Adrian Dantley may not be done with Utah yet

With his No. 4 finally being retired Wednesday in EnergySolutions Arena some 21 years after he played his last game for Utah, Dantley said he can now feel comfortable enough to walk up to Jazz owner Larry H. Miller and say "hi."

And Dantley also used the occasion to hint that he wants a job with the Jazz.

Jerry Sloan and Phil Johnson aren't going to coach forever, Dantley said to Miller in his afternoon press conference — which included Miller, former Jazz owner Sam Battistone, DeMatha High School coach Morgan Wootten, former Jazz GM/coach/president Frank Layden and Dantley's wife, Dnitri — and that he would like an interview for the coaching position once Sloan and Johnson move on.

Dantley is an assistant coach for the Denver Nuggets who in the last week acted as their head coach when George Karl spent time with his son during surgery. Dantley has said that someday he wants to become a head coach.

He also said several times that he loved his seven seasons in Utah, during which he averaged 29.6 points a game, still the franchise record, and that he wishes he could have spent more years playing with John Stockton and Karl Malone here.

Dantley was traded to Utah in 1979 and was traded to Detroit in 1986. Stockton, who was at the door of the press conference listening, was drafted by the Jazz in 1984 and Malone in '85.

"A.D" said he wished he'd have been a better communicator when he was with the Jazz and said he might have had those extra years with Stockton and Malone and might have finished his career here if he had been.

Miller expressed regret over his own "foot-dragging" on getting Dantley's number retired. Miller said he was trying to support the coach in the incident when Dantley stood up for a young Malone, who drew Layden's wrath for missing foul shots, and an angered Layden sent Dantley home from Phoenix for the insubordination. Miller said he hadn't understood that such blowups happen and aren't as important as he took that one to be. It took him until five or six years ago to come around to thinking the number retirement needed to happen.

The stoic Dantley opened up during his daytime luncheon and press conference and admitted it was "an emotional day for me. I don't get emotional. I can't believe the way I'm acting," he said.