Detroit Pistons interview Boston Celtics assistant coach Lawrence Frank - NBA Update
Detroit Pistons new owner Tom Gores has accelerated the search for a new head coach. Last week the Pistons interviewed ex-coach of the Atlanta Hawks Mike Woodson. According to the sources close to the team management, the Pistons
have taken another step in this direction and have interviewed the former head coach of the New Jersey Nets and current assistant coach of the Boston Celtics Lawrence Frank on Wednesday.
At the moment, the situation is unclear as to who will ultimately take over the post that rendered vacant when the Pistons fired John Kuester. This may take some time and some more interviews though, as the Pistons would definitely
not want to make a coaching mistake again. Kuester was fired from his post after having a poor run with the Pistons. During his two seasons coaching stint Kuester led the team to 57 victories and lost 107 games and there were clear signs that the players were
not very happy with him.
If Frank eventually takes the jump to the next level, Celtics head coach Doc Rivers will have to starts his search for a new assistant. Franks has a decent coaching record. He holds the record of most consecutive wins by any coach
at the start of his coaching career. Frank achieved 13 straight wins when he took over the head coaching job of the Nets, as the successor to Bryan Scott in the mid season.
Frank guided the Nets to the playoffs during his interim tenure, but New Jersey dismissed him in 2009, when the team started the season with 16 losses in a row. In 2010 Frank joined the Celtics as their leading assistant coach,
when Tom Thibodeau moved to Chicago Bulls as a head coach. Since then Frank is working with the Celtics.
Besides, Frank and Wooden another top contender for the job is Dallas Mavericks assistant coach Dwane Casey, and Detroit have requested permission from the Mavs to interview him. The Pistons failed to conduct the interview with
Casey earlier, as he was busy in the Mavericks championship run and yesterday he was attending the parade organized in the honour of the new champions of the league.
This is not the first time when Frank and Casey are running for the same job, earlier they were chosen as the finalists for Golden State Warriors, Toronto Raptors and Houston Rockets jobs.
The Pistons are not over with their search yet and they are still looking to gather as many options as they can. For this very reason, they have arranged another interview with the assistant coach of the Milwaukee Bucks, Kevin
Sampson. Sampson is considered one of the talented coaches in the league with a 0.645 record.
It remains to be seen who will become the successor of Kuester. However, whoever gets the post, will have his hands full and will have to work really hard to put the Pistons back on the track.
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