Dailey Returns to Drug Unit : Troubled Guard Suspended by Bulls

Troubled Chicago Bull guard Quintin Dailey voluntarily entered a California drug rehabilitation center Wednesday for the second time this season, a day after failing to show up for a home game against the Detroit Pistons, a spokesman for the Bulls said.

Tim Hallam, the club spokesman, said Dailey has been suspended without pay.

Gary Bettman, general counsel for the NBA, said Dailey had entered the Van Nuys Community Hospital. “How long he’ll be there will be determined by the counselors,” Bettman added.

Dailey missed the 117-115 loss to the Pistons Tuesday night at Chicago Stadium and did not show up for practice Wednesday.

General Manager Jerry Krause, a past supporter of Dailey, had said after the game that he would do everything possible to get rid of Dailey if the guard’s absence were drug-related.

However, in a statement released Wednesday afternoon, the club acknowledged that the NBA’s drug agreement with the players’ association prohibited such action.

But, the club said, “If, after his release from the current stay in the center, he violates the NBA drug statutes for a third time, he will be barred from the NBA for a minimum of two years.”

The club’s statement said Dailey had “voluntarily gone forward and entered an NBA drug rehabilitation center, in accordance with the NBA drug agreement with the players’ association.”

Earlier this season, Dailey spent 31 days and missed 13 games at the start of the season when he entered the Pasadena Community Hospital, returning to the team in mid-November.

Within days of completing his rookie season, and being named to the 1982-83 all-rookie team, Dailey underwent eight weeks of therapy for drug and emotional problems in the Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital at Towson, Md.

Dailey attributed the problems his rookie year to cocaine use, and media reports have linked subsequent problems to the drug. The club has not specified the drug involved.

But because that hospitalization came before the current contract between the NBA and the players’ association was in effect, it did not count against his record.

The Bulls play tonight in Milwaukee and the players had planned on holding a meeting before the game to comment on the Dailey situation.

“I cannot write off Quintin Dailey at this point because I don’t know everything,” Bull Coach Stan Albeck said.

Immediately after the loss to Detroit, Krause said of Dailey: “We will do everything to the total extreme within our legal bounds, put him on waivers or release him outright. I’m fed up with him. He has let me down, his teammates, this franchise and this city. I will do everything the league will allow us to do.”

A woman identifying herself as Louise Stafford had called trainer Mark Pfeil late Tuesday afternoon, saying Dailey’s automobile had had a flat tire on Interstate 290.

Dailey, who was averaging 16.3 points a game off the bench this season, has missed several practices and failed to catch team planes for out-of-town games.

Dailey, a 1982 first-round draft pick who earns a reported $325,000 a year, is being docked $3,960 per game missed, the club said.

Women’s groups picketed Bulls’ games during Dailey’s rookie season after he pleaded guilty to an assault charge in an incident involving a woman at the University of San Francisco, where he played his collegiate basketball.

He was sentenced to a three-year probation in that case.