Chuck Daly

Charles Jerome "Chuck" Daly ( born June 20, 1930 in St. Marys, Pennsylvania, † 9 May 2009 Jupiter, Florida) was an American basketball coach. He led the so-called "Dream Team" as a coach for the gold medal at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona. As a club coach, he won two championships with the Detroit Pistons in the most important in the professional basketball league of the National Basketball Association (NBA).

Career

After graduating from Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania and a two-year military service in 1955, Daly coach a high school team in Punxsutawney. In 1963, he moved to Duke University in North Carolina, where he spent six years as an assistant coach said of the Blue Devils high school team in the NCAA. In 1969, he was then in charge of the Eagles coach of the Boston College before two years later he returned to Pennsylvania and coach the Quakers of the University of Pennsylvania was. In the first four years, he won four championships with the Quakers in the Ivy League, where he also achieved in the first two seasons, the knockout round of "Sweet Sixteen" in the NCAA national finals. However, at the end of his six- year tenure with the Quakers, he had no notable successes more with this team.

1978 Daly was assistant coach with the Philadelphia 76ers in the professional league NBA. The 76ers were at that time with their star player Julius Erving of the leading teams of this league, but lost the NBA finals series in 1980 against the Los Angeles Lakers and the final series of the Eastern Conference in 1981 against the Boston Celtics. During the following season he was bound by the Cleveland Cavaliers as a responsible coach who had been a year earlier absorbed by the NBA as a new franchise. With the unsuccessful team he reached nine victories in 41 games before he was dismissed again by the Cavaliers before the season ends, the winning of 82 games this season at the end of 15.

1983 Daly was hired by the Detroit Pistons. The Pistons had no appreciable success in the NBA celebrated 30 years more and Daly missed the team to Isiah Thomas, Bill Laimbeer, Dennis Rodman and Joe Dumars a defensive -oriented style of play, which had the Pistons in the nine seasons under Daly consistently positive season balances. 1988 Daly finished so that the continuous rivalry between the Lakers and the Celtics, who had dominated the NBA in the 1980s and won eight of nine championships from 1980 to 1988. After the Pistons the final series of the Eastern Conference, which they had previously twice lost to the Celtics won, marketed the NBA, the benefits from the rivalry between the Lakers and Celtics, and had made ​​great strides, the duel in the final series 1988 between the Lakers Pistons and sent between the defensively oriented Bad Boys of the City of Detroit automobile industry and the Showtime Lakers of the City of Los Angeles film industry. Having lost the 1988 final series still just three wins in seven games, it came in 1989 to the new edition of the finals series, which won the Pistons clearly with four victories without a single defeat against the Lakers. 1990 could defend the championship when they defeated after the Conference titles in seven games against the Chicago Bulls, the Portland Trail Blazers in five games in the final series. Then succeeded Daly and his team no more, the Chicago Bulls hold down to their superstar Michael Jordan in the Eastern Conference, which also won the following NBA championships.

At the end of his coaching time in Detroit Daly was appointed coach of the U.S. national team in 1991, which was supposed to start for the first time with professionals from the NBA in the Olympics in Barcelona in 1992, after being previously always started just with college players from the NCAA, which were not contrary to the amateur rules previously in force. At the premiere with professionals Daly were a unique collection of players available who had the NBA made ​​large in the 1980s, many of which were incorporated into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame individually. The media coined the term for this team "Dream Team". For controversies caused by the fact that Daly's longtime point guard Isiah Thomas was not included in the Pistons in the selection, so that ultimately no player the Pistons was represented in this team. Daly knew sent, the tension and rivalry hold up in the team, the more like summer vacationers presented themselves during the games to the public. The sporting quality and athleticism of the team led to a unique superiority over their competitors in the Olympic tournament, especially since the previously best European nations Soviet Union had broken apart as the defending champion and Yugoslavia as a world champion and competed with various teams. The closest distance at which the dream team won a game in the Olympic tournament, had 32 points difference in the final against Croatia.

After the gold medal at the 1992 Olympics was Daly coach of the New Jersey Nets, who had not yet recorded any significant successes after admission to the NBA in 1977. After two seasons with the Nets, where they retired for the championship in each of the first play-off round, Daly resigned from his position and was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame on May 9, 1994. 1997 Daly could be persuaded to return to the dugout and the Orlando Magic to take over, while Julius Erving was Vice- President of this franchise. The Magic, who had two years earlier been standing in the final series against the Houston Rockets had lost their star player Shaquille O'Neal to the Lakers and suffered in the NBA in 1997/98 under a prolonged violation of their All-Stars Penny Hardaway, which is why they at the end missed the Championship play-offs. The following season, NBA 1998/99 there was a return to the play- offs, but lost in the first round against the 76ers, where Daly had begun his NBA career. Then Daly finished his coaching career in the NBA final.

In March 2009 it was announced that at Chuck Daly pancreatic cancer was found, where he died a short time later.

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