Pistons general manager assembled ‘Bad Boys’ teams
Jack McCloskey, whose canny decisions and steady leadership as general manager of the Detroit Pistons paved the way for their first two NBA championships, in 1989 and ’90, died Thursday in Savannah, Ga. He was 91.
His death, at a hospice care facility near his home in Savannah, was caused by complications of Alzheimer’s disease, his wife, Leslie, said.
When McCloskey joined the Pistons in December 1979, the team was on its way to the worst record in the NBA, at 16-66. McCloskey was hired to turn the team around, and the effort took years. He drafted the future Hall of Fame players Dennis Rodman, Joe Dumars and Isiah Thomas.
McCloskey also engineered a string of trades, earning the nickname Trader Jack after acquiring rugged center Bill Laimbeer, power forward Rick Mahorn, 7-foot-1 center James Edwards and dependable sixth man Vinnie Johnson.
Fans were furious when he traded Adrian Dantley, a six-time All-Star forward, to the Mavericks for Mark Aguirre — until the Pistons won the championship the next season.
After three losing seasons under coach Scotty Robertson, McCloskey replaced him in 1983 with Chuck Daly, a future Hall of Famer. Under McCloskey and Daly, the Pistons became a sharp-elbowed team nicknamed the Bad Boys. They were known for an implacable defense that wore down dominant 1980s teams like the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers, as well as the ascendant Chicago Bulls led by Michael Jordan.
Under McCloskey, Detroit made the playoffs nine times in a row, the Eastern Conference finals five consecutive seasons and the NBA finals three straight years. In 1988, the Pistons made the finals before losing to the Lakers.
The next year, the Pistons swept the Lakers to win the first title in franchise history.
Thomas, the small but dominant point guard whom McCloskey drafted in 1981, praised his general manager in the locker room after the game.
“There’s the man who deserves a lot of the credit for this championship,” Thomas said.
The Pistons repeated as champions the next season, but flagged after that the next two years in the playoffs.
Shortly after Tom Wilson was appointed president of the Pistons in 1992, McCloskey moved to the Minnesota Timberwolves.
John William McCloskey was born in Mahanoy City, Pa., on Sept. 19, 1925. His mother, the former Beulah Spade, was a homemaker; his father, Eddie, was a miner.
McCloskey lettered in baseball, football and basketball in high school, then played football at the University of Pittsburgh before serving in the Navy at Okinawa during World War II.
After the war he finished his education at the University of Pennsylvania. After graduating he played one game with the Philadelphia Warriors of the NBA before becoming a high school basketball coach.
McCloskey became head basketball coach at Penn in the mid-1950s and stayed there until he took over Wake Forest’s program in 1966. In 1972 he became head coach of the Trail Blazers, compiling a 48-116 record over the next two seasons.
He was an assistant for the Lakers under coach Jerry West before joining the Pistons.
He married Leslie Gray in 1977. Besides his wife, he is survived by six children from his first marriage; a stepson; a stepdaughter; 14 grandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren.