Reports: Ollie a candidate for Pistons job
After winning the national championship as UConn’s head coach in 2014, Kevin Ollie was frequently mentioned as a candidate to take over an NBA team.
Years after his time at UConn took a bad turn and he and his alma mater parted on bitter terms, Ollie, 50, has reportedly emerged as a candidate to coach the Detroit Pistons.
As first reported by The Athletic’s Shams Charania, the Pistons plan to interview Ollie, among others, for their vacant head coaching position. Other reports, including from the Detroit News, note Ollie is one of several candidates — a group that also includes NBA assistants Charles Lee, Adrian Griffin and Chris Quinn — being considered for the job by general manager Troy Weaver.
Ollie, UConn’s point guard from 1991-95, played 13 years in the NBA, starting with a string of 10-day contracts. He became a respected locker room mentor to young superstars such as Kevin Durant and LeBron James.
Weaver was an executive with the Oklahoma City Thunder while Ollie was finishing his playing career there in 2009-10.
When he had such spectacular initial success as UConn’s head coach, Ollie was quickly mentioned as a candidate to coach the Lakers, Cavaliers, Thunder and Pistons at one time or another. Teams were said to be impressed by the NBA-style set plays Ollie ran when he had players capable of executing them.
Ollie remained at UConn, but after the Huskies won 25 games in 2015-16 he had back-to-back losing seasons, a number of players transferred out and the program was investigated for NCAA infractions.
UConn attempted to fire Ollie for “just cause” in March 2018 because of those infractions, and the NCAA later determined he provided false and misleading information to investigators, considered a “Level One” violation. The infractions themselves were relatively minor and an arbitrator, using both Ollie’s contract and the collective bargaining agreement between UConn and its professors’ union, ruled that Ollie had to receive the $11.1 million owed as per his contract. UConn and Ollie later settled his other legal claims and costs for another $3.9 million.
In the meantime, Ollie had a three-year “show cause” order from the NCAA, which made it all but impossible for him to coach in college.
He coached, instead for Overtime Elite, an organization that offers pay for high school players who want to train for the pros without going to college. Several Overtime Elite players are considered likely NBA draft picks in 2023 or later, including Amen and Ausar Thompson.
So Ollie, who left Overtime Elite last month, could bring a familiarity with the talent available for the next few drafts to a Detroit franchise that had the worst record in the NBA (17-65) and could end up with the No. 1 pick in the draft through the lottery. Dwane Casey, the coach this past season, is transitioning to the front office.