Jack McCloskey, who served as general manager of the Pistons in 1979-92 and helped the Bad Boys win two NBA championships, died Thursday in Savannah, Ga. He was 91.
The Pistons organization announced the news in a release and sent its "thoughts and prayers to Jack's wife, Leslie, and the entire McCloskey family."
The Free Press ran a feature article May 17, saying McCloskey was battling Alzheimer's disease.
"He has his good days and not so good days," Leslie said at the time. "Some days he's very happy and talks to everybody. Then, some days he's just very tired. You never know. He's not really eating a lot. I go over every day. Today I took a bunch of food from home to see if I could make him eat that. He's doing pretty well. He's in a really good place. He was starting to get really bad at home, and I couldn't take care of him anymore because he was falling."
McCloskey assembled teams that won the 1989 and 1990 NBA titles. He had a banner at the Palace, an honor he received in 2008, which now will be hung at Little Caesars Arena.
He left the Pistons in 1992 for the Minnesota Timberwolves.
His Pistons teams made nine straight playoff appearances, with five straight trips to the Eastern Conference finals, three straight NBA Finals appearances and two titles.
Always with an eye for talent, McCloskey drafted Isiah Thomas in 1981 and Joe Dumars in 1985, then picked Dennis Rodman and John Salley in the 1986 draft. They helped form the nucleus of the championship teams.
McCloskey was nicknamed "Trader Jack" for his many astute trades during his tenure as GM.
He was honored by the franchise on March 29, 2008, with a retirement ceremony, where his name was lifted to the rafters among the franchise's greats.
Leslie said last month that McCloskey's memories of being in Detroit were still vivid.
"We always talk about it, and a couple of the guys here, especially a guy named Jarvis, are here at night and they've watched 30 for 30 (by ESPN) a couple of times," Leslie said. "They're all really interested. This place finds out about their lives and what they were interested in. Of course he (Jack) had the most interesting life of any of them."
McCloskey hired another future Hall of Famer _ Chuck Daly in 1983.
As head coach of the Pistons, Daly holds the franchise records for regular season victories (467) and playoff victories (71).
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