DANTLEY MAKES HIMSELF AT HOME IN THE ITALIAN GAME, LIFESTYLE

By Clare Pedrick

The Washington Post - January 2, 1992

ROME -- Try calling Adrian Dantley in his Milan apartment and the chances are you'll have a tough job reaching him. He may be out lifting weights, practicing with his new teammates or at his Italian lesson.

Dantley, the former DeMatha High basketball star who went on to spend 15 years in the NBA, is taking his new Italian league career seriously.

His children are enrolled in Italian schools and Dantley, signed in September by Breeze Milano, is settling into the culture. He calls Milan "Milano" and occasionally answers "Sì" instead of "Yes," more through habit than affectation.

He's even begun ordering handmade shoes and sweaters. "The clothes here are the best in the world," he said during a recent trip to Rome to play in the all-star game that pitted Italy's best foreign players against the Italian squad that will go to the Olympics in Barcelona.

"And the food. I'm known as a health nut back home, but here the food and especially the desserts are so unbelievable, it's hard to stop eating."

Dantley can afford to indulge in a few luxuries. After months of uncertainty about his NBA career, the 35-year-old signed with Breeze Milano in September for $500,000 a year.

"I always told people I was going to play in Italy. It just happened earlier than I thought, and here I am," said the 6-foot-5 Dantley, who was an NBA free agent for most of last season before playing 10 games with the Milwaukee Bucks, his seventh NBA team.

Dantley is by no means the highest-paid foreigner in the Italian league. And Breeze Milano is not a big name. It is a second division squad with a respectable, not brilliant, track record.

But Dantley says he is convinced he made the right choice. He likes the more relaxed pace of Italian basketball: "Here we play one game a week. In the NBA, it's four." He likes the country. But most of all, he likes the fact that he feels wanted.

Still smarting over how his NBA career fizzled, and more specifically about his trade two years ago from Detroit to Dallas, Dantley says he is happy to be out of it.

"In the NBA, if you're 35 you're finished. Here it's not a problem," he said. "You're judged on your productivity. In fact, they prefer older players because they're more mature.

"Here people know about me. I'm like a legend, so the other guys respect me more, and that helps a lot." 

A Major Alternative

Heavily sponsored by companies that range from soup-mix manufacturers to insurance firms, the Italian league is becoming an increasingly fertile market for U.S. players keen to earn good money and prestige.

There are currently more than 50 U.S. players signed with Italian teams out of a total of 64 foreigners. The maximum number of non-Italians per team is two.

Generous with their fees and fringe benefits, the Italian teams can also offer foreign players adulation from a public that has taken to basketball the way Dantley has taken to tiramisu (an Italian dessert).

And the investment has paid off. What was once largely dismissed as an elephants' graveyard for players no longer able to make it in the United States is fast becoming seen as an attractive proposition, even to the younger talents.

Alongside NBA veterans Dantley, Reggie Theus and Darryl Dawkins (both 34), and Bob McAdoo, still going strong at 40, is a growing number of U.S. players who are still in their 20s -- among them Haywoode Workman, 24, who played for the Washington Bullets last year, and Vinny del Negro, 25, the former North Carolina State guard who has chosen Italian citizenship and currently is involved in a controversial bid to be allowed to play for Italy in the Olympics.

"More people are realizing it's a viable option to spend some time playing in Italy," said Warren Legarie, Dantley's European agent who handles about one-third of the foreign market in Italy.

"They are seeing that they get to live in cities and in circumstances that are as good, if not better, than their own; they get greater financial benefits and more security, and that it's not at all a step down. Many of them go back to play in the NBA."

Dantley, wife Dinitri and children Cameron, 5, and Klani, 3, have been installed in a plush, all-expenses-paid apartment in Milan, a city he goes so far as to compare to New York. "It's great here," he said. "I'm five minutes away from anything I want to do -- the health spas, the grocery stores, the practice."

But Dantley does admit some foreign players have not been so lucky, finding out only too late that the team that signed them is based in a rural outpost. "They don't have much of a social life," he said.

Dantley also concedes that not all American players find it easy to fit into their new surroundings. "I can see why some of the U.S. players quit after the first year," he said.

"You have to be mentally tough and try to understand their culture and learn the language. That's my best asset, my mental toughness -- to hang on in when it might be tough, and just deal with it."

Dantley misses American television, but has had a satellite dish installed and has taped football games and movies sent from home.

And Danny Vranes, 33, a former member of the Utah Jazz who signed with Breeze Milano before Dantley did, has helped him learn the ropes in Italian basketball.

There are major differences. "Here, for example, they play zone defenses, which they don't in the NBA," said Dantley. "There's lot to learn. I still don't know all the teams and the names of all the players." 

Hasn't Lost Touch

Dantley's verdict on Italian players is mostly positive. "The talent is not NBA, but it's good," he said.

And the man who is ninth on the NBA's all-time scoring list, with more than 23,000 points, clearly has not lost his touch. He is averaging 30 points a game, shooting a phenomenal 70 percent, and is widely acknowledged as being responsible for the turnaround in Breeze Milano's fortunes.

This season, the team that previously has never been anywhere near the top of its league has shot into third place, trailing only Lotus Montecatini and Panasonic Reggio Calabria in the A2 second division.

"Of course, Dantley is older now, but he's playing very well," said Tony Kukoc, 23, the Croatian player recruited vigorously by the Chicago Bulls who signed with Benetton Treviso at the start of the season for a record $17 million (U.S.) over six years.

Dantley himself says he is enjoying being part of a young team. The player, who in the NBA often was accused of hogging the ball, is savoring the pleasure of being praised and valued for his experience.

For the time being, he says, he has no plans to return to the United States except for vacations, and the chances are he never will return to the NBA.

"I'll be playing over here at least another five or six years if my body holds out and I keep training.

"I could be playing in the NBA right now," he said, with just a hint of sour grapes. "But I chose {to come to} Europe."