Daly Says Gold Won’t Be Easy for Olympians

Chuck Daly has heard all the talk about how his NBA-loaded U.S. Olympic basketball team should steamroll its way to a gold medal in Barcelona.

He believes the United States will reclaim the gold. He just doesn’t expect it to be quite so easy.

“The U.S. hockey team proved (in 1980) what can happen in a given situation,” Daly said Friday. “They weren’t supposed to win a game, let alone a gold medal. Strange things happen.

“And when you look at the 40-minute game instead of the 48-minute game, this is my major concern. The best international teams shoot 20 to 30 threes. If you start knocking down those shots in a 40-minute game, a lot of things can change.”

The other major challenge, he said, will be melding the dozen players -- 11 NBA stars and Duke’s Christian Laettner -- into a unit.

“We have no question the greatest array of talent ever put together,” said Daly, who retired last week after nine years as coach of the Detroit Pistons. “But array of talent and putting together a team is a whole different process.

“We will be the favorite, we should win the gold and I think we will win the gold. But I don’t think it will be without a little trepidation.”

The Olympic team will only practice six days before going to the Tournament of the Americas in Portland, Ore., which begins June 27. The top four teams from that tournament qualify for the Barcelona Games.

During those practices and the tournament, Daly and his staff will try to develop a rotation and figure out playing time for the star-studded team, which includes players such as Michael Jordan, Patrick Ewing, Charles Barkley and Magic Johnson.

“You’ve got to continuously sell and talk about acceptance, tolerance, sacrifice, being part of it,” he said. “We’ll have to address it.”

The melding process, in particular the team’s first meeting, is something Daly said he has thought about more than any other part of the job.

He recalled a conversation he had with Johnson in December. Johnson told him the players need to do things together off the court and “heal the wounds” that develop among players during the rugged NBA season.

“I have seriously thought about not standing at a podium, but sitting at the table so we’re all on the same level,” he said. “Because that’s what’s going to have to be.

“This is going to have to be a very unified effort, both physically and mentally. We’re going to have to listen and discuss. That meeting, if it could be filmed, would be priceless, I have a feeling.”

He said Johnson could wind up playing a major role away from the court. He said Johnson has been a leader in the league throughout his career, and called him “a special individual who has come along in our lifetime.”

Johnson retired from the NBA this season because he contracted the virus that causes AIDS. Daly acknowledged he has wondered whether that issue will become a distraction. But he said he doesn’t anticipate it will be a major problem.

“I think he wants to be considered as a definite part of this team, doing everything the rest of the people do, and that’s how we’ll go about it.”

Daly said his objective is to restore faith in U.S. basketball. The United States finished with a bronze medal at the 1988 Olympics and hasn’t won a major international tournament since then.

“I don’t like it,” he said, “when I see a lot of other countries jumping around, celebrating about beating our particular club in a sport that is really ours and that we have now shared with the world to the point where they’ve developed.”