He died Saturday morning in Jupiter, Fla., with his family by his side, the team said.The Pistons announced in March that the Hall of Fame coach had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and was undergoing treatment. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/basketball/nba/05/09/daly.obit.ap/index.html
Daly was a great coach. I was hoping we'd have lured him over at the beginning of the rebuilding. I know there were overtures made at some point.
Daly was a great coach, in terms of success. He was a great example of a coach who took the players available, and got the most possible out of them (instead of fixating on their shortcomings). That said, he was also one of the people responsible for turning NBA basketball into an ugly game. His teams raised dirty basketball and whining to the refs into an art form.
RIP Chuck Daly. I remember watching him coach the Pistons against us in the 1990 NBA Finals. He totally outcoached Adelman down the stretch in most of the games in a series that could have gone either way.
Pat Riley did the most to that end, though, when he coached the Knicks. As he once memorably said: "If you foul every single time, they can't call 'em all."
Daly ruined NBA basketball. That 1990 Blazers team played exciting, free-flowing team basketball but was stopped by a team playing rugby, and David Stern let it happen.
In commemoration, ESPN showed Game 5 of the 1990 NBA Finals in its entirety with original broadcast. I shut it off before the final shot. It was great seeing Clyde flying high, Terry's dead eye shooting, Jerome's fearlessness, Buck's work, and above all Duck's mobility and sweet midrange jumper. Portland Memorial Coliseum was rocking without any T-shirts shot from guns, giveaways of bad pizza, or signs reading "noise" and "louder". Just responding to good basketball. Man, Rick Adelman looked young. He was at that time only a year removed from Chemeketa Community college. But I guess I also look older than I did 19 years ago.
