Legend Chuck Daly Dies at 78

Chuck Daly, who coached the Dream Team to the Olympic gold medal in 1992 after winning back-to-back NBA championships with the Detroit Pistons, has died. He was 78.

He died Saturday morning in Jupiter, Fla., with his family by his side, the team said. The Pistons announced in March the Hall of Fame coach was being treated for pancreatic cancer.
Daly was renowned for his ability to create harmony out of diverse personalities at all levels of the game, whether they were Ivy Leaguers at Pennsylvania, Dream Teamers Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley, or Pistons as dissimilar as Dennis Rodman and Joe Dumars.

Before Daly, “The Pistons’ legacy was two men deep,” Free Press sports writer Charlie Vincent wrote in 1996. “Bob Lanier had played here. And Dave Bing.”

That changed in May 1983 when the Pistons hired Daly to coach a team that had never posted back-to-back winning seasons.

He stayed nine seasons, making the playoffs each year. His team posted five straight seasons with 50 or more victories and went to the Eastern Conference finals each year from 1987 to 1991.

Daly was voted one of the 10 greatest coaches of the NBA's first half-century in 1996, two years after being inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. He was the first coach to win both NBA and Olympic titles.

They won the NBA titles in 1989 and 1990. In ’89, with Finals MVP Joe Dumars leading the way, they swept a Los Angeles Lakers team that went 11-0 in its first three playoffs rounds. They returned to the Finals in 1990, beating the Portland Trail Blazers in five games.

His NBA coaching record — including one season in Cleveland before coming to Detroit, and two seasons each in New Jersey and Orlando after the Pistons — was 638-437 (.593). His record with the Pistons: 467-271 (.633), plus 71-42 in the playoffs.

The identity still attached to the Pistons franchise was born under Daly’s influence.
His teams played hard. They won with defense. They were physical — so rough and tumble that the nickname Bad Boys quickly stuck.

Daly is survived by his wife, Terry, daughter Cydney and grandchildren Sebrina and Connor.

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