Prior to the 1984-85 season, Dantley, the NBA Comeback Player of the Year after a wrist injury the season before, held out for a bigger contract, with GM/coach Layden doing the wrangling with legendary agent David Falk. Layden calls it "a summer of brain damage that I had."

The next season, Layden sent Dantley home from a road trip and fined him 30 pieces of silver, a biblical fee, for talking back. In the locker room after a win at Phoenix, Layden had stormed at Malone for missing foul shots.

"Adrian said something to defend him, which was all right, and he and I got in it. I think even Thurl Bailey was involved. He said something about, 'Hey, we won the game.' And I said it isn't about winning this game, it's about what we're going to do on some other night against a better team.

"If I had it to do over again, I wouldn't have done it," Layden said recently. "Malone was in his development stage. I thought, 'Well, I can't have this happen.' Again, I probably should have handled it differently."

In retrospect, he wouldn't have fought so hard about the holdout, either, because ownership later gave in.

"I was given the impression that we were broke, and I ran the organization as if it was my money," Layden said. "Whatever happened, I'll take blame for because it was new to me. I think I overreacted. I should have made it work, and I didn't."

Layden was coaching at Niagara University in New York when he first learned of Dantley, playing in high school for Layden's friend, Wootten. Layden followed Dantley's career at Notre Dame through his gold medal with the Olympic team to his leaving early to play for the Buffalo Braves.

"He had come up to my camp," Layden said.

So when he traded to get Dantley, nothing the young man did surprised him.

"The best years of his professional career were with the Jazz," Layden said. "Wilt Chamberlain said he was the best pivot man he ever saw because of his footwork. Dantley's ability to get position and use a defensive guy on him — he was able to take advantage of that."

Layden credits Wootten: "(Dantley) had very good coaching, and he took advantage of it. And he had a strict mother who made him do his ABCs so he got through school, and to his credit, he went back and got his degree at Notre Dame."

Layden most remembers how Dantley wanted the ball at the end of games.

"And I always thought, 'Good,' because if he got fouled, that was like money in the bank, and he was going to execute, and he was going to help you win the game. He was the ultimate pro in that respect.

"A lot of guys, they don't want the ball at the end of the game."