Nearly two months after former Detroit Pistons head coach Dwane Casey stepped down following his team’s final regular season game in April 2023, Detroit was still without a head coach.
A candidate list of close to a dozen had been whittled down to Charles Lee and Kevin Ollie by mid-May, but team owner Tom Gores wasn’t satisfied. He wanted to keep searching. His organization, at a low point and in dire need of progress, needed a home-run hire. Gores held one final meeting with general manager Troy Weaver and other team executives, and asked the question:
“What if we go back to Monty?”
The next day, the Pistons sent a private plane to Arizona with the intent of whisking the recently fired Phoenix Suns coach to Gores’ seaside mansion in California to make him an offer he couldn’t refuse.
That night, per league sources, Monty Williams, who had initially told potential suitors he was interested in taking time away from the sideline, agreed to an eight-year contract (club options on the final two seasons) that could pay him upward of $100 million with incentives. The package included access to a health and welfare fund to cover any medical expenses that might not be covered by insurance for his wife, Lisa, who had recently been diagnosed with breast cancer. On top of that, Williams had access to a private jet in case he needed to be closer to his wife, whose doctor is in Phoenix.
It was Gores’ attempt at putting family first while luring who he felt was the best man for the job.
However, in that moment of generosity, it felt like no one raised a certain question … What if this doesn’t work?
It hasn’t so far. And Williams isn’t the only one deserving of blame.
Detroit, one of the NBA’s most storied franchises, had everything go wrong in a season that needed to have everything go right in order to climb out of irrelevancy. The Pistons, for the second season in a row, will finish at the bottom of the NBA standings. At 14-67 with one game remaining, they compiled the worst regular-season record in franchise history and suffered a historic 28-game losing streak. They did so after hiring a coach who would be the highest paid in NBA history. They did so after barely changing a roster that won just 17 games the season prior. They did so after returning their No. 1 pick from 2021, Cade Cunningham, who only played 12 games a season ago before undergoing season-ending shin surgery, and having him answer nearly every question tossed his way.
The 2023-24 season was done before anyone stepped foot into 2024, resulting in a trade deadline that saw half of the roster get uprooted as Detroit had an NBA-record 31 players suit over the course of the year.
A season this ignominious forces blame to trickle from the top down. Gores made such a remarkable commitment to Williams and extended Weaver last summer and now has to navigate that with precision. Weaver, despite a frugal offseason and a romper-room roster, put a goal on his ballclub “to be in contention for 82 games.” Williams made decisions on the floor that left some in the organization confused.
Change might be coming, though. Team and league sources told The Athletic that Gores is considering hiring a president of basketball operations to have the final say on all basketball matters. The Pistons haven’t had someone in that exact role since 2018. As for Williams, it appears as of now that he will be back next season, assuming he demonstrates that he can deliver significantly more progress in the development of its team and players.
The ultimate goal for the Pistons, per team and league sources, is to have total synergy from the top down, making the situation fluid in the event Gores does decide to hire a new head decision-maker. Realistically, that person could request to hire his/her own people.
After this season, everything is on the table.
While Williams didn’t have the best roster to work with (and injuries didn’t make things any better), he, along with…
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