Usually, head coaches like stability with their assistants. If the head coach stays for another season, their assistants are also retained. However, the Detroit Pistons coaching staff is pretty much all new, except for the head coach, Dwane Casey.
It is no secret that Pistons general manager Troy Weaver is pleased with the job that Dwane Casey has done as head coach. He even gave him a one-year contract extension at the end of last year.
Normally, when a new general manager comes in, they like to pick their own coach. Casey was hired back when Ed Stefanski was in charge. But, despite the 20-52 record, Weaver obviously likes what Casey has done, particularly with developing the young players.
He also had the team playing hard this past season, even if the record did not reflect it. Detroit was in almost every game, they just rarely won.
Casey will be entering his fourth year as coach of the Pistons when the 2021-22 season begins. However, all the assistants are pretty much gone.
Recently, the Pistons announced a raft of new coaching hires:
OFFICIAL: The team has named Rex Kalamian, Jerome Allen, Jim Moran, and Bill Bayno as assistant coaches, and Andrew Jones as a player development coach to Head Coach Dwane Casey’s staff.
— Pistons PR (@Pistons_PR) September 20, 2021
Jordan Brink and Austin Dufault were promoted to player development coaches. #Pistons
Outside of Tim Grgurich, who does a lot of development work, all the Pistons assistant coaches will be in their first year, according to RealGM. It is known that Casey wanted to retain Sean Sweeney, who helped with the defense, but he went to Dallas to work with Jason Kidd, who he had long-time ties with.
That they are in their first season in Detroit, does not necessarily mean it is first time around the block in the NBA for them. Quite, the opposite, all have years of NBA experience.
Maybe the highest profile assistant is Jerome Allen, but not for the usual reasons.
Allen comes to the Pistons from the Boston Celtics. However, before that, he was the head coach of the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League institution known as one of the best academic schools in the country.
While at Penn, he received money to list a student as being on the team to gain them admittance. This was before the infamous Varsity Blues scandal. He eventually plead guilty to money laundering and wire fraud.
Allen can not work in college basketball, as he has a 15-year judgement on him, set by the NCAA.
His leaving the Celtics had nothing to do with that situation, it was simply due to a coaching change.
Here is a look at the other three newbies who will sit at games with Casey:
Rex Kalamian: He was with the Sacramento Kings last year, but he served as an assistant to Casey in Toronto from 2015-18.
Bill Bayno: He served for the past five seasons as an assistant with the Indiana Pacers, who went through a very public head coaching change with Nate Bjorkgren. He, like Kalamian, also was an assistant for Casey in Toronto, serving from 2013-2015.
Jim Moran: Had been an assistant coach under Terry Stotts for the past five years with the Portland Trail Blazers. Maybe he can teach Cade Cunningham some ‘Dame Time’ tricks from Damian Lillard.
Detroit also named Andrew Jones as a player development coach, meaning he will not be on the bench during games. Jones comes from the Philadelphia 76ers. Hopefully, he was not in charge of teaching Ben Simmons foul shooting.
So two of the new assistants already had coached with Casey. The other two have lots of NBA experience. These are all coaches who know what the NBA is about, which is important.
For a coach in his fourth year to make such sweeping changes, when he is under no pressure to immediately win, rarely happens.
So when you see a shot on TV of Casey talking to his assistants at a game, and it kind of looks different than you remember … it is.