Chuck Daly

Daly's success with the Pistons and Nets helped him land his history making job—coaching the US's first Dream Team basketball team in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. With players such as Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, and Larry Bird, the Dream Team won the gold medal.

In the 1993-94 season, Daly announced his retirement from coaching. He was soon honored on May 9, 1994 with enshrinement as a coach in the Basketball Hall of Fame. He is renowned as the only Hall of Fame coach to win both an Olympic gold medal and an NBA championship.

Daly's professed retirement didn't last long. On June 4, 1997, he was named coach for the Orlando Magic for two years. As reported in Sports Illustrated, although he was making $5 million, one reason he may have retired was to avoid hassles with player Penny Hardaway, who claimed he got no respect from Daly.

This may have been a surprising turn, since during his career, Daly was often praised for his respectful stance with players, for giving of himself, and for turning a group of diverse players into a winning team. In an example of his character, Daly has been quoted as saying, "It's discouraging to make a mistake, but it's humiliating when you find out you're so unimportant that nobody noticed it."

In an interview for ESPN's Page 2, Daly talked about the most important lesson he learned about coaching. In his first year of college coaching, he told players that they had to be tough in the game, but once they step out-side the lines, everything goes back to normal. A football player questioned this idea, saying that you can't be two different people. That was when Daly learned that coaches and players must discover who they really are, what motivates them, and to be true to themselves at all times.

Following his second and final retirement, Daly has remained in the sports field. He served as a special consultant for the Grizzlies, and an NBA analyst with Turner Network Television. In 1996, he provided the keynote graduation speech at his alma mater, Kane Area Senior High School. In October 2002, the Michigan Basketball Coaches Clinic, a training session open to coaches at all levels, featured Daly as a guest speaker.

Daly still promotes basketball through multimedia. He appeared as an instructor on the All Pro Basketball Superstar Series of videos in the volume Chuck Daly: The Coach—Offensive Plays, Defense & Motivation. In the 50-minute video, he demonstrates offensive plays, discusses winning strategies, and shares the story of his success. Daly also made an appearance in the NBA Comic Relief video The Great Blooper Caper (1991) which focused on a fanciful basketball game. On the serious side, Daly wrote introductions to a series of books released in the late 1990s focusing on the top players in basketball history.

Daly's overall statistics give him a respectable place in basketball coaching history. He compiled a 564-379 (.598) career record—13th best among all coaches, and 9th best by percentage. Daly's 564 wins ranks 17th all-time on the combined NBA/ABA victory list. His 74-48 playoff record with the Detroit Pistons ranks 4th best in NBA history by wins and 8th best by percentage (.607).