Monty

Williams

Williams signed a six-year, $78.5 million deal to join the Pistons last summer, but his first season with the team was an utter catastrophe. Detroit finished last in the Eastern Conference with a 14-68 record and a record-setting 28-game losing streak. New president Trajan Langdon will look for a new head coach as he tries to put his stamp on a franchise that’s been anemic for years.

Days after the Pistons hired Pelicans executive Trajan Langdon to serve as the team’s president of basketball operations, the first significant change of his tenure has occurred. Weaver is reportedly out after four seasons as the Pistons’ general manager, an era that saw Detroit sink to the bottom of the NBA pecking order and remain there. According to The Athletic, Pelicans vice president of basketball administration Michael Blackstone is a serious candidate to fill the void left by Weaver.

Williams was reportedly the Pistons’ target for quite some time, and they spared no expense in landing him. Per The Athletic, the two sides are closing in on a deal that guarantees Williams $72 million over six years. With incentives, it could be worth as much as $100 million over eight years. While the ending in Phoenix wasn’t great, there’s no denying Williams’ ability regarding leading rebuilding teams. He led the Suns to an 8-0 record in the Orlando bubble in the summer of 2020, and they would go on to reach the NBA Finals the following season. Detroit doesn’t lack young talent, especially with a healthy Cade Cunningham getting back on the court, and now they’ve got the coach they believe best capable to mold them into a formidable team.

Per Shams, Detroit is preparing to offer Monty Williams in the range of $10 million per year to take over as head coach. Despite the Pistons being in the middle of a rebuild they do have some strong foundational pieces including Cade Cunningham, Jalen Duren and Jaden Ivey. Williams, the 2022 Coach of The Year, held a 194-115 record in four seasons with the Suns, leading them to the NBA Finals in 2021. He was dismissed earlier this month after an unceremonious second-round exit at the hands of the Denver Nuggets.

After being let go by the Lakers after a disappointing 2021-22 season, Vogel did not coach at all this season. In 11 total seasons as a head coach, he’s won more than 52% of his games, most notably leading the Lakers to the NBA title in 2020. In addition to Vogel, former Raptors coach Nick Nurse and former Suns coach Monty Williams have also been mentioned as possible candidates for the 76ers job. In the case of Williams, it has also been reported that he could choose to sit out next season, as he’s still owed $21 million over three years by the Suns.

Williams was fired by the Suns Saturday night, two days after the team’s season ended with a blowout loss to the Nuggets. As one would expect, there’s no shortage of interest in Williams among teams looking to fill their current vacancies. According to Charania, the Bucks, Raptors, and Pistons are all interested in speaking with Williams. However, it was also reported that the coach is currently focusing on family, and he has three years and $21 million remaining on his contract with the Suns.

Williams won two Coach of the Year awards in four seasons with the Suns and was at the helm when the team went to the 2021 NBA playoffs. Unfortunately, he was not able to force Kevin Durant to be a leader or to make Devin Booker score another 40 points in the Game 6 loss to Denver in this year’s playoffs. Williams couldn’t force Deandre Ayton to be a professional, and he couldn’t make a top-heavy, hollowed-out roster play beyond its means. Finally, Williams was unable to find a miracle cure for Chris Paul’s recurring playoff injuries, and so he’s out. Oddly enough, the coach he faced in the 2021 NBA Finals - Mike Budenholzer - was unable to get Giannis Antetokounmpo to play well in the fourth quarter of two winnable games in the first round, and now both men find themselves without jobs. The words “panic,” “hasty,” and “scapegoat” all come to mind.

This was an easy decision for Phoenix to extend the back-to-back Coach of the Year winner, and he’ll now have an additional three years added to his contract, per Wojnarowski’s sources. He’s coached Phoenix to the No. 1 seed two years in a row with a record of 115-39, and the Suns will be running it back with another contending squad this upcoming season, after having just secured Deandre Ayton to a four-year extension.

“I’m not going to change my approach to team building, which is to create and construct a team that has a ton of depth, a ton of skill and great chemistry,” Jones said. “We just need to be better and I think after a summer where our guys improve, we will be.” The Suns don’t have any 2022 Draft picks but Monty said the team may explore acquiring one. Their biggest priorities are to handle the restricted free agency of Deandre Ayton and then possible contract extensions for Devin Booker and Cam Johnson.

This was a fairly easy call to make, with Williams coaching his Suns to a league-best, 64-win season and the No. 1 seed out West, despite missing some of his stars for extended stretches throughout the year. He’s been a key piece to helping turn Phoenix into a contending team, and this likely won’t be his last COY award.