'I don't care at all': Monty Williams focused on Detroit Pistons, not Phoenix Suns' new-look roster

DETROIT — Detroit Pistons coach Monty Williams is no longer coaching the Phoenix Suns, but he’s seen what they’ve done since firing him after last season’s playoff run.

Traded for Bradley Beal in trading Chris Paul and Landry Shamet.

Traded away Deandre Ayton in a three-team deal that brought in Jusuf Nurkic.

Found a way to fill out their roster with quality depth on mostly veteran minimums.

So what.

“I don’t care, at all,” said Williams during his pregame news conference at Little Caesars Arena before Detroit’s preseason game against the Suns.

Williams chuckled and then continued to address how he’s had to move forward and focus on coaching the rebuilding the Pistons and not look back at his four-year run with the Suns.

“As much as I loved being there, it’s just not my focus,” Williams continued. “That doesn’t bother me at all. I talk to a number of guys there still and we’ve never even talked about with them. I checked on their families and they’ve checked on me. It’s hard to build a program. I’ve learned I got to focus on what we’re doing here. I read it like everybody else, but can’t give that any thought.”

Williams’ Pistons rallied from a 26-point deficit to force overtime in Sunday’s 130-126 loss to Phoenix before 15,062 fans in a preseason opener for both teams.

“He’s got some standards that I don’t think quite honestly had over in Phoenix that he has over here,” Pistons forward Isaiah Livers said. “You got young guys who are young and hungry.”

Williams signed a league-record six-year, $78.5-million deal for an NBA head coach to turn around the Pistons, who last made the playoffs in the 2018-19 season. They haven’t had a winning record since going 44-38 in the 2015-16 season and are coming off a 17-65 season.

“I’m so concerned with our team growing and dealing with hard and making sure they’re doing the next right thing,” Williams continued. “All the stuff that we talk about every day, being disciplined. It’s easy to get caught up in somebody else’s team, especially when they make those kinds of moves. You can say, well, you were just there, but I just can’t do that. I have to really focus on where I am and give this organization and this team my whole heart and all my energy. That’s how I was taught.”

The Pistons open the regular season on Oct. 25 at Miami Heat with a new coach who preaches and teaches hard work and discipline.

“What’s jumped out to me the most is how he can turn the intensity on,” Pistons first-round pick Ausar Thompson said. “Defensive-minded. He’s a free coach, he’s a player’s coach.”

Suns star Devin Booker said some glowing things about Williams as those two were cornerstones to Phoenix’s resurgence after a 19-win season in 2018-19 with Igor Kokoskov as head coach.

“I could be here all day talking about Coach Mont and what he’s done for me as a person and what he’s done for my career,” Booker said. “In search of stability through my career, I finally found it.”

The Suns reached the 2021 finals and won a franchise-best 64 games the following season.

“Coach Mont did things and changed the culture around here like no one ever has,” Booker continued. “Big respect to Mont.”

Williams talked Sunday about being “grateful” for his time in Phoenix, saying that run led to him being with the Pistons.

“My time in Phoenix, I had a blast with the players and the community,” Williams said. “I use the word so much, I’m just so grateful for my time there, my time with the players. All the experiences, I wouldn’t be in this position had I not come to Phoenix and enjoyed all of that I got to enjoy there. I learned so much about the game, myself. That community was great to my family, and I had a lot of good relationships with the players. I was just blessed to be in that position.”

Before the game, Pistons assistants Mark Bryant, Brian Randle, Jarrett Jack and Steve Scalzi had reunion interactions with Suns personnel as they were all assistants under Williams in Phoenix.

“All the work that coaches and the players put in, I’ve benefitted from all of that and I can’t talk about it enough how grateful I am to have been in that place and lived in that city,” Williams said. “It’s allowed me to be in this position in Detroit.”

Suns coach Frank Vogel, who replaced Williams, expressed the utmost respect for Williams, the 2021-22 NBA coach of the year.

“Coach Monty is one of the best in the business,” Vogel said. “We said all along this is a really good team the last few years and a really well-coached team the last few years.”

Vogel views Williams as a friend as the two have coached the same players such as Lakers big Anthony Davis and former NBA player David West.

“We’ve had several conversations on those type of things,” Vogel continued. “We connected at a (NBA) head coaches meeting. No better person in this league than Monty Williams and one of the best coaches in the league. I’m happy to see him in a situation that quite frankly looking at this team’s talent, is an exciting situation for him.”

Williams said he isn’t looking to directly copy what he did in Phoenix in Detroit in part because the Suns were a more experienced team than the Pistons are right now.

“I have to have an open mind about all of that to think that we can and the people that I partnered with can do the job here, to think that we can do the same thing and that’s going to happen, I think that’s fool’s gold,” Williams said. “There’s certainly a lot of lessons you learn along the way and hopefully, you make less mistakes, but that was a different team, different conference and some things happened along the way that allowed for us to get to that point. We took full advantage of it.”

Williams is in his 10^th season as an NBA head coach.

“I’m going into this with an open mind about where we are and not try to put one paradigm on another situation and say it has to work because we did this,” Williams continued. “I don’t think that would be smart, but there certainly are a number of lessons that I learned in there that can help me here. I’m not quite sure you can cookie cut it and it’s just going to fit because of what we did in Phoenix.”

Livers echoed those sentiments and added that Williams said he’s trying to take his coaching to another level in this third stint as an NBA head coach.

“He’s a smart guy, he knows the game, he knows the ins and outs,” Livers said. “He knows the talent and what he has over here. The first thing that he told us was he wasn’t going to try to duplicate anything and try to rerun anything. He said he wants to do things better than he did over there. As a young group, you hear that coach who had that group he had in Phoenix says that to a young group like that, it makes you want to fight a lot harder for him and hear him out.”

Williams started his NBA head coaching career in New Orleans in 2010.

“His ability to demand, like structure, he’s on top of things,” Livers said. “He’s set a standard. The moment I met him, I don’t know about anybody else, but my personal experience, when I first met him, I could tell how straightforward he was and he’s a straight shooter. He’s not going to BS you. As a player, you respect that. He’s going to be honest with you. How he’s set a standard here already has been amazing.”

Have opinion about current state of the Suns? Reach Suns Insider Duane Rankin at dmrankin@gannett.com or contact him at 480-787-1240. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, at @DuaneRankin.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Monty Williams looking forward with Pistons, not back at new-look Suns