RICHARD DACOURY - 101 Greats of European Basketball

Richard
Dacoury
87

Professional
winner
The best way for me to start this story,
which is dedicated to – if not the best,
then the most decorated French player of
all time (not including active players) – is
a detail that Boza Maljkovic, the boss of
Limoges in the early 1990s, told me in
October 2012.
“When I arrived to Limoges, I had to build a new
team from scratch,” Maljkovic said. “For different reasons,
of the eight players that finished that season,
only one was expected to stay for the following season,
Richard Dacoury. He was a player I liked a lot because
of his physical potential, his willingness to work, his
strong winning character and a personality that is always
welcome in any locker room. Also, he spoke good
English, which was important to interact with Michael
Young and Jure Zdovc, our foreigners back then.
“One day, I was told that we had to go to some
school that was to take the name of Richard Dacoury
because he had decided to ... retire! It was hard for me to
convince him not to do that. He was about 32 years old
and thanks to his physical condition, he still had some
basketball years in him. Plus, he was a key man in my
defensive schemes. He was probably the best athlete I
ever coached in my career. Fortunately, I convinced him,
and he is thankful to me for that even today!”
The biggest consequence of that decision happened
on April 15, 1993, in Athens, at Peace and Friendship
Stadium. Limoges was crowned European champion by
beating Toni Kukoc’s Benetton Treviso 59-55. Two days
before, in the semis, Limoges beat the other favorite:
Arvydas Sabonis’s Real Madrid by the score of 62-52.
I was there, at one of the 20 out of 24 Final Fours that I
have attended, and I still think that was the biggest surprise
in the EuroLeague to date! Nowadays, many people
don’t give Maljkovic enough credit because of his
style of “basket control” – or even “anti-basket” – which
was based on few points and a slow pace. However, if
the goal in sports is winning, especially in pro sports,
what Maljkovic did with that “team of miners,” as he
called his squad, is something to be studied through
a technical, tactical and psychological point of view. It
was the recipe of how a coach must adapt to the players
he has in order to get the best out of them. Even
Dacoury himself, on occasion of the 50th anniversary
of European club competitions, celebrated at the 2008
Final Four in Madrid, agreed.
“Our coach did a huge psychological job on us,”
Dacoury told EuroLeague.net. “I saw that later, but now
I can say it: He did the best work ever on our confidence.
He was so relaxed, especially if you compare him to the
rest of season until that point. He smiled, laughed. We
had no pressure. He told us that it was only pleasure.”
Before surprising Real Madrid and Benetton, Limoges
played the preliminary round to eliminate the Guildford
Kings (with a tie in London!), while in the group
stage it finished second behind PAOK Thessaloniki with
a 7-5 record and on top of teams like Scavolini Pesaro,
Knorr Bologna, Joventut Badalona, Cibona Zagreb and
Maccabi Tel Aviv. In the quarterfinals, Limoges got rid
of Olympiacos with a 2-1 series win, making good use
of the home-court advantage.
As the captain of that team, Dacoury lifted the EuroLeague
trophy, the first title ever in a top continental
101 greats of european basketball
Richard Dacoury
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Vladimir Stankovic
competition for a French team in any sport. One month
later, Olympique Marseille also won football’s European
Cup, but the honor of being first will always belong to
Limoges CSP. The full cover of the newspaper L’Equipe,
with Dacoury lifting the trophy, is history itself. Curiously,
Dacoury was wearing a yellow jersey – even though
the official color of the team the previous years had
been green. Maljkovic had managed to change the color
– because yellow was fashionable and successful (think
Jugoplastika Split, Maccabi Tel Aviv and Aris Thessaloniki)
– and it worked! The No. 7 jersey of Dacoury hangs
retired in the rafters of the Limoges arena, and it has
both colors, the classic green and the yellow, which
gave the club its most important title.
The symbol of Limoges
Even though he started his career in Lyon (from
1976 to 1978) and finished it with Racing Paris (1996
to 1998), winning his ninth French League title, the
bulk of Richard Dacoury’s career was tied to Limoges.
He wore the club’s jersey from 1978 to 1996, winning
eight French Leagues, five French Cups, two Korac Cups
(1982 and 1983), a Saporta Cup (1988) and the EuroLeague
(1993). He was never a born scorer. His specialties
were defense, rebounds, fighting, sacrifice and being
the extension of the coach on the court. However, if the
team needed points, he would happily provide them.
His best numbers in the French League came in the
1984-85 season, with 18.7 points per game on 55.9%
field goal accuracy, 5 rebounds and 3 assists. In 1986-
87 he averaged 18.2 points. During his 20-year career,
only in the last three did he average below 10 points.
In total, he played 495 games with an average of 12.6
points.
Dacoury made his debut with the French national
team in Orleans on May 5, 1981, scoring his first 4
points in a friendly game against Cuba (108-117). The
last time he wore the blue jersey was on June 26, 1992,
in Granada against Switzerland (108-65), saying goodbye
with 22 points. He played 160 games with France,
totaling 2,230 points (13.9 per game).
I remember well the first time I saw Richard Dacoury
play, in Korac Cup final that took place on March 18,
1982, in Padua, Italy. Limoges faced Sibenik of Croatia,
which had a young talent named Drazen Petrovic
(19 points) and a golden veteran like Srecko Jaric (16
points), Marko Jaric’s father. Limoges won 90-84,
thanks to Ed Murphy’s 35 points. Dacoury contributed
12 points, but you could see an enormous potential
in him. One year later, on March 8, 1983, in Berlin, the
same matchup took place in the same final and Limoges
won again, 94-86. Murphy shined again with 34
points, but Dacoury was already the star of the team
as he scored 16 points. Looking through the data of the
game, I discovered that the second-best scorer of the
Dalmatian team was Predrag Saric (22 points), father of
Dario Saric. The father and son sagas still go on.
Dacoury’s third continental trophy also arrived on
neutral ground, on March 16, 1988, in Grenoble, where
Limoges defeated Joventut Badalona of Spain in the
Saporta Cup final by 96-89. Dan Collins was the big star
with 28 points, but the fact that Dacoury played 33 minutes
makes it clear that his contribution was way more
than the 8 points he scored that night.
From the court to the microphone
I personally met Dacoury at the 1983 EuroBasket
played in Limoges. It was his second continental tournament.
After that, we met each other again several
times, including at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los
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Richard Dacoury
Angeles. I was at his official farewell game in Limoges,
one day after the 1999 EuroBasket in Paris. We also
saw each other again in London 2012, where he was
there as a commentator for French television. Since
his retirement, he has become the “voice of basketball”
in France, where he is really popular due to his
understanding of the game and because of the way
he explained what was happening on the court. When
I told him that I would be writing about him in my series
dedicated to the past legends of the game, he only told
me: “It will be an honor for me to be among the great
players that appear in your series.”
It’s also an honor for me to have known for so many
years a player and person such as Richard Dacoury.
With the ball or the microphone, his profession is still
the same: being a winner.
101 greats of european basketball
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