American basketball player (born 1947)
Robert L. Dandridge Jr.
(born November 15, 1947) is an American former professional
basketball
player. Nicknamed the "
Greyhound
",
[1]
Dandridge was a four-time NBA All-Star and two-time NBA champion, who scored 15,530 points in his career. He was elected to the
Basketball Hall of Fame
in 2021.
Early years
[
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]
Born in
Richmond, Virginia
, he attended
Maggie L. Walker High School
in Richmond and
Norfolk State University
, teaming up with
Pee Wee Kirkland
. His teams had phenomenal years. The Spartans won the CIAA title in 1968 with a 25?2 record; they lost in the second round of the NCAA Division II Men's Tournament. The next year their record was 21?4 and they lost in the first round of the D-II tournament. He was drafted by the
Kentucky Colonels
in the 1969
American Basketball Association
draft and by the
Milwaukee Bucks
in the fourth round of the
1969 NBA draft
.
[2]
Basketball career
[
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]
Dandridge was named to the
NBA All-Rookie Team
in 1970. In just his second season, Dandridge played an important part on the
Milwaukee Bucks
team that won the
NBA
championship in 1971, averaging 19.2 points, 9.6 rebounds, and 3.4 assists per playoff game, alongside the
Hall-of-Fame
duo of
Lew Alcindor
(Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) and
Oscar Robertson
.
[3]
In Game 3 of that
finals series
, Dandridge led all scorers with 29 points, while also recording 10 rebounds.
[4]
On January 23, 1976, Dandridge scored a career high 40 points in a 113?97 win over the
Kansas City Kings
.
[5]
He played a total of 13 seasons in the NBA, nine of them with the Bucks as well as four with the
Washington Bullets
, with whom he won an NBA championship in 1978 during his first season with the team, while forming the frontcourt with another future Hall-of-Fame duo:
Elvin Hayes
and
Wes Unseld
. In Game 2 of the
1978 NBA Finals
, Dandridge led all scorers with 34 points en route to a Bullets win.
[6]
His dunk in Game 7 of the 1978 Finals sealed the Bullets championship victory. Dandridge returned to the Bucks for 11 games in 1981, before retiring.
[7]
In his career, he averaged 18.5 points per game over 839 regular season games and 20 points per game in 98 playoff games and was a four-time NBA all star. Dandridge is usually mentioned as one of the NBA's best forwards in the 1970s.
Dandridge scored more points in the NBA Finals in the 1970s than any other player, including Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. He scored a total of 450 points in four
NBA Finals
played, playing a total of 23 games, garnering an average of over 19 points a game, most notably scoring 109 points in the
1979 NBA Finals
, which was the most on his Washington Bullets team.
[8]
In 1992, Dandridge was inducted into the
Virginia Sports Hall of Fame
.
In 2021 Dandridge was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
Retirement
[
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]
After retiring as a player, Dandridge served as an assistant coach at
Hampton University
from 1987 to 1992. Today, he lives in
Norfolk, Virginia
and conducts basketball clinics.
[9]
NBA career statistics
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]
Regular season
[
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]
Playoffs
[
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]
References
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]
External links
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]
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