Chuck Daly, who coached the Detroit Pistons’ Bad Boy teams to two consecutive NBA championships and coached the Olympic Dream Team to a gold medal at the 1992 Barcelona Games, died on Saturday in Jupiter, Florida. He was 78.
Daly’s death was announced by the Pistons. In March, they said he was being treated for pancreatic cancer.
When Daly became the Pistons’ coach in 1983, the franchise had never won an NBA championship since entering the league in 1948, representing Fort Wayne, Indiana. In his nine seasons with Detroit, Daly’s teams made the playoffs every year. His Pistons swept the Los Angeles Lakers in the 1989 NBA finals, then beat the Portland Trail Blazers in a five-game final the next year.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Daly was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1994. When the NBA celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1996, he was named one of the 10 greatest coaches in league history in balloting by members of the news media. The Pistons retired No. 2 in 1997 to commemorate his consecutive NBA titles.
THE BAD BOYS
Daly’s Pistons featured scoring and flash in the backcourt, with Isiah Thomas, Joe Dumars and Vinnie Johnson, and muscle up front, with Bill Laimbeer, Rick Mahorn, Dennis Rodman, John Salley and Mark Aguirre.
The Bad Boys were known as fierce defenders quick to toss an elbow or a body. Daly was a fast-talking figure who exuded energy and passion, but in dealing with these rugged sorts he used persuasion in place of an iron hand.
“If you’re going to be a coach, it’s going to be a selling job night in and night out,” he said. “I’ve had surgery on my right knee. It comes from bending a lot.”
When Daly assembled the first US Olympic basketball team using professional players, he had enormous talent and egos to match. He blended the superstars on that Dream Team, led by Michael Jordan, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, and they combined to earn a gold medal.
After the US routed Croatia to win gold, Jordan remarked: “People said that no one plays defense in the NBA, but the biggest difference is our defense.”
BIG DREAM
Charles Jerome Daly, a native of Pennsylvania, decided on his future while in high school.
“I remember telling my mother, ‘Mom, I’m going to be a basketball coach, and I bet I can make as much as US$10,000 a year at it,’” he said. “I had read all the John Tunis sports books as a kid.”
While Daly’s Pistons were known for rough-and-tumble play, he was an elegant presence at courtside in dark blue suits, nicknamed “Daddy Rich” for his taste in fine clothing.
“You read the article that said I had 199 blue suits?” Daly said before coaching the East against the West squad of the fashionable Pat Riley in the 1990 NBA All-Star Game. “Now I have 200. I went into a store and sure enough I bought a blue one. Nobody ever looks bad in a blue suit.”
As for his interest in clothing, he said: “This is not a game where you upstage the players. This is a business like any other business. You get bored. I get bored. You do something for fun.”
TREBLE CHANCE: Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei is eyeing a third title in the California desert after winning in 2014 with Peng Shuai and in 2018 with Barbora Strycova Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Belgian partner Elise Mertens on Thursday cruised into the women’s doubles final at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, California. It took second seeds Hsieh and Mertens just 54 minutes to defeat Japanese third seeds Shuko Aoyama and Ena Shibahara 6-2, 6-0 in the semi-finals to advance to their second final as a duo. Hsieh and Mertens denied the Japanese duo, winners of a WTA Tour-best five titles this year, a spot in their sixth final of the season as they broke serve five times and won the final nine games. “We’re very happy about the performance. Just
HUSBAND WANTED: Athletics Kenya said the country had lost a jewel who was one of the fastest-rising athletes on the global stage thanks to her eye-catching performances Record-breaking Kenyan distance runner Agnes Tirop was on Wednesday found dead with stab wounds to her stomach in a suspected homicide, athletics officials said. Police said that they were on the hunt for her husband over the incident at Tirop’s home in the high-altitude training hub of Iten, Kenya. Tirop, 25, was a fast-rising athlete — a double world 10,000m bronze medalist and 2015 world cross country champion who also finished fourth in the 5,000m at the Tokyo Olympics this year. Only last month, she smashed the women-only 10km world record at the Road to Records Event in Germany, with a time of
The national men’s soccer team were eliminated from the AFC Asian Cup qualifiers after Indonesia beat them 3-0 on Monday, while the women’s national team are still in contention in the AFC Women’s Asian Cup, and are training in Bahrain to take on Laos next week. Taiwan’s women have arrived in Bahrain, after boarding their flight on Saturday. They are training to compete in Group A of the qualifiers against Laos on Monday. They then face hosts Bahrain on Sunday next week. This round of matches doubles as Asia’s first-stage qualifier for the FIFA Women’s World Cup, which is to be hosted
WORLD CUP QUALIFIERS: Poland’s game against Albania was halted briefly after a bottle hit a player, while Ronaldo became the first man to score 10 international hat-tricks Crowd trouble marred FIFA World Cup qualifiers on Tuesday as Hungary fans clashed with police during a 1-1 draw against England at Wembley Stadium and Poland players walked off in Albania after bottles were hurled in another Group I match. Karol Swiderski had just scored for Poland in the 77th minute when he was struck by a bottle thrown from the stands. It led to the game being suspended for about 20 minutes before Poland returned to the field and held on to win 1-0. England are now three points clear of Poland, with games against Albania and San Marino remaining next
RSS