Too Bad About Chuck Daley

Chuck Daly, former coach of the Detroit Pistons, died yesterday at 78. I lived in Michigan most of the time Daly was coaching and he definitely wasn't your usual screaming petty tyrant. That was definitely a plus. But what I remember most about Daly's teams was that they represented a second route to the guard-dominated of the current NBA The other route was Michael Jordan's Bulls. The stars of Daly's teams were Isiah Thomas, Joe Dumars, reserve Vinnie Johnson and Adrian Dantley/Mark Aguirre. Rick Mahorn, Bill Laimbeer, Dennis Rodman, and John Salley were all colorful characters but they basically played tough defense and filled in the gaps while the guards and scoring small forward did the heavy lifting on offense. If the team didn't have such a colorful "Bad Boy" image, they would have been as dull as Pat Riley's Knicks or Jeff Vandy's teams.