Nearly two months after Dwane Casey stepped down from his role as head coach, the Detroit Pistons are heavily pursuing Monty Williams, the NBA’s winningest coach since 2021, to be their next man in charge, league sources tell The Athletic.
The Pistons are preparing to offer Williams in the range of $10 million per year, league sources said, which would put him among the league’s highest-paid coaches. Detroit has been hopeful over the past several weeks that Williams would consider accepting the job, sources added.
With general manager Troy Weaver leading the charge, the Pistons made it clear that they’d enter their coaching search with the intention of slow-playing the process. Detroit identified names such as Milwaukee Bucks associate head coach Charles Lee, former University of Connecticut and Overtime Elite coach Kevin Ollie and New Orleans Pelicans assistant Jarron Collins as potential successors to Casey but have kept an open mind depending on which head coaches under contract would become available.
If Williams declines the proposal, Lee, a Bucks assistant since 2018, is expected to emerge as the likely choice, league sources said. NBA reporter Marc Stein previously reported on his substack on May 24 that Williams had declined a previous offer.
Since the start of the first round of the NBA playoffs, four coaches — Williams (Suns), Mike Budenholzer (Bucks), Doc Rivers (76ers) and Nick Nurse (Raptors) — have been fired. Williams, immediately, was on Detroit’s radar, per league sources. Milwaukee, too, heavily pursued Williams, per league sources.
Initially, Williams told teams — including the Pistons — that he was interested in taking a year off. The 51-year-old, who led the Suns to the NBA Finals in 2021 and won Coach of the Year in 2022, is still owed, roughly, $21 million over the next three years by Phoenix.
However, Weaver, Pistons owner Tom Gores and others in Detroit’s organization have continued to pursue Williams. Gores and Weaver have met twice with Lee and Ollie, as both remain in consideration for the job, but always had the intentions of making a serious run at Williams assuming he was seriously considering taking another job.
This type of financial commitment is on brand for Gores, who bought the team in 2011 and had a 51 percent stake in the organization until 2015, when he became the sole owner. He likes to make a splash when it comes to hiring a coach. He likes the big name. In 2014, Gores hired Stan Van Gundy to be both the head coach and president of basketball operations, which enticed Van Gundy to head to the Motor City over Golden State. In 2018, when Van Gundy and the Pistons parted ways, Gores put the full-court press on Dwane Casey, the reigning Coach of the Year who had just been fired by the Raptors.
At the time, Casey, too, had the intention of taking a year off after leaving Toronto, where he helped turn the franchise into a consistent winner, but Gores’ pursuit and willingness to put up a big financial commitment forced Casey’s hand.
The Pistons are a rebuilding team with young, foundational pieces in 2021 No. 1 pick Cade Cunningham, Jaden Ivey, Jalen Duren and Isaiah Stewart. Given where Detroit is in its process, the next coach is going to play a big part in the historic franchise returning to relevancy or a reason the rebuild doesn’t get off the ground. For the Pistons, identifying the coach who can provide leadership and experience for a young roster is important.
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In Williams’ first season in Phoenix, he led the Suns to 34 wins, a year after the organization finished with just 19. He has experience taking a young team to the next level. He also worked alongside Weaver in Oklahoma City. He’ll be fully backed across the board.
Required reading
- Should the Pistons trade back in the 2023 NBA Draft? There’s a case to be made
- Why the Suns fired Monty Williams: Mat Ishbia’s title push and another sour end
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