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?”
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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.
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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 everyone involved, played a part in Detroit’s epic losing skid that continued beyond Christmas. For one, he started 2020 No. 7 pick Killian Hayes for the bulk of the team’s first 30 games. The Pistons were open to trading or moving on from Hayes last summer, per team and league sources. By every metric, he was one of the least efficient scorers not just currently in the NBA, but also in the history of the game. However, Hayes’ 6-foot-5 frame, ball movement and sometimes passable defense intrigued Williams from afar, and the coach wanted a chance to try to revive the former lottery pick’s career. Hayes has been out of the NBA since Detroit waived him on Feb. 8.
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Furthermore, Williams’ trust in Hayes came at the detriment of Jaden Ivey, the No. 5 overall pick in 2023 who had earned All-Rookie honors the year before. After starting all of his inaugural season, Ivey began his second season coming off the bench. Ivey wasn’t perfect the season prior. He needed to improve defensively and as a decision-maker. There were habits that needed to be broken, but Williams prioritized the in-game development of Hayes, with whom the organization was prepared to part with, over its top-five pick from the year before. Ivey coming off the bench wasn’t the issue. Ivey coming off the bench and playing fewer minutes than Hayes for the season’s first two months is where the questions started to swirl.
Detroit had a middle-of-the-season organizational meeting and one thing that was pointed out to Williams was that Ivey as the lead ballhandler hadn’t happened much.
“I have to eat it,” Williams said. “I wish I did it earlier.”
Lastly, Williams committed to playing all-bench lineups for much of the season, despite having a roster that probably shouldn’t have gone more than seven or eight deep. There was very little staggering of Cunningham and Ivey for much of the season when the latter, eventually, became a starter in December. Per NBA.com, from Oct. 25 through Dec. 25, Detroit’s bench played the 13th most minutes in the NBA, despite carrying the worst plus-minus in the league. Additionally, the Pistons’ bench had the league’s worst net rating of any bench. Yet, Williams continued to trot out reserve-heavy lineups.
There was a genuine curiosity around Detroit as to why Williams was continuing to try things that clearly didn’t work as the losing streak grew to an unimaginable level.
The Friday before Christmas, fresh off the Pistons losing their 25th consecutive game the night before, this one at home to a Utah Jazz team that was seven games below .500 at the time, Gores addressed select media, which included The Athletic, via video conference.
He admitted that the expectations he had and that were given to him from the people he hired were “to compete, grow and be near the playoffs.” A week away from the turn of the calendar year, Detroit had done very little competing, the growth seemed stunted and the playoffs, while not mathematically impossible, were impossible. Gores also revealed that he would insist on roster change coming in the following weeks. He revealed that he had involved himself more in the day-to-day of things as the losing streak took on a life of its own in an attempt to figure out where it all went wrong.
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In discussing that, Gores said something subtle but loud at the same time.
“I’m down to Monty and I talking about rotations. I don’t normally do that,” Gores said. “Monty is so good and knows what he’s doing, he’s open to even talking about it. We do have to change something. I can’t tell you what it exactly is. We’re diving in pretty hard. We’re probably two weeks ahead of you guys. Our disappointment is catching up to us too. We expected a lot more.
“We have to be real and realize that there are things that haven’t been working with the makeup of the team. Sure, we should have won a few more games, but how many of those games? Three or four? Who knows what that number is. We’re not set up like the way we need to be set up. … I expect change. I don’t think any narrative here at all should be that there’s no change. Change is coming. I’m just saying that in terms of Monty, Troy, all of that stuff … they will be in place, but I’m all over them. They’ll tell you that too. There’s a lot of accountability that needs to be held. There might be additions to staff and all of that stuff. What’s for sure is that change is coming. We’re not right, right now. We have to add and delete. We’re on it already. We will make changes. We will make them. We don’t know exactly what they’ll be yet.”
At the trade deadline, Weaver had his say. In previous seasons and offseasons, the front office had been hesitant to move either Bojan Bogdanović or Alec Burks, citing the team needing veterans.
This time around, with everything sinking like the Titanic, Detroit moved on from its two veteran pillars.
“We had better offers last year at the deadline,” Weaver said. “You can say that. This is where we are now and I like what we got in return for those guys. We got coveted players that we wanted.
“We wanted to get premium value for our players, but I wouldn’t call it disappointing.”
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Gores pounding the table for change, the losing streak and the record forced Detroit’s front office to do something you don’t often see: The Pistons added eight new players via trade between Jan. 14 and the Feb. 8 trade deadline. Not all stayed with Detroit to end the season as many who weren’t in Detroit plans — and were primarily acquired to make salaries match — got bought out and were given the opportunity to join contenders.
“We underestimated something,” Gores had said back in December. “We have seven or eight players who are 22 and under. That’s the makeup of our roster. Maybe we need more playing veterans. Something. Shouldering it, it can’t be on Monty. Monty has been here 20-something games. You could say, ‘Hey, maybe he could have done this rotation, that rotation’ (and) it gets you a few more wins. Monty judges himself every single day. People love the idea of sending a message to blame someone, and I’ve never done that in my leadership. Not at Platinum (Equity), not anywhere. … We have to reflect on why we’re disappointed and why we assessed it wrong. I think part of going forward in life is being honest with yourself. We’re being honest with ourselves. We’re not sitting around and thinking the future is going to be bright by itself. I would say it goes on Troy and I. These decisions have been made by both of us.”
By the time Williams settled into his role as Detroit’s new lead man, the draft, free agency and summer league had come and gone. He inherited a roster that was primarily the same from the one that won just 17 games months prior.
Ten players from last year’s roster returned for the 2023-24 campaign, with Cunningham coming back from injury feeling like a massive offseason signing. Detroit used two first-round picks in the 2023 NBA Draft to add Ausar Thompson and Marcus Sasser. The rookies joined an already young squad. Half of the Pistons’ opening-night roster was 22 or younger.
Weaver and Co. put these expectations on this young squad without truly adding anything of great significance outside of the draft. The team’s biggest offseason moves were trades for an aging Joe Harris and Monté Morris. Harris couldn’t crack the rotation when healthy and Morris, a native of Flint, Mich., didn’t play his first official game as a Piston until Game 44 due to injuries.
Detroit had hopes of growing defensively this season, but the roster consisted of two players who were plus-players on that side of the floor: Isaiah Stewart and Thompson, a rookie. The Pistons were one of the worst defenses in the NBA for the entire season.
Bogdanović and Burks dealt with various injuries themselves to begin the season, but while both provided much-needed offense for the Pistons when healthy, they were liabilities on the defensive end. Both veterans were traded to New York at the trade deadline. Burks averaged 21.0 minutes per game with Detroit this season. He’s averaged 13.1 minutes per game in New York. Bogdanović played 32.9 minutes per game with Detroit before the trade. He averaged fewer than 20 minutes per game with the Knicks.
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As catastrophic as this season was, the Pistons have the flexibility to turn things around, but can’t afford another come-and-go summer.
Cunningham has shown to be a legit piece to build around, there are several other young players who might not only grow into something more for the Pistons but also could be of great interest to other teams around the league.
Detroit also has the best odds to land the No. 1 pick in the 2024 NBA Draft. Should the Pistons win the lottery, that pick could become another franchise pillar or a trade chip to land more proven talent to help lift an already super-young core. And, if you haven’t heard by now, Detroit is likely to have the most cap space of any team in the NBA this summer.
This might be the most important offseason in recent memory in the Motor City. Detroit has to get it all right, and that starts with figuring out who will be calling the shots.
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(Top photo: Brian Bradshaw Sevald / USA TODAY Sports)
