“Things like this are always difficult, and I thank Monty for the effort and dedication he has put forward,” said Pistons owner Tom Gores. “There are a lot of dynamic pressures that come to bear with a coaching staff during the course of a season, and Monty always handled those with poise. However, after carefully reviewing our performance and, more critically, our place as an organization with regard to our current position, we will chart a new course going forward.”
In 2023-24, Williams went 14-68 with Detroit, the worst record in the NBA, and the second in a row for the Pistons not to hit the 20-win mark. He’s estimated to have five years and over $65 million left on his contract.
Williams was named the day before the year, as he was hired June 2 when then-coach Dwane Casey stepped down with one year remaining on his contract to take a role in the front office. Casey went 17-65 in 2022-23 but was 41-41 in his first year with Detroit (2018-19) and led the team to the playoffs. The Pistons have not won more than 23 games in any season since that postseason appearance.
Detroit, a three-time NBA championship franchise, has made the playoffs only twice in 14 years. The Pistons are 0-9 in nine playoff games since 2008 when they advanced to the Eastern Conference Finals for the sixth straight time – one game short of repeating as champions in 2005.
The firing continues a wildly strange run for Williams. In 2021, as coach of the Suns, he went to the NBA Finals, where Phoenix led 2-0 before falling in six games to Milwaukee. In 2022, he was the NBA’s Coach of the Year in runaway voting. In 2023, the Suns fired him and now, in 2024, the Pistons have done the same.
What’s next for the Pistons: Detroit is in the throes of yet another franchise overhaul, this one mostly of the front office. It recently let go of general manager Troy Weaver, who hired Williams, and replaced him with Trajan Langdon as the new president of basketball operations. Langdon was hired in 2019 by the New Orleans Pelicans as their general manager. In fact, his team has shown those improvements over the past five seasons, reaching 49 games last season—an accomplishment for that team, with the second-highest single-season win total in its history.
The Pistons hold the No. 5 pick in the 2024 NBA Draft; it’s the third consecutive year they’ve had the selection. They started last season 2-1… and then didn’t win another game for the following two months.
A 28-game losing streak, the longest ever in a single season in NBA history and tied for the longest ever when factoring in multiple seasons, turned the season into a debacle. The Pistons’ longest winning streak was two games (done on three occasions) and the roster was constantly in flux. Detroit used 31 different players throughout the season, had 36 different starting lineups and lost 39 times by double digits.
Mostly, Detroit aims to open the way to build around five young scholars: Cade Cunningham, Jalen Duren, Ausar Thompson, Isaiah Stewart and Jaden Ivey. The average age equals 23 and change, so pride can be restored to a franchise that still owns three NBA titles.
Per NBA.com’s John Schuhmann, the Stewart-Durant duo worked pretty well last season on defense, and Thompson, with 2.89 steals plus blocks per 36 minutes, ranks 26th among 256 players who have played over 1,000 minutes and which possibly can be a real force at that end of the floor.
Detroit has a lot to spend this summer in free agency due to cap space, and Cunningham is also eligible to be signed to a contract extension. Stewart is actually the only player in the Detroit core who signed a four-year extension last summer. Simone Fontecchio, added in February, rounds out this core, all of whom are locked into deals in Detroit that carry team options. His status for the organization this summer is slightly more tenuous since he is a restricted free agent.
Other than Fontecchio, all of Detroit’s other free agents are veterans like Taj Gibson, Evan Fournier, or, alternately, younger types who project to be sometime rotation players, such as James Wiseman, Malachi Flynn, and Chimezie Metu.
The Detroit opening is the third active vacancy in the NBA, joining the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Los Angeles Lakers in coaching searches.