Monty Williams, NBA. (Photo by Jason Miller/Getty Images)
NBA Rumors: Monty Williams shot down Pistons’ godfather offer
Among the many teams involved in coaching searches this offseason is the Lottery losers, the Detroit Pistons. Detroit, of course, finished with the NBA’s worst record this past season and ended up with the No. 5 overall pick. Tanking, clearly, did not pay off. And neither did trying to pay their next head coach a significant amount of money.
According to NBA insider Marc Stein on the #ThisLeague podcast with Chris Haynes, the Pistons reached out to former Suns head coach Monty Williams and made him a “big money offer” to come to Detroit. However, despite the offer being lucrative, Stein called the offer “unsuccessful” — which feels like the nice way of saying that Williams told the Pistons to kick rocks.
There have been recent reports suggesting that the Pistons are down to three coaching finalists in their search, none of which are Williams. Instead, the search has reportedly been narrowed down to Kevin Ollie, Jarron Collins and Charles Lee. However, you have to wonder if that would be the case if Williams was interested — or if they’d have bothered whittling it to finalists if that were the case.
It’s certainly not a great look for Detroit in this instance if the “big money offer” report is true, though. Yes, this team has not won a lot of games. However, the Pistons have an exciting young duo in Cade Cunningham and Jaden Ivey, a bevy of cap space and still a top-five pick incoming, even if everyone is disappointed and dismayed it’s not Victor Wembanyama. It’s not an entirely hopeless situation.
Or, it’s not, unless you ask Monty Williams, apparently.