DETROIT (AP) — The Detroit Pistons hit rock bottom not long ago, suffering from the embarrassment of the longest single-season losing streak in league history and slumping to the NBA's worst record for a second straight year.
Tom Gores had seen enough.
The team owner responded with a series of moves less than a year ago, including one that cost him $65 million to fire coach Monty Williams, to spark an unprecedented turnaround.
The Cade Cunningham-led Pistons were 44-38 this season — one year after winning a league-low 14 games — and the 30-game improvement was the best by a team in the league that earned fewer than 20 victories the previous season.
Detroit is also the first NBA franchise to triple its total number of victories from the previous year in an 82-game season.
“I haven’t seen anything like it,” former NBA coach Dwane Casey said in an interview with The Associated Press, drawing on his three-three plus decades in the league.
There's a reason for that. It had never happened.
After pulling off a feat no one saw coming, the Pistons will tip off their first appearance in the NBA playoffs since 2019 on Saturday night on the road against the New York Knicks.
“It's surreal that we're here when you look back at what this team had been through when we took the job,” general manager Trajan Langdon told the AP. “It's incredibly gratifying and I'm so happy for the players who made it happen."
Gores purchased the Pistons in 2011, when a three-time championship franchise was trying to rebuild, and failed to find the right combination of management, coaching and players to win until last year's retooling.
Detroit had only one winning record before this season under Gores, who also owns 27% of the NFL's Los Angeles Chargers. The Pistons were swept in the first round six years ago and in the 2016 playoffs, extending the NBA's longest playoff losing streak to 14 games dating to May 26, 2008.
Casey endured some of the misery in the Motor City.
He was fired by the Toronto Raptors in 2018, days after winning the NBA Coach of the Year award, and led the Pistons to a .500 record and playoff appearance the next season.
Casey averaged just 20 wins over the next four years. He resigned to became a senior advisor for the team as it hired Williams and went from 17 victories to just 14 under another former NBA Coach of the Year in one of the worst two-year stretches in league history.
Gores refused to let his franchise idle and hope for the best, triggering pivotal decisions that have panned out for the Pistons.
He fired general manager Troy Weaver following four futile years, a decision that surprised no one, then shocked many by firing Williams after only one season.
“Everybody thought it was crazy to let the coach go,” said Casey, a senior advisor for the team. “It took a lot of guts to do that.”
It also took a lot of money.
Gores paid Williams $65 million to leave last May after hiring Langdon, who put J.B. Bickerstaff on the bench shortly after the Cleveland Cavaliers fired a coach who won 99 games the previous two seasons.
“Tom Gores' decision to move on from Monty created a domino effect, and it's a move most owners would not have made because of his contract,” said former NBA player and TV analyst Jalen Rose, who often roots for his hometown team while standing up in front of a courtside seat at Little Caesars Arena. “The fact that he was willing to blow it all up sent a message to everyone, including media and fans, and then he hired one of the hottest GM prospects when he got Trajan.
“It also helped that the No. 1 pick took a leap like SGA (Shai Gilgeous-Alexander) did in Oklahoma City and Anthony Edwards did in Minnesota.”
The Pistons gave Cunningham, drafted first overall in 2021, a five-year contract extension worth at least $224 million last summer and the point guard has made that deal look like a bargain.
Cunningham became an All-Star for the first time this season, averaging 26.1 points, 9.1 assists and 6.1 rebounds, and went from being a good player with some injury issues to a durable, All-NBA caliber candidate.
“It means everything,” said shooting guard Tim Hardaway Jr., one of the key veterans acquired last summer along with Tobias Harris and Malik Beasley. “A lot of this would not be possible without him."
The turnaround, though, may not have happened if Gores gave Williams another shot this season and yet he was quick to deflect credit to the men making shots and stops on the court and those calling the shots from the bench and front office.
“It means a lot, but we’re not done," Gores said. “The story has just started.”
___
Follow Larry Lage at https://apnews.com/author/larry-lage
___
AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/nba
Larry Lage, The Associated Press
