Finally 4 Dantley: Coveted honor comes tonight

When Jazz owner Larry H. Miller delivered the arguably much-overdue news, what passed through Adrian Dantley's mind was time.

The time that has come and gone since Dantley last played in Utah, and in the NBA.

The time that finally would be his.

The time it took for Miller to come to his senses, let bygones be bygones and bestow an accolade — retirement of Dantley's No. 4 Jazz jersey, which will happen at halftime of tonight's game at EnergySolutions Arena — that so many of the now 51-year-old's contemporaries feel should have come long, long ago.

"I really didn't think that much of it," Dantley said, "because it had been so long.

"It was so long," he added, "it was like a numb feeling."

Now, though, the man who breathed life into a franchise on a respirator will be recognized for a career whose ample good times are interspersed with just enough controversy that it took Miller more than a decade-and-a-half to make the much-awaited call.

It's sweet that it came, indeed, for Dantley, though one can't help but sense the bitterness that's built over all these years.

It emerges as the scoring sensation discusses the delay and gets to the root of what those he once played against question with decided befuddlement.

"You're kind of wondering what took so long," Basketball Hall of Famer Clyde "The Glide" Drexler said shortly after word of Miller's decision spread back in February. "I mean, he certainly was the type of player that you could shine a light on and say, 'This is how you're supposed to play, this is how you're supposed to act,"' fellow Hall of Famer Earl "The Pearl" Monroe added. "And he's been nothing but a model citizen. So, I can't imagine why it's taken this long."

But Dantley knows.

Oh, he knows.

And, no, it's not because of the time former Jazz coach and general manager Frank Layden fined him a Biblically symbolic 30 pieces of silver for alleged Judas-like behavior.

That incident, in review: