No matter how great they are, some players don’t make an immediate impact when joining a cutthroat league such as the NBA. The chances of getting noticed right away are even lesser for those picked in the latter rounds of the NBA Draft.
But that wasn’t the case for Bob Dandridge, who played some of the best years of his career with the Milwaukee Bucks.
Draft steal
A product of Norfolk State University, Dandridge joined the NBA in 1969. It turned out that a gem was buried deep in that year’s Draft. Forty-four players, including Milwaukee’s number one overall pick Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, had gone up to the stage before Dandridge’s name was called as the Bucks drafted him in the fourth round.
Playing alongside Abdul-Jabbar, then known as Lew Alcindor, and Oscar Robertson, Dandridge was a seamless fit with the Bucks, as he finished his rookie season with an average of 13.2 points, 7.7 rebounds, and 3.6 assists per game.
The 6-foot-6 forward picked up from where he left in his rookie season when he played instrumental in Milwaukee’s championship run in the 1970-71 season.
“His talent was immediately obvious. He can play at both ends of the court,” Abdul-Jabbar said of Dandridge in one of his interviews.
Getting better year in and year out
The Richmond, Virginia native ended the 1970-71 season, averaging 18.4 points, 8.0 rebounds, and 3.5 assists a game.
Dandridge would play with the Bucks until the 1976-77 season and his highest-scoring season was in 1975-76, when he averaged 21.5 points a game.
From the Bucks, Dandridge moved to the Washington Bullets in the 1977-78 season. Just like he did in Milwaukee, Dandridge made an immediate impact when he helped the Bullets win the championship in his very first year with the team.
In what was a dominant run, Dandridge scored more points in the NBA Finals in the 1970s than any other player, including Abdul-Jabbar.
He scored 450 points in four NBA Finals played, playing a total of 23 games, tallying 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.
Dandridge played with Washington until the 1980-81 season. After his stint with the Bullets, he returned to the Bucks, but he retired after playing just 11 games in the 1981-82 season.
The four-time All-Star was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2021, immortalizing him in the history of the NBA and Milwaukee Bucks.
