FanHouse HubieBrown

Tip-Off Timer counts down the days until the first game of the 2009-10 season. On Sunday, there are 44 days remaining -- the same number the Lakers retired in 1983 for Jerry West.

Sometimes the basketball gods smile upon you even if you're not really part of the game. That's what happened to me on Nov. 12, 2004.

OK, so maybe it wasn't any kind of hoops deity that hooked me up; it was Raymond Ridder, the Warriors' director of public relations. Still, I remember to this day my brick of a cellphone ringing that cold morning in Memphis with Ridder at the other end.

"You want to go to lunch with Jerry West?" he asked. Ridder had worked for the Lakers and knew West from his days in L.A., so they were going to catch up. And I was coming along.

TEQUESTA, Fla. -- This looked like a Bad Boys reunion.

The NBA came from around the country Wednesday to celebrate the life and mourn the death of Chuck Daly, but nothing was more impressive than his collection of pallbearers.

It was the nucleus of his two championship teams in Detroit, the ones that transformed him from just another coaching lifer into a Hall of Famer and Olympic Gold Medalist revered by all.

Isiah Thomas, Joe Dumars, Vinnie Johnson, Rick Mahorn and Bill Laimbeer were at his side. The Bad Boy Pistons and their leader one final time.

"I think when you go through the things we did together, there is a bond that never breaks,'' said Laimbeer. "This was a sad time, but a time to celebrate who he was, and what he did, and how loved he was.''