Daly's Ability to Coach The Greats Made Him One

He was never voted coach of the year in the NBA even though he led the Detroit Pistons to a pair of league championships and three consecutive Finals. But it turned out there was a more distinguished honor awaiting Chuck Daly.

He was selected to coach the greatest team ever assembled, probably in any sport: the 1992 U.S. men's Olympic basketball team, better known as the Dream Team. The man whose "Bad Boy" teams ended Larry Bird's run in Boston, then Magic's in Los Angeles, and who authored the pugilistic "Jordan Rules" that initially held back the Bulls, wound up coaching them all that glorious summer. And they loved him. Recollections rolled freely yesterday after Daly, 78, died of pancreatic cancer.

"After I'd spent some time around him," Charles Barkley said yesterday, "I said to myself, 'I can't believe this is the guy who coached the damn Bad Boys.' It was a magical summer. It was a blast. I played on the Olympic team twice [also in 1996] and believe me, the second time wasn't a lot of fun. . . . But with Chuck, we'd practice as hard as we could for a couple of hours, then all go and play golf. In Monaco, it would be me, Michael Jordan, David Robinson and Chuck Daly . . . we're all carrying our clubs and walking, and saying to each other, 'This guy is the coach of the Olympic team and he's out here carrying his clubs with us?' He made that summer fun."

Probably, it was part of Daly's coaching plan, and the reason he was the only coach the best team ever felt comfortable living with and playing for over a summer. Pat Riley had more championship rings at the time. But it's doubtful as hard-driving as Riley was that he shared Daly's philosophy, which was essentially, "You want to create an environment where they'll let you coach them."

That was Daly's approach . . . at least in the NBA. It's hard to imagine another coach getting nearly as much out of the Pistons. They were somewhere between outsize characters and complete loons. "Sit back and think about it," Barkley said. "You had John Salley, Dennis Rodman, Bill Laimbeer, Rick Mahorn. One year they traded for Mark Aguirre. Isiah Thomas was a strong personality, to say the least. There ain't a choirboy in the bunch. You got some characters there. Yet, Chuck was able to control that locker room and win championships. To blend all those guys together and get 'em to listen and carry out a plan . . . that's a stroke of genius."

Mahorn, who played for and against the Bad Boy teams, told the Associated Press that Daly "did an unbelievable job of taking a bunch of different personalities and molding them into a team."

The Pistons' calling card was ornery, inspired, contentious and relentless defense. Daly paired it with an offense, led by Thomas, that played with the precision and discipline of an army. The Pistons scared people, even Jordan and the Bulls early on. Daly came up with a series of defensive principles the Pistons used to beat Chicago in three consecutive playoff series, two in the conference championship round. Very little of Jordan's career highlight reel was compiled against Daly's Pistons. Jordan and Scottie Pippen took a physical pounding in those three series, yet I don't recall Jordan ever saying anything critical about Daly himself. I've never heard anybody say anything bad about Daly, coach nor player.

"And you never will, which is pretty amazing in this business," said Barkley, who as a member of the 76ers was involved in some nasty physical battles with Mahorn and Laimbeer.

In fact, Barkley and Daly became close during the summer of '92. "He called me over one day after practice," Barkley recalled, "and told me, 'I think you're the second-best player in the world.' It was the best compliment I'd ever gotten, and from a man of his magnitude. It meant a great deal to me. I didn't really know Chuck well before that summer, but after that I always made a point when I saw him of going over and thanking him for giving me that jolt of confidence."

Barkley, the following season, won the league's MVP award and led the Phoenix Suns to the NBA Finals.

In recent weeks, as Daly suffered from cancer, players and coaches, current and former, took to wearing a lapel pin with Daly's initials. Barkley called Daly once a week for more than a month, just to chat, check in on him down in Jupiter, Fla. "But he didn't answer the phone the last couple of times I called," Barkley said. "I knew it was grave. Pancreatic cancer doesn't mess around."

It's fitting Daly's initials adorned lapels. He loved a nicely tailored suit nearly as much as he loved great defense. Riley, Daly and Larry Brown have been the gold standard when it comes to sideline sartorial splendor. I was thrilled about 11, 12 years ago when Daly, in his last coaching stop, with Orlando, opened my suit jacket in mid-question. He looked at the label and said, "This is a far cry from what you used to wear." I wouldn't have been any happier if the line had been spoken by Armani himself. It was Salley who gave Daly the nickname "Daddy Rich" because of his impeccably tailored suits. Difficult as it is to believe now, the best players were in a fashion competition on an almost nightly basis during the '80s and early '90s. Daly's style points didn't hurt when he was trying to get a player's attention. "He was like E.F. Hutton when he spoke," Barkley said.

Daly was widely quoted yesterday as saying: "It's a players' league. They allow you to coach them or they don't. Once they stop allowing you to coach, you're on your way out." The best players in the world, whether they played for the Pistons or the Dream Team, never stopped allowing Daly to coach them, which was the secret to their success . . . and his.