DETROIT — It wasn’t just the eye-popping financial commitment that got Monty Williams’ attention.
There had to be a vision behind it, too.
And as the Pistons’ new head coach sat on the dais Tuesday for his introductory press conference, he already could see it taking shape.
Practically the entire Pistons roster was in attendance, with the exception of veterans Bojan Bogdanovich and pending free agent Corey Joseph. And at a time when most NBA players are scattered across the country — or busy vacationing in tropical locales — it was a jarring sight, even for a 51-year-old basketball lifer like Williams.
“To have the whole team here … is amazing,” Williams said, pausing during his opening remarks to address those players directly. “It messed me up this morning in the meeting, when I found out all you guys were here. You'll find out that I get emotional sometimes over good stuff like that.”
And it’s stuff like this that should give Pistons fans an emotional boost right about now, as this franchise takes another big swing in hopes of finally connecting this generation with the success from its fading past.
For now, at the very least, Williams’ arrival serves as an endorsement not just of Tom Gores’ determination to “be impactful” as an NBA owner, but also of the foundation that general manager Troy Weaver has built over the last few years. Asked if this is the most optimistic he's been about the future in his time in Detroit, the GM didn't hesitate.
“Without a doubt, absolutely,” Weaver said Tuesday, standing in the main gym of the Pistons Performance Center while Williams began making the rounds with local media. “You grind, you work, you turn over the roster, you do all these things. And it hasn't yielded the wins yet. But, for a coach like this to recognize what we're doing here, yeah, absolutely, you’re excited.”
Especially after the rollercoaster ride it took to get here, from what Weaver described as “an extreme long shot” to a hire that Pistons vice chairman Arn Tellem compared to winning the NBA draft lottery. The coaching search took nearly two months to reach a conclusion, and it took some “refereeing” to work through differences among the decision-makers along the way. Mostly, though, it took Williams navigating some family concerns — including his wife’s breast cancer diagnosis — before deciding whether or not to take a year off after his surprising dismissal by the Phoenix Suns this spring.
Once he had, it was difficult to find reasons not to make this leap of faith. Because of the money involved, certainly. But, also because of the trust Williams has in Weaver — the two go back a ways — and the roster renovation he’d completed in Detroit.
“You look at the talent on this team, you look at the vets on his team, you look at the trials that they've been through the last few years.,” Williams said, “and it doesn't just give you hope; it gives you excitement.”
That feeling is mutual, obviously. Asked about the Williams hire on Tuesday, Cade Cunningham said he “couldn’t have been happier” and called it the “best-case scenario” for the team.
Williams, meanwhile, says he has admired Cunningham’s game for years, but admits he was taken aback last season when the former No. 1 overall pick — idled by a stress fracture that required surgery — intercepted the Suns’ coach on the way to the team bus after a win in Detroit in February.
"Cade came right over and we sat there and talked for about five minutes,” Williams recalled. “I ran into Troy right after that and I was like, ‘Who is this kid? Like, where’d you get him from? I just had an adult conversation.”
Williams’ assistant coaches — and Jarrett Jack in particular — had come away from the 2022 All-Star weekend in Cleveland raving similarly about Cunningham's maturity after spending time with him there.
But, he’s hardly an outlier on this young Pistons roster, which is short on experience but long on character and work ethic, which is why so many of the players are in town working out regularly at the practice facility in early June.
“Troy said to me he would put that locker room up against any other in the league, and that intrigued me,” Williams said. “He said that right from the jump. And that was in the back of my mind, even when I told him I couldn't do it at the time.”
Now that he’s had a change of heart, it’s still on his mind, it seems.
“I've asked around the league for someone to tell me something squirrely about our guys, just so I know,” he laughed. “But, I can't find anybody.”
Instead, what he says he’s found is a roster full of players “that just want to get better.” Players like Cunningham and Isaiah Stewart, who Williams already considers a “heart-and-soul” leader on the team. Or last year’s rookie duo of Jaden Ivey, who was in the gym again Wednesday before 8 a.m., and Jalen Duren, a 19-year-old center that Williams views as a future All-NBA player.
Weaver, likewise, is eager to see Williams get to work with the group and "raise their level," much like he did with young stars like Anthony Davis and Devin Booker at his previous coaching stops in New Orleans and Phoenix.
"I think it's a big shot in the arm for these guys, that we’re able to get this kind of coach for them," he said. "These young men have been fired up about it and you can see it all over: They’re ready to get to work this summer."
Williams has assembled an impressive staff in Detroit, starting with former Rockets head coach Steven Silas as his lead assistant. But, in addition to some of his Phoenix holdovers — Jack, Mark Bryant, Brian Randle and Steve Scalzi — there’s also a widely respected defensive guru in Dan Burke, who spent the last few years in Philadelphia.
Improving the defense and the discipline — “sustained discipline,” Weaver says — will be the biggest challenge as the Pistons try to make a major leap forward this season. But, it’s a challenge Williams sounds eager to tackle, and one that Weaver is convinced will find a receptive audience. As the GM put it Tuesday, “A brilliant teacher can take over the class, but if he or she can't get the attention of the class, they'll never know the brilliance.”
And the more the new teacher talked Tuesday, the more you could understand what Williams’ spiritual mentor, Pastor Bil Gebhardt, was trying to tell him a couple weeks ago.
“When I got the job, he said, ‘You know, you think you’re going to be what they need, but I think this is what you need. … These guys are gonna be good for you,” Williams said of Gebhardt, who apparently had done some scouting of his own. “And that was a huge blessing for me to hear that, because it's always the other way around. You know, a coach is supposed to come in and change everything. But, I'm looking forward to how they're going to impact me in a cool way.”
