Newly appointed Detroit Pistons head coach Monty Williams was full of praise for young talent Cade Cunningham in a recent press conference.
Williams is pleased with the roster he has ahead of the new season and very much sees the 22-year-old guard as part of his plans. The Pistons had a woeful season in 2022/23, going 17-65 in the regular season, leading to Dwane Casey moving to the front office.
Monty Williams has very much been brought in to get the Pistons back to where many would expect them to be. In the early 2000s, Detroit were imperious, fighting their way to two NBA Finals series, beating the Los Angeles Lakers in five games to win the NBA Championship in 2003/04 before losing to the San Antonio Spurs in the following season’s finale.
Since then, they’ve struggled in a big way. From 2009/10 to 2022/23, they made it to the postseason on just two occasions, and when doing so, they’ve failed to get through the First Round of the playoffs, losing to the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2015/16 in four games and then repeating the feat in 2018/19 against the Milwaukee Bucks.
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In the guard area, Williams is spoilt for choice and may well go heavy in this area when it comes to his tactical approach, something he touched upon in recent comments;
“I’ve done it before,”
“If you think of Mikal Bridges as a guard, that’s how we played in Phoenix for three years. I’ve seen, when we’ve done it in practice, some benefits of having guys like (Ivey) and Cade and Killian switching and getting through screens and things of that nature. I’ve just got to get a better feel for our team with bigs around them.”
On Williams getting used to his set-up, the former Phoenix Suns coach stated;
“You can’t cover everything,”
“You can’t catch every raindrop. To tell you where we are, I’m not sure.”
“We’ve looked at Ausar out there guarding the toughest guy. Now Cade doesn’t have to do that,”
“If you’d watched a lot of the games the Pistons played in the past, Cade was out there guarding (the toughest assignment). Then you’re asking him to bring the ball down the floor and to run offense?” Williams added.
The praise is not just in one direction; Cunningham is also very glowing in his comments about Williams, stating;
“I love the way he pushes us,”
“He calls things the way he sees them. I think that honesty and that bluntness towards us, that’s huge. Especially for a young team. The systems that he’s put in, the way that he’s made it around our abilities and the personnel we have has been great for us. It’ll continue to get better as he learns us and we learn him.”