Former Villanova coach Rollie Massimino, whom Mr. Daly hired as an assistant at Penn in 1971, said that the cancer had been diagnosed in February but that Mr. Daly kept up with basketball as well as he could, even drawing up a play for Wildcats coach Jay Wright to use in the NCAA Final Four.
"He really loved people," Massimino said yesterday. "He carried the posture of being someone very special. The last week and a half as he struggled, we used the word dignity. That's the word in my mind. He had such dignity. He carried himself that way until his death."
'Absolutely admired'
"In my 41 years in the NBA, he's the only guy I know who doesn't have one detractor - anywhere," said former 76ers general manager Pat Williams, now a senior vice president with the Orlando Magic. "That's nearly impossible in this business. He's absolutely admired, respected, loved, and valued."
Mr. Daly won 638 games in 14 seasons as an NBA head coach with Cleveland, Detroit, New Jersey, and Orlando, and led his team into the playoffs 12 times. His nine seasons with the Pistons included NBA titles in 1989 and 1990.
He resigned from the Pistons after the 1991-92 season, saying that his players "needed to hear another voice." That summer, however, he led a team that included Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Charles Barkley, and Larry Bird to the gold medal, the first time the United States had gone with an Olympic team of NBA players.
Mr. Daly was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1994. The NBA Coaches Association had dedicated the 2009 playoffs to him, and all coaches are wearing "CD" pins on the sidelines in his honor.
In a statement, NBA commissioner David Stern said that while Mr. Daly was known for his work on the sidelines, he "did much more than coach basketball games."
