The late great Chuck Daly accomplished many feats over the course of his Hall of Fame coaching career. In addition to leading the "Bad Boys" Detroit Pistons to back-to-back NBA titles (1989-90) he was selected as the 1992 Olympic head coach of USA Basketball whose star-studded group of 12 players became known as the original "Dream Team." Called "the greatest collection of basketball talent on the planet" by the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame theunbeatable bunch annihilated each opponent in Barcelona that summer with a 44-point average margin of victory en route to the gold medal. From the first practice to the gold medal ceremony Coach Daly did a marvelous job of managing the egos of virtually an entire team of future Hall of Famers using just the right balance of toughness and patience. Daly himself was enshrined twice in Springfield Mass.--first in 1994 for his individual coaching career and again posthumously as coach of the Dream Team in 2010 a year after his death.

Offered here is Coach Daly's 1992 Olympic tournament worn USA Basketball warm-up jacket which was procured directly from the Daly estate in 2012. The navy blue long-sleeve zip-up jacket made by Starter has the official USA Basketball logo stitched on the left chest with a much larger version on the back. Starter manufacturer's tagging appears inside the rear collar with size "XL" and the materials breakdown. On the Starter logo tag "C.DALY" is marked in black Sharpie. The Starter logo appears behind the outer collar and at the end of the left sleeve as well. It shows moderate wear and has been laundered.

Daly can be seen wearing this exact jacket in several photos online including a classic shot in the locker room (Getty 85247440) gesturing at Michael Jordan. In addition he appears to be wearing this very jacket during the Dream Team's fascinating practices at UCSD in La Jolla Calif. leading up to the Games. This included the famous inter-squad scrimmage known as the "greatest game nobody ever saw" (see 16:33 mark of video) and their important loss to a college All-Star team (18.15). Daly strategically set the team up to lose that scrimmage against the college players in order to properly motivate them and give their huge egos a reality check before heading to Barcelona. The jacket is also pictured in the background of the included ESPN Classic video at the 4:55 mark.

Provenance: Copy of LOA from Chuck Daly's widow. Also comes with letter from Rich Behar owner of SportsCard Central whoacquired this jacket and many other items directly from the Daly estate.