Legendary Dream Team and 1992 Olympic gold medalist coach Chuck Daly was announced Thursday among 12 basketball icons selected for the FIBA Hall of Fame Class of 2020.
The star-studded 2021 FIBA Hall of Fame Class also features three-time FIBA AfroBasket winner Mathieu Faye (Senegal); Olympian and FIBA EuroBasket champion Panagiotis Giannakis (Greece); FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup runner-up and FIBA Women’s EuroBasket champion Hana Horakova (Czech Republic); five-time Czechoslovakian League champion and FIBA EuroBasket runner-up Stanislav Kropilak (Slovakia); Olympic silver and bronze-medal winning coach Tom Maher (Australia), who has coached in six consecutive Olympics since 1996; Four-time EuroLeague champion, six-time Italian League champion and six-time Russian League champion Ettore Messina (Italy); leading scorer of the 1956 Olympics for bronze medal winners Uruguay Oscar Moglia (Uruguay – posthumously); three-time NBA All-Star Detlef Schrempf (Germany); Olympic silver and bronze medalist Penka Stoyanova (Bulgaria – posthumously); Olympic gold medalist and world champion Sergey Tarakanov (Russia); and Olympic silver and bronze medalist Haixia Zheng (China).
The 12 basketball legends that hail from 12 different countries across six continents collectively captured nine Olympic medals, achieved six World Cup and 23 Continental Cup podium finishes. They also accounted for 75 club competition championships and 12 international club competition titles.
The Class of 2021 marks the first time that players from China, Germany, Senegal and Slovakia have been inducted into the FIBA Hall of Fame.
The Class of 2021 will be enshrined into the FIBA Hall of Fame during a digital ceremony on June 18, together with the Class of 2020.
The FIBA Hall of Fame Class of 2020 was announced on March 30.
Known worldwide as the head coach of the 1992 Dream Team, Daly blended NBA superstars on that Dream Team, led by Larry Bird, Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson, into a selfless, cohesive team that took the world by storm.
The U.S. Men’s Olympic Basketball Team was never challenged as a new era of international basketball made its debut in 1992. International rules, which had previously prevented only NBA players from being eligible for Olympic basketball, were changed by the FIBA membership in 1989. With the rule change, USA Basketball set forth on its mission of assembling the best possible team, and what a team USA Basketball assembled.
Daly led the USA team through the 1992 FIBA Americas Olympic qualifying tournament (Tournament of the Americas) with an unblemished 6-0 record, then three weeks later led the U.S. to an 8-0 record and the Olympic gold medal in Barcelona.
Averaging an Olympic record 117.3 points a game, the U.S. squad won by an average of 43.8 points and the closest any opponent could come was 32 points (117-85 versus Croatia in the gold medal game).
By capturing gold, Daly became the first coach to win both an NBA championship and an Olympic gold medal.
Also a very successful high school and college coach, as head coach of the NBA Detroit Pistons, Daly led the Pistons’ Bad Boy teams to consecutive NBA titles in 1989 and 1990 and became only the fifth coach in NBA history to win back-to-back championships.
Daly is a two-time Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductee, having been inducted in 1994 for his individual coaching career, and in 2010 was posthumously inducted as the head coach of the “Dream Team.”
The The National Basketball Coaches Association’s Chuck Daly Lifetime Achievement Award, an annual award given by the NBA to a longtime NBA coach’s life in basketball and his “standard of integrity, competitive excellence and tireless promotion” of the game, is named after him.
In 1996 when the NBA celebrated its 50th anniversary, he was named one of the 10 greatest coaches in league history. The Pistons retired No. 2 in 1997 to commemorate his consecutive NBA titles.
About The FIBA Hall of Fame
The FIBA Hall of Fame is a shrine dedicated to the amazing people who built the foundations of the global sport of basketball since its birth until its accomplished glory of today. It strives to be a genuinely international institution, active in the promotion and remembrance of basketball all over the world and houses the great men and women who were proactive and outstanding in the improvement and development of our sport. Created in 2007, it assembles over 100 outstanding players and coaches from 33 countries and all five continents to date. Its home is the Patrick Baumann House of Basketball in Mies, Switzerland.
Contributors from the United States previously inducted into the FIBA Hall of Fame include international official Jim Bain; Olympic and World Cup medalist player and head coach Anne Donovan; five-time Olympian Teresa Edwards, who won four Olympic and two World Cup gold medals; contributor William N. Greim; three-time Olympic head coach Henry “Hank” Iba; two-time Olympic gold medalist Michael Jordan; contributor and past USA Basketball and FIBA president George Killian; Olympic and World Cup medalist Ann Meyers; Olympic and World Cup gold medalist Cheryl Miller; Olympic and World Cup medalist Alonzo Mourning; Olympic gold medalist head coach Pete Newell ; Olympic and World Cup gold medalist Shaquille O’Neal; Olympic gold medalist Hakeem Olajuwon; Olympic gold medalist Oscar Robertson; three-time Olympic medalist and World Cup gold medalist David Robinson; Olympic gold medalist Bill Russell; Olympic gold medalist head coach Dean Smith; contributor Edward S. Steitz; contributor and longtime NBA commissioner David Stern; Olympic and World Cup medalist player and head coach Pat Summitt; Olympic and World Cup medalist head coach Tara VanDerveer; and Olympic and World Cup gold medalist coach Kay Yow; and the 1992 U.S. Men’s Olympic Team i.e., Dream Team.
For more information on the USA Basketball teams fans are encouraged to click on the link seen here:
The National Governing Body for Men’s and Women’s Basketball in the United States (usab.com)