101 Greats of European Basketball

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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