After ending his memorable KU career as an All-American and the only four-time first-team All-Big Eight selection in league history and the all-time school leader in assists, steals and free throws made, Darnell Valentine was a lock to be selected in the first round of the June 9, 1981 NBA Draft.
It was just a matter of how high the point guard would go.
I had heard on the news the previous night of the draft that head coach Larry Brown’s New Jersey Nets were considering drafting Valentine. The Nets held the No. 3 and No. 10 picks in the first round. Of course, he wouldn’t be selected with the third pick, but I thought he had a chance to go as high as No. 10.
I was giddy with anticipation of where my all-time favorite Jayhawk would be selected and had waited for months until draft day. I remember calling my best friend and being so upset that he didn’t know the day of the draft. Clearly, he wasn’t near the Valentine fan that I was, but that was OK in retrospect. At the time, however, I just couldn’t understand how my friend, who was a big Jayhawk fan, wasn’t as interested in Valentine’s NBA fortunes as I was.
While there was no doubt Valentine was a tremendous defensive player, NBA scouts still questioned his shooting.
In the June 8, 1981 Sports Illustrated issue, Dallas Mavericks scout Richie O’Çonnor broke down Valentine’s game:
“Great body, but can't shoot a lick. Plays solid defense, knows how to run a team, but too often lapses into a runaway style, meaning that he'll penetrate the middle, leave his feet and, like Washington's Kevin Porter, will throw the ball away. But if he can be controlled, he can play.”
The Portland Trail Blazers, led by general manager Stu Inman and head coach Jack Ramsay, certainly thought Valentine could play at the top level. The Blazers made the former KU standout their No. 16 pick in the first round, just after selecting ex-Virginia star swingman Jeff Lamp with their 15th pick. Valentine was the third point guard taken in the draft behind Isiah Thomas (No. 2 pick) and Frank Johnson (No. 11).
And just like that, Valentine’s lifetime NBA dream came true. From his early days in Wichita playing Biddy Basketball to all those extra sprints and drills in high school and at KU, his hard work had finally paid off.
He was now in the NBA as a Portland Trail Blazer. Lafayette Norwood, Valentine’s high school coach and KU assistant and close friend, felt nobody was more deserving.
“I've never been around a young man so obsessed to be a professional athlete,” Norwood told the Lawrence Journal-World on Jan. 17, 1986.
The Blazers envisioned Valentine backing up starting point guard Kelvin Ransey, who had a great rookie season last year after being the No. 4 overall pick, averaging 15.2 points and 6.9 assists per game while just one vote from tying Utah’s Darrell Griffith for Rookie of the Year.
"I felt I should have won Rookie of the Year, but I probably didn't have the exposure," Ransey told The Oregonian in 2009. "Our team went to playoffs and (Utah) didn't. I feel I got robbed on that one."
While Ransey was a scorer, Valentine was more of a playmaker and better defensively. The pair could potentially be a formidable point guard combination with rising star Jim Paxson at shooting guard.
A few months after the draft on August 12, I turned 15 years old, still a very bright-eyed and impressionable teenager who idolized Valentine and other Jayhawks. I put Valentine on a pedestal; to me, he could simply do no wrong. My dad soon spotted Valentine at Rusty’s grocery store near our home in Lawrence and approached D.V. and asked for his autograph for me on a little brown paper bag.
Darnell wrote: “From No. 14 (his jersey number) to No. 15, then signed his name.
I still have this prized autograph somewhere in my home, which I was thrilled to get at the time. I appreciate my dad thinking of me; he clearly knew how much I worshipped D.V.
Valentine impressed the Portland brass immediately after signing his contract, which he inked late and missed rookie and summer camp. Ramsay, Ransey and assistant coach Bucky Buckwalter raved over Valentine’s play and tenacious work ethic in a UPI story on Oct. 5, 1981.
The headline in The Bulletin (a newspaper in Bend, Oregon) read:
“Rookie winning Ramsay’s heart.”
The reporter wrote in his lead that “Darnell Valentine has stretched himself into the heart of Portland Trail Blazer coach Jack Ramsay because the rookie from Kansas has shown extra effort along with his talent.”
“...Valentine was making up for lost time by putting in working out when others have left the court. The first-round draft choice was noted during the first sessions of fall practice to be still on the court, running lines or pushing himself through slide-and-glide defensive drills.”
Asked by Ramsay if Valentine’s “desire was unusual,” the coach replied:
“He’s the only up there, isn’t he?"
“I thought before this week that he’d have problems offensively. Now I don’t think he will at all. He’s already at the point where he doesn't try to force offensive plays. He’s not a big scorer, but he won’t create any problems. He’s always balanced. And he’s a defender.”
Buckwalter took note of Valentine’s long arm length and his lateral movement.
“He doesn’t give you any breathing room,” Buckwalter said. “He’s so quick that he's right up at you before you can gain an advantage on him.”
Ransey was also deeply impressed.
“From what I’ve seen he bodies up well and he’s always reaching for the ball,” he said. “He’s a pest defender, and a lot of guards don’t like to play against that."
“Darnell played a lot of lead guard at Kansas so it (coming to the NBA) shouldn’t be a tough transition. He’ll have to go through what I did. There are quicker hands in the NBA than in college as far as passes are concerned. I’d think I could make a pass and I couldn’t. He‘s gonna have problems with that. But it shouldn’t last long.”
So why was Valentine “running lines after two hour practices?”
“You have to get in shape,” he answered. “You have to condition yourself. As a guard, I have to go 100 percent every night. You don’t do that by saying you're going to; you gotta work toward it.”
Valentine was always stretching at any break in practice in preparation for the long season.
“I try to keep my legs loose and stretched out so I can move quicker,” he said. “No matter how good a shape you’re in, if you play hard, your muscles are gonna get tight. I try to combat that by stretching. The longer you can go without getting tight the better.”
While Valentine was prepping hard for his rookie season, he was already feeling comfortable and welcome in Portland and with Blazer management. However, he admits he had a sour taste at first about being drafted by the Trail Blazers since Valentine had bad memories of KU losing to UCLA in the first round of the 1978 NCAA Tournament in Eugene, 111 miles from Portland.
That was the only time he had been in Oregon.
“We just felt were weren’t treated very kindly,” Valentine told John Canzano of The Oregonian on his 750 The Game radio show in 2012 about the UCLA game.
“The game wasn’t officiated (well), so it always taints your view of wherever that happened. You have this bad experience, and Oregon was a bad experience, so coming out here, I wasn’t real happy. But once I got here, Stu Inman picked me up at the airport. We went over to the offices and met Harry (Glickman, president) and Larry Weinberg (owner) was there, and had a chance to meet everyone. There wasn’t a great deal of distance between me as a first-round draft choice and going right in and being introduced to the general manager and the management and the leadership of the company. I just felt like I was welcomed, I was wanted, and immediately, I felt this was the place for me.
“I haven’t left.”
Valentine, who has made his home in Portland ever since, wound up playing all 82 games that rookie season with 14 starts. He played solid, averaging 6.4 points, 3.3 assists, 1.8 rebounds and 1.1 steals in 16.9 minutes per game, while shooting 41.3 percent from the field and 76.0 percent at the free throw line.
He had a seven-game stretch (all starts) from Nov. 15 to Dec. 2 where he scored in double figures, averaging 15.0 points capped off with a career-high 19 points at Kansas City. He spoke candidly then to the Journal-World about how much he enjoyed playing in Portland.
“We had more attitudes and egos on KU’s team during my four years there,” Valentine said. “No one is ever bickering here. It’s a good atmosphere. It’s like a family.”
Darnell Valentine was, in some ways, a part of my family and how I bonded with my dad. My dad, who was also a big Valentine fan, always talked with me about how Valentine was doing in the NBA. We regularly checked his box scores in the newspaper. My dad thought Darnell could have a career like Jo Jo White, the former KU All-American who starred for the Boston Celtics and is enshrined in the Naismith Hall of Fame.
My dad and I decided to see Valentine and Portland play the Kansas City Kings at Kemper Arena in K.C. on Feb. 24, 1982. We had talked about the possibility beforehand of writing Ramsay and asking him to play Valentine more since he was coming home in front of his fans. But we decided Ramsay probably wouldn’t agree to this request, so we nixed the idea.
I still remember part of that game from nearly 40 years ago. Valentine subbed for Ransey and scored seven points in 17 minutes, while connecting on 2 of 3 shots, one from about 18 to 20 feet. He also was 3 of 3 at the charity stripe while adding four assists. It was pure joy watching my childhood hero and all-time favorite Jayhawk playing in the NBA, although I wished he had received more minutes.
Portland finished that season at 42-40 and fifth place in the Pacific Division, while failing to make the playoffs. But things would soon get better for Portland and Darnell Valentine. After the season on June 28, 1982, the Trail Blazers traded Ransey (career-high 16.1 points and 7.1 assists per game with 555 assists tying his franchise record that season) to Dallas for 6-10 center Wayne Cooper and a first-round draft pick in 1985.
As Jason Quick of The Oregonian reported in 2009, “Ramsay wanted a more pass-first point guard, and the team began to favor its new rookie, Darnell Valentine.”
There was also concerns about Ransey’s defense.
"They started drafting point guards, and somebody had to go," Paxson recalled.
While Ransey’s career was never the same after the trade (he lasted just six years in the NBA and retired at age 27), Valentine’s best days in Portland were just beginning as the new starting point guard in Rip City.
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