New York traded Spencer Haywood to the New Orleans Jazz on January 5, 1979 for Joe Meriweather. Meriweather played 106 regular-season games over parts of two Knicks seasons, averaging about nine points and five-and-a-half rebounds, before New York included him in a 1980 three-team trade. Haywood immediately averaged 24.0 points and 9.6 rebounds over 34 games for New Orleans. After the franchise moved to Utah, the Jazz traded Haywood to the Lakers for Adrian Dantley. Dantley then played 461 games across seven Utah seasons and averaged 29.6 points. Meriweather was useful, but the Haywood-to-Dantley conversion gives the Jazz an overwhelming long-term advantage.
Basketball-Reference lists the trade on January 5, 1979: New York sent Spencer Haywood to New Orleans for Joe Meriweather. Both players had already appeared for their original teams that season, so the cleanest comparison starts with production after the transaction rather than their full 1978-79 totals.
Meriweather played 41 games for the Knicks after the trade in 1978-79. He started 26, averaged 25.7 minutes and produced 9.5 points and 5.5 rebounds per game. He stayed for 1979-80 and appeared in another 65 games, starting 30. He averaged 9.0 points and 5.4 rebounds in 24.1 minutes. That gives New York 106 regular-season games from Meriweather across the two seasons. He was a legitimate rotation big rather than a throw-in who disappeared from the roster. In September 1980, New York included Meriweather and a 1981 first-round pick in a three-team trade that brought Campy Russell from Cleveland. This review records that later use but does not credit the entire Russell return to Meriweather because the Knicks also surrendered a first-round selection.
Haywood played 34 games for New Orleans after the trade. He started 18 and averaged 39.4 minutes, 24.0 points, 9.6 rebounds and 2.1 assists. That half-season alone was stronger individual production than New York received from Meriweather, but the decisive value came after the franchise relocated to Utah. On September 13, 1979, the Jazz traded Haywood to the Los Angeles Lakers for Adrian Dantley.
Dantley played seven seasons for Utah from 1979-80 through 1985-86. Basketball-Reference's franchise register credits him with 461 regular-season games, 17,899 minutes and 13,635 points for the Jazz. He averaged 29.6 points, 6.2 rebounds and 3.7 assists over those 461 games. His Utah tenure included multiple All-Star seasons, two scoring titles and two All-NBA selections. The transaction path is direct enough to count. Utah did not combine Haywood with another premium asset to acquire Dantley; the September 1979 record is Haywood for Dantley. That makes Dantley a legitimate downstream return from the original Meriweather-for-Haywood trade rather than a distant branch requiring speculative allocation.
New York received useful value. Meriweather gave the Knicks 106 games and more than 2,600 minutes across two seasons, then remained part of a later trade package. The Jazz received 34 high-level Haywood games and then converted him into seven seasons of Dantley. Dantley's 461 games at 29.6 points per game move the outcome well beyond a normal rotation-player comparison. The result is a major hindsight win for the Jazz even though the Knicks' incoming player was productive.
Jazz Win, A+/C. Utah receives an A+ because Haywood produced 24.0 points and 9.6 rebounds over 34 games and was then traded straight up for Adrian Dantley, who became a seven-season franchise star. New York receives a C because Meriweather supplied 106 useful regular-season games before becoming one part of a later three-team package.