Legendary Pistons coach Chuck Daly has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. The news was revealed through a Pistons spokesman.
Daly, 78, won two championships with the Pistons and is the runaway leader in franchise victories with 467.
"Chuck is being treated for the cancer and the family is requesting privacy," said Matt Dobek, who heads The Palace's public relations department. "When he was coaching, Chuck was always known as the Prince of Pessimism, right now Chuck Daly is the King of Optimism."
Daly served as head coach of the Dream Team, the 1992 Gold-Medal winning USA Basketball Olympic Team, which has been acknowledged by many as the greatest basketball team ever assembled. Daly was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1994. The number 2 (for those 2 NBA Championships) was retired in his honor by the Detroit Pistons in 1997.
"He used to always say the best thing I have going for me as a coach is my ability to go deaf," Palace president Tom Wilson said. "People would come off the floor complaining about being taken out, swearing at him, he’d just ignore it and move on. His sense of perspective was always amazing and his ability to talk to you like you were the only person in the room. And that’s what he did with players. He could have a conversation with you and you were confident he’d never had that conversation with anybody else, ever, and never would again. And then he’d move to the next guy and have the same one."