Daly’s Task Is No Secret

We’re all familiar with espionage.

You recall that the Soviets, when they were Soviets, weren’t going to be allowed to dock their sailboats in San Diego Bay, presumably because of fears that they had underwater cameras on their keels. Maybe even torpedoes in their bows.

Tough stuff.

And the Kiwis found a spy in the water near their compound, presumably wearing a waterproof trench coat. America 3 had what everyone presumed was a spy boat. The Italian navy guarded Il Moro’s compound.

This was during America’s Cup, a gentlemanly regatta bringing together sportsmen with $50 million to blow from all nations.

Now we have real security.

Now we have the United States Olympic basketball team in our midst, though we will hardly know it. It may be that no greater team in the history of sports has ever been assembled, but, for all intents and purposes, it is a ghost team with ghost players.

Magic and Michael and Patrick and Clyde--no last names needed--will all arrive in San Diego today for a week of practice. They range in height from maybe 6-feet-8 to 7-feet-something, and they will be invisible. About your only chance of getting their attention would be to stand on the first tee at Torrey Pines and offering Michael Jordan 10 strokes a side for your mortgage, which he could probably cover with pocket change.

I don’t know offhand which would be harder to crash, the Oval Office, Elizabeth Taylor’s next wedding or a Team U.S.A. basketball practice at UC San Diego. If you plan to sit in on practice, you, too, need to be invisible. They won’t have metal detectors at the door, they will have people detectors.

Don’t bother with the RSVP, you’re not invited. Nor are George Bush, Barbara Walters, Bobby Knight or Jay Leno. You can get off Devil’s Island easier than you can get into UCSD’s gymnasium.

What time’s practice? Darned if I know. I presume it will be early enough for 18 holes in the afternoon or late enough for 18 holes in the morning. All work and no play makes a dull Michael. The best way to not have any intruders is to not tell anyone when they are not supposed to be there.

“The only way we could open the practices,” said Chuck Daly, “is to have them in The Forum and/or the San Diego Sports Arena. We’d have to be able to seat 20,000 people. The fact is that, if we let one person in, we’d have to let them all in. I have some writers I really respect who have been begging me to let them in, but I can’t do it.”

Daly is not, to be sure, the director of the CIA. He’s not even the director of security for UCSD.

Mr. Daly is the coach of this bunch, which has come to be known as The Dream Team. I encountered him late Friday at the Sheraton Grande, the posh digs next to Torrey Pines that will serve as headquarters during the team’s one week stay here. He and his assistant coaches, Lenny Wilkens, P.J. Carlesimo and Mike Krzyzewski, were taping a road-to-Barcelona special for InterSport Television.

As was made clear by Bill Macatee’s questions, there is just a little bit of pressure on these guys. You just don’t put together all of the best professionals from the most powerful country on the planet without the greatest of expectations.

Macatee started asking about the possibility of losing a game and finally amended it to asking about the possibility of any games being close.

Therein lies the secret of why these practices are going to be, if not secret, at least very private.

“This is historic in every sense of the word,” Daly said after the taping. “It’s the greatest basketball talent ever assembled. But we have to bring it all together as a team. That’s the key word.”

But, I asked, is this really any different from preparing an All-Star team?

“The All-Star Game,” Daly said, “is kind of a fun game. We just look at it as an exhibition. This is a lot more serious. There’s a W and an L at the end of every game, and we can’t lose a game. The American public doesn’t expect us to lose a game and, really, the international public doesn’t expect us to lose a game.”

And so Daly and his colleagues have these few days to gather all these stars and try to get them into the same galaxy. College players, who in the past would probably have been the Olympic team, will serve as the Washington Generals to these Globetrotters during practice sessions. The United States is quite serious about regaining the gold medal it lost in 1988.

“We have so much to accomplish,” Daly reiterated. “We have to put together team concepts offensively and defensively. And we have so little time.”

That, in essence, is why you will see that sign hanging over this incredible collection of athletes.

“Do Not Disturb.”

Just pretend they aren’t here.