Trajan Langdon To 'Immediately' Begin Evaluating Monty Williams' Status

Post #1 » by **RealGM Wiretap** » Mon Jun 3, 2024 3:45 am

New Detroit Pistons president of basketball operations Trajan Langdon will "immediately" begin his evaluation of Monty Williams, sources told Marc Stein of The Stein Line.

Williams is not expected to be open to a buyout.

The Pistons most recently parted ways with former general manager Troy Weaver.

The team is reportedly in serious discussions with Michael Blackstone as the No. 2 decision-maker in the front office behind Langdon.

Via Marc Stein/The Stein Line

MitchB3 · Post #2 » by **MitchB3** » Mon Jun 3, 2024 3:52 pm

Troy Weaver should have NEVER given this man this job, not only that but to give him $12+ million per season? That right there is what would've gotten any GM fired.

Benny_Worm · Post #3 » by **Benny_Worm** » Mon Jun 3, 2024 4:05 pm

MitchB3 wrote:Troy Weaver should have NEVER given this man this job, not only that but to give him $12+ million per season? That right there is what would've gotten any GM fired.

To be fair on this one. Monty getting hired was a Tom Gores decision, not as much on Weaver. The one that would fire him for that decision is the one who made it.

7r5ur · Post #4 » by **7r5ur** » Mon Jun 3, 2024 4:15 pm

MitchB3 wrote:Troy Weaver should have NEVER given this man this job, not only that but to give him $12+ million per season? That right there is what would've gotten any GM fired.

Weaver wanted Kevin Ollie and got overridden by the owner.

Pickled Prunes · Post #5 » by **Pickled Prunes** » Mon Jun 3, 2024 6:32 pm

MitchB3 wrote:Troy Weaver should have NEVER given this man this job, not only that but to give him $12+ million per season? That right there is what would've gotten any GM fired.

DET went into last season with two goals: player development and lottery balls, possibly not in that order. Vegas had DET and WAS as the two worst teams in the NBA, and they were. Then everyone gets uptight about a losing streak, but how mad would fans be if DET cobbled together 27 wins and fell to the 9th pick.

Winning wasn't even remotely an objective for DET. They wanted to lose. And realistically, I don't think that anyone is upset about the losing; they are upset about the streak. So, fans knew their team would be bad and lose a lot of games... just not all in a row?

You've seen that roster, right? Give Monte a few more seasons to work with these kids and see where things fall. I'm guessing they'll be alright, assuming they don't overreact and fire him.

FeatheryTouch · Post #6 » by **FeatheryTouch** » Mon Jun 3, 2024 6:34 pm

I've never understood why people get upset about high coach salaries - there is no salary cap for coaches (or front office execs), and overpaying a coach or GM has no negative competitive performance effects on the franchise other than making a billionaire owner's wallet a little lighter.

Bad Bart · Post #7 » by **Bad Bart** » Mon Jun 3, 2024 8:31 pm

Pickled Prunes wrote:
MitchB3 wrote:Troy Weaver should have NEVER given this man this job, not only that but to give him $12+ million per season? That right there is what would've gotten any GM fired.

DET went into last season with two goals: player development and lottery balls, possibly not in that order. Vegas had DET and WAS as the two worst teams in the NBA, and they were. Then everyone gets uptight about a losing streak, but how mad would fans be if DET cobbled together 27 wins and fell to the 9th pick.

Winning wasn't even remotely an objective for DET. They wanted to lose. And realistically, I don't think that anyone is upset about the losing; they are upset about the streak. So, fans knew their team would be bad and lose a lot of games... just not all in a row?

You've seen that roster, right? Give Monte a few more seasons to work with these kids and see where things fall. I'm guessing they'll be alright, assuming they don't overreact and fire him.

Pretty easy to coach your team to losses, but what players developed last year? And a high pick in this draft isn't all that great since the talent is pretty low, which was known coming into the season. The 9th pick is almost the same as the 1st. Wouldn't be an overreaction to move on from him if the new front office has a coach they think would do a better job and is more in line with what they're trying to to accomplish.

pushfloater · Post #8 » by **pushfloater** » Mon Jun 3, 2024 8:51 pm

Okay pay me my 65 million :nod:

beefman · Post #9 » by **beefman** » Mon Jun 3, 2024 9:17 pm

MitchB3 wrote:Troy Weaver should have NEVER given this man this job, not only that but to give him $12+ million per season? That right there is what would've gotten any GM fired.

Monty is one of the best coaches in the league

MitchB3 · Post #10 » by **MitchB3** » Mon Jun 3, 2024 11:14 pm

beefman wrote:
MitchB3 wrote:Troy Weaver should have NEVER given this man this job, not only that but to give him $12+ million per season? That right there is what would've gotten any GM fired.

Monty is one of the best coaches in the league

He's so good that he led the Pistons to a 28-game losing streak. So great that in back-to-back elimination games, he had his team down by 30+.

MitchB3 · Post #11 » by **MitchB3** » Mon Jun 3, 2024 11:18 pm

FeatheryTouch wrote:I've never understood why people get upset about high coach salaries - there is no salary cap for coaches (or front office execs), and overpaying a coach or GM has no negative competitive performance effects on the franchise other than making a billionaire owner's wallet a little lighter.

See for myself it's not how much a coach is making, it's who is making what and whether they deserve it. Monty accomplished nothing and for his reward, the Pistons had him the first coach to 13+ million dollars. When he only has 1 COY award to his name, which I believe he didn't deserve (The year Thibs won his, I had Monty winning it.)

TimeisIllmatic · Post #12 » by **TimeisIllmatic** » Tue Jun 4, 2024 1:35 am

New front offices generally want their own coaches so I can see Monty being gone if the owner gives Trajan the green light to do so.

Pickled Prunes · Post #13 » by **Pickled Prunes** » Tue Jun 4, 2024 2:18 am

MitchB3 wrote:
FeatheryTouch wrote:I've never understood why people get upset about high coach salaries - there is no salary cap for coaches (or front office execs), and overpaying a coach or GM has no negative competitive performance effects on the franchise other than making a billionaire owner's wallet a little lighter.

See for myself it's not how much a coach is making, it's who is making what and whether they deserve it. Monty accomplished nothing and for his reward, the Pistons had him the first coach to 13+ million dollars. When he only has 1 COY award to his name, which I believe he didn't deserve (The year Thibs won his, I had Monty winning it.)

If it makes you feel any better, he's getting $8m to coach... and $5m to do it in DET with one of the leagues worst rosters.

MitchB3 · Post #14 » by **MitchB3** » Tue Jun 4, 2024 1:12 pm

Pickled Prunes wrote:
MitchB3 wrote:
FeatheryTouch wrote:I've never understood why people get upset about high coach salaries - there is no salary cap for coaches (or front office execs), and overpaying a coach or GM has no negative competitive performance effects on the franchise other than making a billionaire owner's wallet a little lighter.

See for myself it's not how much a coach is making, it's who is making what and whether they deserve it. Monty accomplished nothing and for his reward, the Pistons had him the first coach to 13+ million dollars. When he only has 1 COY award to his name, which I believe he didn't deserve (The year Thibs won his, I had Monty winning it.)

If it makes you feel any better, he's getting $8m to coach... and $5m to do it in DET with one of the leagues worst rosters.

Still too much money.

Pickled Prunes · Post #15 » by **Pickled Prunes** » Tue Jun 4, 2024 10:45 pm

MitchB3 wrote:
Pickled Prunes wrote:
MitchB3 wrote:
See for myself it's not how much a coach is making, it's who is making what and whether they deserve it. Monty accomplished nothing and for his reward, the Pistons had him the first coach to 13+ million dollars. When he only has 1 COY award to his name, which I believe he didn't deserve (The year Thibs won his, I had Monty winning it.)

If it makes you feel any better, he's getting $8m to coach... and $5m to do it in DET with one of the leagues worst rosters.

Still too much money.

Maybe, but whoever took that job was going to forever tarnish their legacy. There are some players with potential in DET, but that roster (as a whole) is hot garbage. We are talking about a coach signing up for multiple consecutive losing seasons. No proven coaches were interested so DET made Monty an offer he couldn't refuse. It probably would have been smarter to hire a 1st time coach on a shorter deal to coach this group. But they wanted a coach with a track record and it took $$$ and years to make that happen.

You and I just had a long talk about expectations. No one should be surprised that DET finished the season with the worst record in the NBA. The streak was surprising but finishing the season with 14 wins wasn't. For a while Bojan was their 2nd best player... a guy who Thibs would only give spot minutes in NYK, even after all the injuries. The only way to determine that Monty did a job so poor that it's worth firing him over is to:

1) Start the season with unrealistic expectations.
2) Forget that they didn't want to win anyway.