Wife’s cancer almost prevented Monty Williams from taking Pistons job

DETROIT (AP)— For much of the spring, finding an NBA coaching job was the lastthing Monty Williams cared about.

After beingfired by the Phoenix Suns following their elimination from thepostseason, Williams had talked to a few teams when his family gotsome upsetting news — his wife, Lisa, was diagnosed with breastcancer.

Williams wasintroduced Tuesday as the new coach of the Detroit Pistons, and hediscussed his wife’s health in an attempt to help others.

“The reasonthat I bring it up is to not talk about my family, but to make itmore of an emphasis that women need early detection testing. We hadgenetic testing done and then scan after scan after scan and thenwe found it early, and that may have saved my wife’s life.

“It can saveothers.”

Williams hadbeen in contact with Pistons general manager Troy Weaver, butdropped out of contention for the Detroit job when his wife wasdiagnosed.

“As wenavigated all of that, I was talking to Troy and telling him man, Icouldn’t, you know, right now because I gotta take care of myfamily,” he said.

Williams,whose first wife, Ingrid, died in a car crash in 2016, was ready totake at least one season off to spend more time with his wife andkids. He’s also helping his son Elijah — a top recruiting targetfor schools across the country — deal with that aspect of hislife.

“After we gotthe good news about Lisa, I was with my kid at a tryout when I gota text from Troy out of the blue,” he said. “I thought everythingwas totally off the table, but things went quickly after that.”

Williams flewto Los Angeles to meet with owner Tom Gores.

“I had metwith Troy for about five days at my house, and I told him we had acritical responsibility to get this right for our players,” Goressaid. “They have literally trusted us and they are even holdingtheir own practices. I wouldn’t say it was a yelling match, but wetalked about how it was important to deliver for those youngmen.”

Williamscoached New Orleans from 2010-15, going 173-221 and losing twice inthe first round of the playoffs.

Things weredifferent in Phoenix. Taking over a team that had gone 19-63 in2018-19, Williams led the Suns to a 34-39 record in thepandemic-affected 2019-20 season, then 51-21 and a berth in the NBAFinals in the compressed 2020-21 schedule. They lost in six gamesto the Milwaukee Bucks.

Phoenix went64-18 and finished as the West’s top seed in 2021-22. Williams wasnamed Coach of the Year, but the Suns were knocked out in thesecond round by the Dallas Mavericks.

This season,they slipped to 45-37 and another second-round loss, this time tothe championship-bound Denver Nuggets.

Now he’sgoing to have to restart that process in Detroit.

The Pistonshad the worst record in the league at 17-65 but were unlucky in thedraft lottery, getting the fifth pick. They’ve gone seven yearswithout a winning season and haven’t won a playoff game since Game4 of the 2008 Eastern Conference Finals.

Detroit has apromising young core in Cade Cunningham, Jaden Ivey and JalenDuren, but Cunningham missed most of last season with a stressfracture.

“You can seethe talent of this group and you see the size, but what I’m reallyimpressed by is the people,” Williams said. “When I talk to them,they look me in the eye, which is impressive. When I text them,they get right back to me. There’s a hunger and a desirethere.”