The Pistons fired head coach Monty Williams on Wednesday after one of the worst seasons in NBA history. He walks away unemployed but with $65 million coming his way.
Williams came to Detroit as a big hire, having just been fired after taking the Suns to the Western Conference semifinals and a trip to the NBA Finals two years earlier. The Pistons needed that kind of success, having just finished with an abysmal 17–65 record. The team made Wiliams the highest-paid coach in the league with a six-year, $78.5 million contract last June.
But things didn’t get much better, as the Pistons racked up a 28-game losing streak, tied for the worst in NBA history. Their final record of 14–68 was the worst in franchise history. Firing him just one season into his monster deal, the team will now eat the $65 million left on Williams’s contract.
Detroit recently hired Pelicans assistant general manager Trajan Langdon to be its president of basketball operations, which led the organization to part ways with general manager Troy Weaver. But Langdon wasn’t the one who wanted Williams gone; it was owner Tom Gores who decided, according to ESPN.
Now Langdon will search for a coach during one of the busiest times on the NBA calendar for a team hoping to rebuild. Already one of the youngest teams in the league, Detroit has the No. 5 pick in next week’s NBA draft, and the thick of free agency is fast approaching.
Alex Schiffer contributed to this report.
