The first domino in a pivotal offseason for the Detroit Pistons has fallen.
Dwane Casey, who has been the head coach since the 2018-19 season, will not return to finish out the final year of his contract as coach, he announced Sunday. Instead, Casey, 65, will transition to a front-office role.
Casey, who led the Toronto Raptors’ charge to relevancy and was the 2018 NBA Coach of the Year, was brought to Detroit five years ago to help the franchise be a playoff mainstay. He led the Pistons to the postseason in his first season at the helm, but midway through Casey’s second year, the organization began pivoting toward a full-on rebuild when it was clear Blake Griffin’s All-NBA days were behind him. Casey has a 494-569 regular-season record as an NBA head coach.
Since then, the Pistons have become younger and younger, and the wins have been fewer and fewer. Detroit was hoping to make a leap this season, but an injury to 2021 No. 1 pick Cade Cunningham, who only played 12 games, greatly interrupted its plans. With this decision, the Pistons — who are hoping to turn a corner next season and push toward postseason play — will shake things up and usher in a new voice.
Who might that voice belong to? Let’s look at six names who could replace Casey in the first chair.
Charles Lee
In NBA circles, the 38-year-old Lee has long been considered someone primed for a head coaching job in the very near future. He’s currently the associate head coach to Mike Budenholzer in Milwaukee, where he’s been since 2018. Lee also was on Budenholzer’s staff in Atlanta from 2014-18.
Lee, who grew up in the DMV, the same area as Pistons general manager Troy Weaver, would be a change for the organization in terms of head coaching qualifications. Detroit’s previous two coaches, Casey and Stan Van Gundy, were both proven and experienced before arriving in the Motor City. If hired, Lee would be the first person since John Kuester (2009-11) whom the Pistons would have hired without previous head-coaching experience.
Lee’s age might help him relate to the young roster in Detroit. He comes from a championship organization. There is one question, though: Will the Pistons gamble on someone with no head-coaching experience — at any high level — as they look to turn a corner sooner rather than later?
That’s maybe the biggest question they’ll have to answer before making a decision.
Jerry Stackhouse
Now to the name that would make the most local headlines, Stackhouse is more than just a former Pistons star. He’s been a rising coach for several years.
The 48-year-old Stackhouse has been an NBA assistant with both the Raptors and Grizzlies, but his biggest claim to fame so far is leading Toronto’s G League squad, Raptors 905, to a championship in 2017. He was also named the league’s Coach of the Year that season.
Stackhouse has been the head coach at Vanderbilt since 2019, and this past season — after leading the Commodores to 22 wins, the program’s most since 2011-12 — was named the co-SEC Coach of the Year, an honor he shared with Texas A&M’s Buzz Williams.
This hire would be both a PR and, potentially, on-the-court victory for the Pistons.
Ime Udoka
The name on this list that would make the most national headlines, Udoka has head-coaching experience that is short-lived but successful. After being hired by Boston in 2021, the 45-year-old led the Celtics to the NBA Finals after starting the season with an 18-21 record. Boston finished the regular season with a 51-31 record and grabbed the second seed in the Eastern Conference before losing to the Warriors in six games in the finals.
Udoka was suspended for the 2022-2023 season after violating team rules by having an intimate relationship with a female member of the Celtics organization. In February, Boston officially replaced the 45-year-old Udoka with Joe Mazzulla, who had been interim head coach.
Udoka comes from the Gregg Popovich coaching tree and was highly regarded as a future head coach prior to landing the job in Boston. He’s still highly rated for his coaching acumen and is probably the biggest name available on the market. However, Detroit will have to really do its due diligence on Udoka and the situation in Boston that got him suspended.
Kevin Ollie
The longtime NBA journeyman has been out of the spotlight since leading the University of Connecticut to a national championship in 2014, but he’s been busy. Ollie, 50, has been the head of coaching and director of player development at Overtime Elite since 2021. Overtime Elite is a recently formed league that features some of the most promising 16-to-20-year-old basketball talents and is based in Atlanta.
During his playing days, Ollie was considered a mentor to the likes of LeBron James, Kevin Durant, James Harden and Russell Westbrook. He played in the NBA for 13 years before transitioning to coaching. The 50-year-old Ollie was an assistant at the University of Connecticut from 2010-12 until he was picked as the replacement for legendary head coach Jim Calhoun.
Sean Sweeney
Currently an assistant under Jason Kidd in Dallas, Sweeney has ties to the Pistons, where he was an assistant coach under Casey from 2018-2021. Sweeney has long been considered one of the better defensive-minded assistant coaches in the league.
Sweeney has worked with several star players during his NBA assistant coaching career, most notably Giannis Antetokounmpo, who credits Sweeney for his development, Luka Dončić and Griffin.
Sweeney has been an assistant coach for four NBA teams (Nets, Bucks, Pistons and Mavericks) and has interviewed for head-coaching vacancies in the past.
Jay Wright
Could the Hall of Famer be ready for a new challenge?
Wright, who was the head coach of Villanova from 2001-2022, is one of the most successful college coaches since the turn of the new century, winning two national championships (2016 and 2018) and countless Big East titles. There are two handfuls worth of Wright products in the NBA currently.
The 61-year-old has long been applauded for how prepared his players are for the NBA, and with the Pistons having so much youth, it could be a perfect fit. Wright also has pre-existing relationships with decision-makers in Detroit’s front office.
He feels like the long-shot candidate on this list, but there are reasons to believe it could happen. Shortly after retiring in 2022, Wright didn’t rule out a potential jump to the NBA down the line.
Rex Kalamian
The current Pistons assistant has been an NBA assistant for nearly two decades. He’s got a great relationship with both Troy Weaver and Dwane Casey. He’s certainly someone who will be up for consideration.
(Photo: Rob Carr / Getty Images)
