Dunleavy on track after rocky tenure with Warriors

Mike Dunleavy is having the best statistical season of his six-year career. AP

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The problem with scoring 36 points in an NBA game one night is that someone, somewhere, inside your locker room or out there in your team's fan base, is going to look for you to do it again. Do it two games in a row and now they're going to start to expect it.

And the last thing that Mike Dunleavy needs at this point in his career is more expectations.

The last round heaped upon him didn't work out so well. So the Indiana Pacers and their fans would do well not to get their hopes, or set the bar, too high.

After Dunleavy dropped 36 points on Milwaukee on Sunday, two nights after hitting six three-pointers on his way to 36 points at Toronto, there was a lightness and joy to the 6-foot-9 forward's mood too often missing during his first 4½ years in the NBA, with Golden State. There were smiles, there was praise, there even was teasing and laughter, according to some who were there after the Pacers' 128-106 victory over the Bucks. As in teammate Jeff Foster mock-wondering why Dunleavy got stuck on 36 again when he should have gone for 40.

"I guess that's about all I've got in the tank,'' Dunleavy said, kidding, in a telephone interview Tuesday.

Fact is, for too much of Dunleavy's time with the Warriors, there was nothing funny about it, with the fans, the organization and the player alternately having doomsday fantasies of taking the proverbial gas pipe. Dunleavy wasn't what he was supposed to be, the Warriors were stuck being the Warriors and the fans were fed up, frustrated with the team while venting at one guy.

It wasn't Dunleavy's fault that Golden State made him the third pick in the 2002 draft, or that he was neither Yao Ming (taken No. 1 by Houston) nor Amaré Stoudemire (No. 9 to Phoenix). The lottery that year, remember, was a minefield; Dunleavy at least wasn't Jay Williams (No. 2), Nikoloz Tskitishvili (No. 5), Dajuan Wagner (No. 6) or Marcus Haislip (No. 13).

It wasn't Dunleavy's fault, either, that vice president Chris Mullin in October 2005 offered him a five-year, $44 million contract extension, a deal that looked wrong even before it kicked in. Dunleavy's scoring average dropped from 13.4 points to 11.5 in 2005-06, when he playing out the last year of his rookie contract. His shooting dropped from 45.1 percent to 40.6 percent.

It was, however, Dunleavy's fault to some degree that the Warriors were a combined 43 games under .500 during his time with them, compared to three games over .500 in the three months following his trade last Jan. 17 to Indiana. It was on him, too, in some measure that Golden State burned through two head coaches (Eric Musselman, Mike Montgomery) with him around before settling on a third (Don Nelson) who, well, let's just say enjoyed coaching Mike Dunleavy Sr. one heckuva lot more than coaching the kid.

"Being in Golden State those 4½ years, it was a situation that, quite frankly, didn't work out,'' Dunleavy said. "I won't say it was anybody's fault -- I'll take some blame for it, with the organization, the team -- but it wasn't a good situation all around.''

Give him this: Dunleavy's pedigree was a lot more impressive than Golden State's when he arrived with one NCAA championship, an All-America selection, a Duke basketball education and terrific hoops genes. The Warriors had endured seven consecutive losing seasons and eight of nine. Their draft history was littered with misfires and disappointments, from Joe Smith as an underachieving No. 1 overall pick in 1995 back to Chris Webber's one-and-done season in 1993-94 butting heads with Nelson.

But Dunleavy was the guy on the court, there and then. With the ball. And hearing the boos.

"I'm sure I didn't live up to some people's expectations in Golden State,'' he said. "I look back at that draft, it wasn't the strongest. I think I was picked because I was a 'sure thing.' Coming out of college, people had heard of me, they knew my school. I'm sure they thought I was an extremely safe pick.'' It had happened before with some Duke guys, a Christian Laettner, a Shane Battier, their college reps exceeding their NBA impact.

"Coming through there with all the different coaching changes, that was difficult,'' he said prior to a Pacers practice. "My first coach [Musselman], it was his first NBA head coaching job. Then we had a coach [Montgomery] straight out of college. I'm coming from one of the best coaches in all of sports, who has won national championships and coached in the Olympics. That was a big thing.''

That would be Coach K, Mike Krzyzewski.

Nelson wrote off Dunleavy soon after taking over in August 2006. Some remember their time together as nothing but storm clouds, but Dunleavy found a silver lining, at least for the duration of a phone call.

"Here [in Indiana], I decided to give it everything I have and get after it,'' he said. "That's one thing I learned from my time with Coach Nelson. He had come to me and said, 'I need you to produce for me.' But I'd never been a numbers guy. Now I see what he wanted.''

Jim O'Brien is getting what Nelson wanted, benefiting from and facilitating Dunleavy's best season so far. In fact, if he maintains his current pace -- let's be honest, it remains a sizable "if'' -- the Warriors' bust could wind up with votes for the NBA's Most Improved Player Award. His scoring average (18.2 ppg) is up by more than 50 percent over his career mark, and his assists and rebounds are up, too.

In 356 games with Golden State, Dunleavy scored 30 points or more just once; he has done it six times in his last 46 starts for the Pacers. O'Brien has put the ball in Dunleavy's hands without forcing the point guard duties Dunleavy sometimes tried to handle with the Warriors. And his movement without the ball sheds defenders and creates openings.

The next step is for Indiana to step up as a whole, for Pacers players to have as much impact on the floor as they've had on the police blotter or in the trainer's room this season. That's when Dunleavy's improvement will really matter, rather than shining in that old "someone's got to score on a bad team'' way.

When Mullin signed Dunleavy to that $44 million extension, he obviously envisioned big things, a young guy maturing up to his paycheck. "We look forward to Mike's career blossoming,'' Mullin said, "and contributing to our winning ways.'' Then 14 months ago, after the Golden State GM packaged the Duke grad with Troy Murphy, Ike Diogu and Keith McLeod for Al Harrington, Stephen Jackson and two others, Mullin said: "I think Mike's career will take off from here. I think a change of teams and a change of style will help him as a player.''

Dunleavy looks like he might make Mullin right late, rather than wrong twice.

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