Pistons reportedly to hire Pelicans GM Trajan Langdon as head of basketball operations
Four years into a rebuild and having had the worst record in the NBA the past two seasons — including a franchise "record" 14 wins last season — the Detroit Pistons are turning to Trajan Langdon to turn the ship around.
The Pistons will hire Langdon, the current Pelicans GM, to be the new head of basketball operations, a story broken by Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN and confirmed by other reports. It may be next week before the deal becomes official.
When this search started, some other executives around the league wondered how much power this new executive would have, but the early reports are it will be total. That means Langdon has the authority to fire or keep GM Troy Weaver and — more importantly — coach Monty Williams, who is just one year into a six-year, $78.5 million contract. That would be a lot of money for owner Tom Gores to eat if Landgon wants to clean house, but he reportedly has that authority.
Langdon has a couple of potential building blocks for the future in Cade Cunningham, Jalen Duran Ausar Thompson and Jaden Ivey, plus the No. 5 pick in this draft (this is the second year in a row the Pistons had the worst record in the NBA and still slid back to fifth in the lottery). While Langdon was with the Pelicans the team did a good job identifying and developing young talent such as Herbert Jones and Trey Murphy III. Langdon's Pelicans also were not hesitant to pull the trigger on a trade they liked.
Is Langdon under pressure from Gores to bring in some veterans and stop the losing? Or does he simply need to pick a direction, even if it means another year (or two) of rebuilding?
There are a lot of questions, but at least there is a new voice at the top in Detroit. And hopefully a new direction.
