20 points in 31 games. But he was 34 and was out of the NBA by 1991.

Aguirre stayed with the Pistons through 1993 before finishing his career with one year in LA, playing for the Clippers. Both he and Dantley later became NBA assistant coaches—Aguirre for Thomas with the Knicks.

I still call it a brave trade. The Pistons were in “win now” mode and if the move backfired, maybe there would be no “Bad Boys” championships, much less two.

Again, Trader Jack didn’t see it that way, which sort of disappointed me. How dare he not be an alarmist like me!

“I had to trade Adrian.”

End of story. But not really.