Love of game, motivation Daly's chief assets

Chuck Daly doesn't like complications. Let's be up front. Get it solved. The game's on the schedule. Play it. Win it. No excuses. Run faster, jump higher, shot straighter.

The Pistons' new coach is an upbeat man who gets along with people. He's a salesman without a sample case. He sells basketball.

Daly's sales pitch is simple. Get a good shot every time down the floor, get back on defense and box out.

"If a team does those three things, they'll win a lot of games," said Daly, who has taken the Pistons to the National Basketball Association playoffs in his first season. (The Pistons open a first-round best-of-five series with the New York Knicks tonight at the Silverdome.)

This is no snake-oil salesman talking. This is a guy who frequently spends 16 hours a day working on game plans, match-ups and motivational techniques.

Most of the Pistons learned that on the first day of training camp. It took longer for some than others, but they all believe now.

Motivation is a Daly staple. Once, Isiah Thomas was burned for 9 quick points by Cleveland's Jon Bagley in the first half. "You want to guard another guy?" Daly remarked to Thomas just before the second half.

Incensed by the implied slight, Thomas went out and smothered Bagley in the second half. The Pistons won.

"It ticked me off," said Thomas. Daly's casual remark had made Thomas try harder.

"Chuck Daly hasn't gotten enough credit for what he's done with this team," said the Bucks' Bob Lanier. "They run, they scrap, they have fun playing with one another. They have good chemistry."

At 53, Chuck Daly is a perfectionist, still trying to coach the flawless game. His constant goal is to win; to find the clear, concise instruction that will give his team an edge.

Those are some of the reasons Billy Cunningham lured Daly from the University of Pennsylvania head coaching job in 1977 to help coach the Philadelphia 76ers.

"The big key to Chuck is that he's always searching, trying to find the perfect offensive set," said Cunningham. "We'd go out to dinner, and he'd grab a napkin and start diagraming a play."

Daly is an excellent coach and knows it, but doesn't flaunt his brilliance publicly. "I could be out of here tomorrow," he'll say occasionally. "Enjoy it while you can."

He's been down that road before. He was fired by the Cleveland Cavaliers in 1981 after going 9-32 with a team considered the NBA's laughingstock. Daly still talks of the experience as "93 days in the Holiday Inn," referring to the hotel in which he lived. But it was a painful three months for a proud man who had no control over the whimsical views of owner Ted Stepien.

He walked out of Cleveland with a $500,000, three-year guaranteed deal. That's a lot more than he makes in Detroit, reportedly $125,000 annually for about three years.

His players call him "Daddy Rich" because he dresses like a millionaire even if he doesn't have the income to match.

But make no mistake. Daly loves the Pistons and loves winning. And, in more than 25 years of coaching at the high school, college and pro levels, he's learned how to get along with people.

That's his secret. Chuck Daly is a genuinely nice guy. Make a couple of whirls around the NBA circuit, and you'll never hear anyone badmouth Chuck Daly.

"At this point in my coaching life, the authoritarian figure has gone," said Daly. "I like to be part of the group. I give them (players) a lot of freedom. But with freedom comes responsibility.

"I have a theory I call 'Consequences of Action.' If you stay out at night, you won't play well the next day. If you don't box out, you don't win. I learned a long time ago that if I went out in the rain without a coat, I'd catch cold because I got a chill. It's all consequences of action."

"You've got to give an extreme amount of credit to Chuck Daly," said Kevin Loughery, the Chicago Bulls' coach. "I think Chuck has done a fantastic job with this club. They're very well prepared, they hustle and they have good comradery. You can see it in their eyes."

Dick Harter, Daly's assistant, said his boss has mastered personal communication.

"He has a great ability to get along with the players, and he knows the game," said Harter. "That's three-quarters of coaching, isn't it?"

Ask Daly's players. To a man, the Pistons say they like and respect Daly because he gets along with everyone, focuses on essentials, doesn't hold a grudge and, above all, lets them use individual skills.

"He's got a good personality, and it rubs off on the team," said Lionel Hollins, a nine-year veteran who has played for Jack Ramsay, Paul Silas and Cunningham. "Some coaches walk in on game day, and they are totally different from the guy you saw in practice. Win or lose, Chuck remains the same. I think you need a consistent personality in order to deal with this league. He knows we're going to lose a few ballgames."

In training camp, Daly wasn't so sure he had such a solid club. The Pistons had won only 37 games in Scotty Robertson's third rebuilding season. When Jack McCloskey fired Robertson, the GM blasted the Pistons' defense. It put Daly on the spot. The roster showed no defensive wizards and little quickness.

"As a coach, I have a tendency to look at the other teams, and they always look better than ours does," said Daly. "But I felt if we won 41 games, we'd make the playoffs, and that was our primary goal."

So, the Pistons acquired David Thirdkill from Phoenix for a pair of second-round draft choices obtained from San Diego for Ricky Pierce. Then they cut Ken Austin and Walker D. Russell to sign free agents Earl Cureton and Hollins.

The moves made the Pistons quicker and more experienced, but Daly got even more.

"All of them surprised me," he said. "Every player is better than I anticipated. I was a broadcaster with Philly last year and only saw them (the Pistons) six times (all losses).

"Defense was a problem. It's improved a little. But it's not anywhere near where I want to be. Next year, we'll emphasize defense in camp. When Dick and I came here, we had to install a new program in seven days. We had to spread the emphasis over several areas.

"After looking at the game tapes, the frightening thing was that I felt we could be a better offensive ballclub. We were capable of pushing the ball up the floor, running the break. I felt we had to go to our strength in order to win."

So Daly decided to take the shackles off Thomas. He made Thomas team captain and told him to go out and run the show. But when things get tight, Daly will call out a play from the sideline."

"I try to help him when I can," said Daly. "My perception might be different than his."

More often than not, Thomas will take the shot. If Daly is displeased, he'll stomp his right foot on the court. Or if Thomas goes off on one of his Twilight-Zone driving layups, Daly may brush his hands along the sides of his wavy, brown hair and stare at the ceiling.

"They've learned hot to win," said Cunningham.

Daly's laid-back style is partly natural personality and partly a carefully contrived psychological mask. He studied psychology at Bloomsburg (Pa.) State and at Penn State, where he earned his master's degree.

"Even though there may be turmoil inside, he always looks relaxed," said Terry Daly, his wife. "He appears to be relaxed because he feels it rubs off on his players. It's like a magnet.

"He'll get mad, and he's firm, but he never gets on anyone in public. If there is a problem, he takes care of it privately. Then it's forgotten."

Sometimes that "turmoil inside" boils over. During the exhibition season, Daly experienced a tightness in his chest following a game in New Jersey. Trainer Mike Abdenour detoured the team bus to a nearby hospital, where Daly was kept three days for observation.

The diagnosis was exhaustion, and doctors urged Daly to get more rest, restrict his diet and take things easy.

"It scared the hell out of me," said Daly. "But how can you rest during the season?"

But Daly, who loves to eat good food, has learned to restrict his diet, works out on a weight machine regularly and says he feels much better.

Pistons fans have waited a long time for Daly to get here. He removed himself from consideration for the Pistons job in 1980, because his only child, Cydney, a Penn State student, was still in high school. McCloskey hired Robertson.

Last spring, the feeling was Jack McKinney would get the job. But McKinney decided to stay with the Indiana Pacers.

"We were very strong on McKinney," admitted McCloskey. "But we never offered him the job. It came down to McKinney and Daly, and we decided on Daly."

It would be hard to find any regrets.