Dantley Won’t Join Mavs, Trade Planned

Holdout Adrian Dantley, obtained from Detroit in a trade for Mark Aguirre, told Dallas Mavericks’ owner Donald Carter today that he would not join the team.

Carter immediately put him on the trade block.

Carter said he had instructed Rick Sund, vice president of basketball operations, to find another team that wanted the dissident Dantley in exchange for a first-round draft choice.

“Adrian was not satisfied with the length of his contract,” Carter said. “We are unwilling to change any of the wording of the present contract.”

Carter told Dantley that if the Mavs were unable to trade him for a first-round draft choice in 1992, 1993 or 1994 by the NBA trading deadline, Thursday night, the Mavs would place Dantley on the NBA’s suspended list.

“All Adrian had to do was ask for a plane ticket to Denver,” where the Mavs play the Nuggets tonight, Carter said. “I would have met him there, and we would have gone forward and not looked back.”

Team officials worked with Dantley and his agent for four hours late Tuesday night trying to resolve the dispute. Dantley spoke privately to Carter twice during the session, a team spokesman said.

“We had a talk; it seemed to be a pretty good talk between the two of us,” Dantley said in a statement released through the Mavericks. “We left the meeting and we’re going to sleep on it. I’ll call back in the morning.”

Dantley reportedly wants deferred money at age 35 to be divided into the earlier years of his contract. That would increase his $1.25-million salary this season to an unknown sum. The 6-foot, 5-inch forward turns 32 Monday.