Newsday caught up with the coach of the Dream Team, Chuck Daly, for a chat about the current state of affairs in his NBA. Things got off track in the first sentence.
He turns 77 next month, but Chuck Daly remains a keen observer of basketball.
They never really recovered from there. The topics included the NBA Finals as well as his former player Isiah Thomas. Daly wasn't really with the popular opinion on either topic.
Despite widespread fan dissatisfaction with San Antonio's four-game sweep of the Cleveland Cavaliers in the Finals, Daly said the winners were "pretty pleasant to watch."
"People may not like them but they should," Daly said of the Spurs, who won their fourth title since 1999. "It's what everybody really wants, but when they get it they don't want it. They want disarray and fighting and people turning upside down."
Yes, that's the same Chuck Daly who employed the thuggery of Bill Laimbeer and Rick Mahorn deploring America's distaste for the finer things in basketball. Because Bruce Bowen plays the game with such grace. Pretty pleasant to watch? You like throwing up every five minutes Claude? Didn't think so. Even Daly's Pistons, progenitors of the physical play that eliminated the stylish game of the 80's, had players like Thomas and Joe Dumars who could play a visually enticing game. Watching the Spurs and Cavaliers made it seem like 11-foot rims were already being used in the NBA.
Let's move onto his thoughts about Thomas, shall we? It's laudable that Daly is so supportive of the player that helped him build a Hall of Fame resume as Pistons coach but has he paid a whit of attention to what Isiah's actually doing with the Knicks?
"I love him. I think he's a very talented guy. Very, very bright," Daly said of Thomas. "Barracuda-tough guy.
"He got into a tough, tough job, quite frankly," he continued. "And the ramifications of where they were in salary caps and all, I think everyone, I knew, that he was going to have a very difficult time in resolving that. And he wants to succeed. He's always reaching."
He's right about that last part, at least. Jared Jeffries was a reach, Jerome James was a reach, the Eddy Curry trade as well. But resolving the salary cap issues hasn't been his goal, Chuck. He's spent his tenure making it much, much worse and while we grant that it was a tough job when he walked in the door he's only made it tougher with his misguided acquisitions and shoddy management of the coaches that preceded him on the sidelines. Let's just leave Daly to play pinochle in peace from here on out, okay.
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