Yesterday, Dwane Casey officially accepted the position to coach the Detroit Pistons for this upcoming NBA season. Casey was fired last season from his 7-year stint with the Toronto Raptors after taking the team to the playoffs for 5 consecutive seasons. I never really understood the reasoning behind the fire, as he took the franchise to its best performance since the early 2000’s with Vince Carter and Tracy McGrady. The only possible reason is Casey never propelled his team past the Eastern Conference Finals, which they reached 1 time in his 7 seasons.
However, his mark on the franchise was surely felt by the league. He led them a franchise-high 59 wins last season, and had 5 straight seasons of being over .500. And for his entire tenure in Toronto, Casey had a record of 320-238, making him the coach with most wins in Raptors franchise history. He also led the Raptors to their first 50+ win season in 2015. Unfortunately, it seems that Raptors GM Masai Ujiri has opted to take a different direction by promoting assistant Nick Nurse to head coach.
Casey had this to say about joining the Pistons for the coming season:
“I am excited and honored to join the Detroit Pistons, a franchise with a championship history and roster that is read to win now. Tim [Gores, the owner of the team] really won me over with his vision for the team and the city. He clearly wants to deliver for the fans in Detroit and I believe in the strength of his leadership to do so.”
Dwane Casey believes in the future of this team and thinks that they have the necessary pieces to take them to the next level.
“I’m confident that this team has the pieces in place to compete at a very high level” says Casey. “There is a lot of talent, a solid core and some exciting young players eager to get better. We’re getting to work right away on the things that will make us successful.”
It seems that Gores is totally on board with the Casey signing, as he calls him “one of the most successful and highly respected coaches in our league” who’s “a great communicator and a leader who will connect with our players and accelerate their growth.”
Casey is a finalist for the NBA’s 2018 Coach of the Year Award, and last month was named Coach of the Year by the National Basketball Coaches Association.
He is clearly no stranger to success. In his 24-year career as a coach in the NBA, he’s made it to the finals twice, and won once as an assistant with the Dallas Mavericks in 2011 under Rick Carlisle. He was with Dallas for 3 years, and the team sported a record of 162-84 (.659) over those 3 seasons. Carlisle liked Casey for his emphasis on defense, and that is the same reason I like him as a coach. He is defense first, something too overlooked in today’s NBA. The last time the Pistons won a title, it was their defense that propelled them over the Lakers in 5 games despite being underdogs.
Casey will look to bring back that physical, lockdown defensive style that the Pistons had in 2004 and his own Mavericks had back in 2011. I think the roster is there in terms of talent; it’s just a matter of Casey working with the players and getting in sync with their strengths, weaknesses, and ultimately growing together as a team.
